Conspiracies unfold as Florida prosecutors vacate convictions for people who bought crack made by the Sheriff’s Office, Biden urged to empty federal death row before Trump presidency, and the most-known cause for depression debunked.

News

Florida prosecutor seeks to clear records of people charged with buying police-made crack in 1980s

Biden urged to empty federal death row before Trump takes office

Depression Is Not Caused by Chemical Imbalance in the Brain

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TRANSCRIPT

[AD BREAK]

DeRay Mckesson: Hey, this is DeRay and welcome to Pod Save the People. In this episode, it’s me, Myles and Kaya talking about goodness gracious, a lot happened this week and some news that you probably didn’t hear about with regard to race, justice, and equity. And make sure to follow our Instagram at @PodSavethePeople on Instagram for updates. Here we go. [music break] Okay. It’s y’all, a lot happened in the past week. I feel like it is, the election was a lot of news and then I feel like this was a lifetime in a week. This is DeRay at @deray on Twitter. 

Kaya Henderson: I’m Kaya Henderson at where am I nowadays? I’m not on Twitter any more uh I guess you can find me on Instagram at @Kayashines 

Myles E. Johnson: I’m Myles E. Johnson. You can find me on Instagram at @pharaohrapture. 

DeRay Mckesson: So you know, all the things to talk about before our actual news, everything is complicated. We can start with probably the biggest news of the past week, which is the assassination of the CEO of United Health Care. As you know, earlier in the week, around 6:30 in the morning, an armed white man with a silencer followed the CEO of United Health Care as he walked into a hotel in New York City and killed him and has since then evaded the NYPD, the FBI, every law enforcement agency. As you probably also know, they did recover his bookbag, which had monopoly money in it, and the bullet casings. 

Myles E. Johnson: Jesus. 

DeRay Mckesson: Had deny, defend, delay [note: The bullet casings writing was actually deny, defend, depose] which is the title of a book that is critical of the way that health insurance companies don’t cover people’s health insurance and work to structurally disadvantage people in the health insurance process. So that is just the facts of what happened. I will say I was surprised at the NYPD’s first statement about the shooter’s race and identity was that he was a light skinned man. And then it comes out that he is not light skinned. He is white. And I will say the last picture that they released of him in the taxi or something, I thought that was literally a joke. I was like, that’s not a real– that can’t be actually what the police released. And here we are. So and I don’t know if you all saw before, I’m not going to give commentary yet, but before I pass it over. Did you all see that his outfit is um out of out of stock? 

Kaya Henderson: Stock. Yes. 

DeRay Mckesson: That like the jacket, the book bag. People are it this has been I you know, I feel like I can anticipate a lot of culture moments. I didn’t see this one. I didn’t see I didn’t see the Internet uh responding in this way. So I’ll stop there.

Kaya Henderson: Didn’t they also have a shooter lookalike contest in Washington Square Park?

DeRay Mckesson: Oh they did in New York City. There was a–

Kaya Henderson: That’s an unanticipated cultural moment. 

DeRay Mckesson: There was a shooter lookalike contest. Yes. So what do you all, what Myles, as our resident cultural critic. Please lead us. Guide us. 

Myles E. Johnson: I have never more in my life not wanted to be a resident culture critic. But, but no, I love it. Um. So I think I definitely did see this. I think that even inside of um pop, you know, just pop culture is such a is just such a rich text of where things are going, you know. So like when you look at like John Wick, when you look at the Joker movies, when you look at a lot of different things in media. I don’t, to me, it always seemed like, no, like people are okay with violence, you know, even how many times I even mention like Quentin Tarantino movies and stuff like that, like people are okay with certain types of um violences being enacted. And and specifically in America, you have to and I don’t I think I didn’t think about this until this moment, but I think I’ve subconsciously always known it. Like in America, you kind of are primed to divide what violence is violence. Like so where we we we know that this imperialist enforced violence is one thing and the police violence is one thing. And the violence that happens neighbor to neighbor is one thing. We’re kind of used to compartmentalizing it. And that just gives us a good gap to really look at this one situation and say, no, a a shootings not a shooting, a killing, a murder is not a murder. That’s how come you’re telling us to calm down about what’s going on in um in Palestine and and and telling us to be outraged about what’s happening with this CEO because we know because we kind of are primed to know that all murders and all brutality or violence aren’t the same. So I wasn’t surprised that that reaction was that was that way. Um. I was shocked that people were as mad as I am. I think something about this last election, I think something about this last um this, this, this this last cycle has given us so many moments for people to express rage. And I kind of always thought that I was dealing with this like, kind of like silent disgust rage, you know. But it seems as though that this situation has, I don’t know, like the meemawfication of everything. And people think it kind of like galvanizing around their their meemaws and their grandmas and and their themselves who have been victimized by the health care system. I’m like, yeah, I was radicalized when I saw Denzel in that movie. Like, I was I was pissed off when um, you know, how many times I just I just it’s so wild. I got my quote as a freelancer um for my for my health insurance um now that I’ve that I’ve moved states. My health insurance is over $300 a month. Um. That is a huge chunk out of my like monthly income. And then when I look up these stories of people paying that much and and and that being a huge chunk of their income and then still getting denied, still not getting medication, the anesthesia thing, you know, I don’t I don’t I don’t think you mentioned a lot DeRay about the situation is always unraveling. But that whole anesthesia part about them backing uh uh uh backtracking that now that this this shooting’s happened.

DeRay Mckesson: Care first.

Kaya Henderson: This was it’s been fascinating to watch. So, first of all, when it first broke, I thought, of course, this is a hit and people didn’t seem like it was an assassination or people felt like they couldn’t believe it. But like you said, Myles, I feel like every movie, spy movie or political intrigue movie that I watch, like this is how it goes down. The killer hits fast. One thing that I had no idea about is that silencers weren’t more prevalent. So everybody seems outraged that this murder was committed with a silencer. Mayor Adams said in all his years of law enforcement, he’s never seen a crime with a silencer. But like, I watch 007 and Jason Bourne and all of these things and everybody’s got silencers. And so I think I thought that that was more of a like regular thing. So I was interested to find out it was not. But I feel like, you know, whatever scandal, anything you watch like this was sort of textbook Hollywood hit and run kind of thing on a bus because it’s harder to trace than getting on a plane and and all of this. Um. And the other and so I I felt like this felt very familiar to me, even though it hasn’t happened in real life. Um. And then I worried that this is probably not going to be the only one of these kinds of hits that we’ve seen. We saw that many of the health care, large health care companies have taken down the names of their of their leadership teams and are securing, you know, security teams and whatnot. But I immediately thought this is an eat the rich moment, right? This is an Occupy Wall Street sort of you know, the people are outraged. Myles, as you said. And I think in ways that we saw hints of during the election, maybe in you know the people voting on the couch. But I think there’s so much happening between, you know, the the war in the Middle East and now the the downfall of the Syrian uh dictatorship. Like there is just if you can’t, there is so much happening that is assaulting your your neurons in your brain. And at the end of the day, um you know the price, the rent is too high, the eggs are too high, and you have no way to kind of work this thing out. And so I think we’re going to continue to see um I don’t I don’t want to call them random, but sporadic expressions of rage in this way. Um. And I think we have to be ready for it. We have created this cauldron. I also think that all of the rhetoric, especially um the Trumpian rhetoric around retaliation, um fuels this kind of, yes, let’s get back at people kind of thing. And so I’m worried. I am deeply worried about our society. It feels like we are spiraling into more and more chaos. Um. And so, um yeah, um and well I’ll add one thing to that, and I’ll say I’m going to contrast that with Mr. Trump’s first interview since he was elected president, which was on Meet the Press this weekend. And I watched the interview. And one of the things that I noticed is that the rhetoric was wildly tamped down. And he is trying to project himself as reasonable and thoughtful and trying to find the middle ground and representing everybody. And so I think it’s going to be interesting to watch this clash of, you know, the administration trying to um refine its message when the populous is in a completely different place and and one of expressiveness and outrage and whatnot. 

DeRay Mckesson: Kaya, that’s actually interesting. I hadn’t even made the connection until you just said it. Between just the sheer, like, the popularity of Trump’s extreme tone, like it just seeped into everything. And, you know, as much as Kamala and the left tried to be, you know, middle of the ground and we are the adults in the room. They almost seemed a little foolish up against him being like, you know, it was the truth teller. It was the brash. It was the and and the reality is that there’s a consequence to that. That and what is interesting is that there just has not been a consequence for him. And people don’t realize they not him. They’re like, yes, he got convicted of all these crimes and still became the president. You are going to be out here solo dolo. 

Kaya Henderson: In jail. In jail. 

DeRay Mckesson: In jail with this uh with this sort of rhetoric. So that’s interesting. The second thing that did make as I saw people talk about it and and talk about health care, it was a reminder to me in organizing that sometimes the slow burn of organizing storytelling, you you won’t realize people got it until they get it. Because with the health care stuff, it was interesting just how many people realized that they were not alone. They weren’t the outlier. Their case was not an anomaly. They were like, oh they denied all they like. United Health Care is denying a lot of people stuff and this company has denied a lot of people stuff or uh people like you, Myles, like talking about Cobra or the exchange being like, this is really expensive. There was a time with health care, with the health care organizers where it was hard to organize people, because people thought that their story was like this singular denial. And every, you know like, people just didn’t understand systemic stuff. And you see that like in one fell swoop, even the Republican people who were like, you know, Ben Shapiro, you post you highlighted Myles on another space. I was looking at some of the right wing people being like, this is so crazy. And their listeners were like this is not crazy. This is the result of da da da da da da da. And you’re like, oh this is and Kaya this is actually goes back to what happens when the base is radicalized around violence. And you can’t it’s hard to put that genie back in the bottle. To my personal story, I actually saw this a little differently, is that I only, I grew up where my first health care was in school systems. I had great health care. I didn’t know health care wasn’t great for everybody until I left school systems. So like in Baltimore, we are the health insurance plan in Baltimore was so good that we paid a $5 co-pay for every visit. That was the max. 100% of all services were covered. And if we went out of network, we pay $10. So I had never paid more than $10 ever to see a doctor for a really long time. Like it just wasn’t. And then I started work. I had like left school systems and I’m like, this is they take this much. I’m like, this is nuts. Even I remember in Baltimore when I was at [?] Capital, it was something like, I think our prescription plan was like $1.70 per employee. And I remember fighting with the union trying to go up to two dollars like so my entrance to health care was actually really different. And then I had to get Cobra and I was like, who can afford, my Cobra was something like $1,200 a month. And I’m like, well, I can’t do $1,200 a month. I’m like, that’s–

Kaya Henderson: Yeah yeah my Cobra was $700 a month, which is astounding. 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, I’m like, who can do that? If I don’t have a job. That’s the whole point. Like, this is the this is why I need Cobra. 

Myles E. Johnson: Right. Right. Right. Right. 

DeRay Mckesson: Um. And it you know, it is interesting around the health care debt, it’s something like more than 50% of people file bankruptcy, it is because of health uh–

Kaya Henderson: –care bills. 

DeRay Mckesson: Health care. 

Kaya Henderson: Jeez. 

Myles E. Johnson: And I do. I do and I like I totally get like the kind of like impulse. And I think it’s right that we talk about how much Trump has like informed how we’re dealing with violence and the temperature and the cultural temperature as well. But I also think it I think this has a lot to do with like democratic incrementalism. I think it has to do a lot with just kind of um so we don’t know who did this shooting. We don’t know who did the assassination. But I would not be surprised. And I and I remember being in the group chat kind of saying this too I was like, I just wouldn’t be surprised if this is somebody from the left. And I would be surprised. I wouldn’t be surprised that it’s somebody who is not like psychologically um uh just brainwashed by the culture of Trump. And I think what I’d have no ends on the NYPD. But I think what would have to be scaring the NYPD right now is that this isn’t just a faraway loony tune or somebody who didn’t know what they were doing. This is somebody who might have, A, been from the from from from the left. And it’s also somebody who could be working with a network of other people who are making sure that this happened and keeping them safe, which is how come this is taking you know longer than the NYPD would like for it to take specifically being public. And, you know, I think sometimes when it comes to violence, when it comes to rhetoric, when it comes to um public brutality, we always tend to paint it towards what Trump is doing, what the conservatives are doing. But a lot of I don’t know, something feels so weird about this particular case. I’ll be real with you, um with you all. That it just something in my gut is just saying I think we might be surprised around the around the motivations of not just this moment, but all of this violent moment, but also other ones that we might be seeing. Because I think a lot of different people are radicalized and think that violence is the source of of their change. And I think different people are are are going about planning and strategizing around that violence differently. And it’s not just storming the cap capital in your overalls and falling off of walls and being sloppy and breaking windows. Some people are with networks of organized people who all have the same ideas and be and believe, um believe themselves to be righteous in these assassination attempts. And that’s what this feels like to me. Um. Again, nobody I don’t know anything more than anybody else knows, but I I think that gut feeling should at least be verbalized, because I think sometimes we don’t consider what who is on the left and what they’re thinking how fed up the left the people on the left um are too, and what they might be motivated to to do as well. With no motivation from Trump or Trump getting away with anything. 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah I do, Myles, when I hear you say that it’s not even a push, is uh to extend that. I’d say what I hear you say is that the left and right have responded to a very palpable sense of anger amongst people differently, and that the right in some ways has like stoked it has like sort of amped it up and been like da da da da da. We need to da da da da da da. And the left and some some people feel like the left has ignored it they just have been like it’s not a thing or they’ve responded in ways that don’t meet the force of the anger. So they what you call incrementalism is like. they’re like, well, do da da da. And they’re like, Yeah, you did that, but I still can’t pay my bills. And they’re like, oh we’re going to, you know, increase food stamps a little bit. And they’re like, I’m still like so it does feel like the response to the anger, like the way the left and the right have acknowledged the anger is a little is like very different. And I do think, though, Myles, that there are consequences of both ways of dealing with it. And there is, I think, the Trumpian consequence of the language of retaliation. And like just that he uses even January 6th, the idea that you can tell your people to storm the Capitol and then pardon all of them. I do think that that conjures up like a type of boldness that I think people would generally be like, okay, I’m not going to do like, I won’t do that because that would be crazy. But those people did it and will get out. They will be. They will essentially. If we did that, they’d a shot us in two secs it wouldn’t even–

Kaya Henderson: Yeah. 

DeRay Mckesson: Jail wouldn’t even be our issue. 

Kaya Henderson: Yes. Mm.

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. No, I totally, I totally agree with you. Um with that.

Kaya Henderson: So can I add another dimension to this because I think that the health care part is real. Right. So this uh Brian Thompson was also facing um lawsuits and congressional scrutiny for practices that were wildly boosting their um their profits and um like broadly just denying people coverage, using technology to deny people coverage um requiring things like prior authorization, bef– so making doctors basically have to do much more paperwork before they would authorize things. And all of these pretty insidious practices that either slowed down the health care train or stopped it for people who are paying dividends. And one of the things that Brian Thompson was known for was radically increasing shareholder value. And, you know, one of the conspiracy theories and again, if you watch enough of these TV shows, I think a lot about scandal in these places. Um. You know, there is there is talk about how um he was facing congressional inquiry and that, in fact, um the exposure of of United Health Care’s practices are actually industry wide practices. And so I’ve heard scuttlebutt about him cutting a deal with Congress to expose the whole industry. And so it may not be regular people, it may be the powers that be stopping some things from happening. I think right now I feel like I am in the middle of scandal where it could be anything. [laughter] It could be it could be, you know, B613 or whatever it was called. It could be a random you know person with mental illness. It could be John Q, right. Who is just outraged about not having his family’s, you know, uh uh health care covered like it is coming at me from all directions. 

Myles E. Johnson: What do you all what do you all feel about, so I put I did put it in the in the group chat, right? So I was I was watching Ben Shapiro because there’s there’s just nothing like drinking and watching Ben Shapiro to get you really mad when you’re living a peaceful life. Um. But like so I was so I was watching Ben Shapiro, then I go to the comments and Ben Shapiro is basically, you know, making this a partisan issue, saying this is the people on the left and they’re cheering on murder. Look how um hey, look how crazy everybody on the left is, etc., etc.. And then you go to his comments and you see his um supporters being like, no, that’s not, A, it’s not everybody on the left. And then also what I thought was fascinating what I tried to highlight too was that it seemed as though that there were certain people who were enlightened to the grifter media game of, oh my goodness, even when I was watching Roland Martin. And he we tapped on it, but we didn’t talk about it too much, but like the whole light skinned thing and making that the sum of the conversation. So we’re not having a conversation about Black people in health care and how many Black people are um who are killed because of because of bad health care. We’re making this about a race thing and we’re making it about the NYPD being racist without us talking about power. 

Kaya Henderson: The real issue yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: And then the same thing was happening with Ben Shapiro, where it was like, oh you’re trying to make this oh a crazy Democrats thing, and we’re still talking about health care. And now people it seemed in the comments, people were enlightened to that. How do you feel about that? Does that get y’all hopeful? 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, I’ve always thought that, like if we make the arguments that help people, they get it. Like that’s what I thought was interesting, that the health care thing is that like the health care organizers were not the people leading the conversations about united health care. They weren’t. When I woke up, the first comments I saw were it was regular people it ended up being like, this is crazy. My mother tried to get this like in but I do think that that language and even just knowing about denials and da da da was a result of stories being told and people talking about it otherwise people would think that they were the only people who who it impacted. So I do think that um I think that’s interesting, I you know, Myles, I don’t know, though, because and Kaya to your conspiracy theory part, I’m interested in it, I like yeah I’m like, I’m interested in it. And I think–

Kaya Henderson: I’m just saying you got to keep all avenues open because we have no idea. 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah. I just the reason why I’m not there yet is that I think that this is perhaps the best indictment of the NYPD. Just a reminder of what the police don’t do. They get ten billion dollars. It’s in Times Square. You are tripping over police in Times Square. There are cameras everywhere. There are. There’s ShotSpotter, there’s videos, there are video cameras. There’s all this stuff in New York City to protect people. And there’s a white man on a uncrowded sidewalk in front of a major hotel, shoots a guy in cold blood without running uh the video was so interesting because he didn’t. And the NYPD can only tell us that they know he existed. That’s really all they got everything but him. And then Eric Adams, who I think is lying. I don’t know if you saw went on the news and said that they have his name, but they’re withholding it right now. That y’all don’t got his name. You ain’t got that boy name.

Myles E. Johnson: That’s the that’s the wild thing about this whole situation is just that everybody I don’t know. It seems as to me again, I think you can look at this case. I mean, I don’t know. You can look at this case a few different ways and see something different. But the once you get more and more specific, it’s hard to see. But so many ways, unless you’re just saying, well, this could just be a whole I don’t know, like I don’t I do think that I kind of trust what I’m looking at. And I do think this is somebody who was doing something for vigilante justice. I mean, you know, I’m not on the detective team so I can have my opinions. And if I’m wrong, I’m wrong. But I just I just feel I think I think that’s right. But what’s interesting, though, to DeRay’s point is that New York City is so over surveillanced and you have somebody who is able to utilize the randomness in the uh uh the ubiquitousness ness of whiteness in order to help this crime, because now it’s like it could be anybody. Where’s he at? Look at this book bag in the even little details about the $300 book bag and the monopoly money. It’s almost as if this person’s like I actually as a white person, I don’t ugh. It just reminds me of what–

Kaya Henderson: Go for it, say it. Say it say it.

Myles E. Johnson: –when those, it just reminds me of when those um people were setting themselves on fire and how certain people were willing to die, and set themselves on fire in order to let something in order to make a political point. And this situation feels as though I’m going to utilize my whiteness. I’m going to be on the run for the rest of my life. I’m going to risk jail in order to make this point. And I’m not moralizing that. I’m not saying that that was the right thing to do. But it seems like what was done, like a lot of these choices that are referenced in these choices, the the the I don’t know. It just it just it just I think we’re dealing with a different. And the I think that getting away with this, that for as long as it is, and if and even if he does get caught kind of knowing what to do, I think that we are in for a wild four years, I guess, is what I’m trying to say. Like a wild four years from the right and from the left. And yeah.

Kaya Henderson: Can I circle back to your point about the cognizance of the media grifting sort of thing? Um. 

Myles E. Johnson: Mm hmm. 

Kaya Henderson: So in the Ben Shapiro stuff that you that you shared, it was like Ben Shapiro is a CEO. Ben Shapiro is a CEO. Like, wait a minute. And these are his followers, right? Like, no, no, you not like us. Right. And I think um a lot of what I’ve been seeing over the last few over the last week, especially since Mr. Trump has announced his cabinet members, is you know this is the wealthiest cabinet ever assembled in the history of the United States. Every single person is a billionaire like every single person um who’s been nominated. And they they were highlighting that the nominees were making the rounds on Capitol Hill. Right. And I saw a piece somewhere on social media yesterday that basically said, like, these people whose average salary is a booga gazillion dollars are talking to people whose average salary is like $2.5 million. And we are trusting these people to make decisions about the eggs being too expensive like. And so I do think that there is a I’ll add to that um you know the Black people who supported Trump, who are now like, where am I? I don’t have no cabinet child. What’s what happened Mr. Trump. I’m talking to you, Tim Scott, you. Um. I think that people are now like, wait a minute. Hold it. Time out. This is not what I thought was going to happen. And, you know, there are lots of people, Black women, especially, who are sitting back and saying, I told you so and watch what happens. But I do think that there is some realization about like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. On a large a large group of people who are like, wait, the billionaires? Like we elected the plutocracy to like, run the whole entire government. And I feel like people are waking up with a bad election hangover. And I think we’re going to see more of that. So I do think, Myles, that you are right about that. 

DeRay Mckesson: And going into lets transition into that first interview that Trump did and uh and the last thing I’ll say about the united health care thing is, Kaya, to your point about the silencer. That’s how I knew he wasn’t Black. Because when you go to when you– 

Kaya Henderson: You can’t get a silencer if you Black? 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah. So it’s interesting when we we help get somebody out of prison. And one of the one of the key things when I was talking to the firearms examiners is because, you know Baltimore’s small so I can make a lot of calls is that they were like this gun was a $1,000 gun. The [?] was like in my 20 year career in firearms. I just have never seen a street murder with a, she’s like the gun is just too expensive. Like people are poor, they just don’t have the money to. So she’s like, I see guns a lot, but I don’t see thousand dollar. She’s like it just she’s like, I don’t believe it. Just because this is a she’s like in my whole career I’ve never seen it. And that’s when I, you know, this sile–, the silencer was $900. 

Kaya Henderson: Wow. 

DeRay Mckesson: Nobody and I only know because, again, they have made him a pop culture icon and they did a breakdown of his entire outfit. Shoes, silencer, gun, jacket, whole thikng. Don’t nobody got that much money. Like for people and not neighborhoods. Black people ain’t got that much money. Um. But the Trump stuff is interesting because I saw and and Myles to your point about making sure that we don’t let the left off the hook is that I saw people downplaying his comments about deportation. They’re like, well, you know, the Constitution says birthright citizenship is a thing. And he can’t just violate the Constitution, don’t get people all worked up. I saw people on the left saying that being like, you know, Trump is just amping people up and, you know, you’re not helping it by participating in the frenzy. And obviously you’re like all I can say is when he deports you, you should file a lawsuit. But filing it from Rwanda, where he is joking about sending everybody is a whole different ball game, then filing it from New York City. And he will have the power to just deport you. So by the it was and, you know, we already saw it. That’s what’s so confusing. I mean, we saw Florida and Texas just round people up, put them on busses and drive them to different cities. Was that legal? No. Did they do it? Yes. Was there any repercussion? No. 

Kaya Henderson: No. 

DeRay Mckesson: So, you know, I am taking this man at his word. And I think it’s going to be and I think the second thing is, even if the people in the administration are not like just, you know, willfully bonkers, they are unbelievably inept. So another way to destroy the federal government is just by putting Bozo the Clown in every position where you actually need somebody to make a decision. And this is going to be a ride in a lot of ways. [music break] Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned. There’s more to come. 

[AD BREAK]

Kaya Henderson: Can we talk about the other big news that came out last night that is controversial at best. 

DeRay Mckesson: Woo. And before we do, um Myles, did you have anything about Trump like the Trump appointments, you know, Tulsi, Kash Patel, like any any thing about that? 

Myles E. Johnson: Here’s what my fear is, right? And here’s what and I feel like Trump turned on the Trump button to get elected. Okay. And to Auntie Kaya’s point earlier, it seems as though he’s turned that button off and he’s making an effort to seem more measured and making and he is making an effort to make um mainly Democrats. Right. Like and I and I that’s why I just don’t conflate the left and Democrats and left. I don’t I try not to just conflate it all anymore because there just there does seem to be like if we can just make the Democratic Party seem instable [SIC] and out of touch, that’s enough. We don’t actually have to make other people on the left uh uh seem like that if those people are in those people’s neighborhoods or whatever. But I do think we should be measured about how we talk about the deportations and how we talk about what Trump is hap, what Trump is doing. Because if it’s not that, because that’s what America is, America needs, though, the the America needs the lynching postcards. America needs to sit ins. America needs to see Emmett Till’s body. America needs to see it visually in front of their face to be outraged. America needed to be the covid had to be here. It couldn’t be in China on its way here. Be be be there in 15. It had to be here. And now meemaw is coughing. And that’s and now I’m now I’m outraged. And now it’s affecting me. That’s just how America has historically been. And I think that people on the left and at least I have just come to terms with that’s how America has been and that making it be any crazier before it’s actually happened does not help, especially if it’s done in a way that is not as theatrical. I hate to say it like this. But it won’t be as theatrical as it needs to be in order to um influence the American people. So if it and so, we kind of need [?] it just feels disgusting to say, but you need the kids in cages. You need the you need the you need that theatric. And if and if it doesn’t happen like that, then anybody who’s made this moment seem like a big deal is going to be seen as a Democratic libtard Looney tune. Libtard is what I learned from from from the Republicans. [laughter]

DeRay Mckesson: Oh god. 

Myles E. Johnson: They say the R word over there. I was over there. I was like, oh my gosh, I haven’t said the R word since the first episode of Glee. What? [laugh] You you uncouth animals. [laughter]

DeRay Mckesson: That is interesting, Myles. This idea that people need to see the violence to believe it. And that was true of the police, too. 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

DeRay Mckesson: Um. Well we’ll see but Kaya, you’re pushing us. And you’re right there is a cultural piece of news. It is about Jay-Z being included in this lawsuit as having participated in the sexual assault of a 13 year old that included Diddy or one of Diddy’s parties. It just got announced yesterday. It looks like Jay-Z himself has access to the Roc Nation Twitter account. [laughter] And [?]– 

Myles E. Johnson: He brought out his good Edgar Allan Poe. When I tell I say where art thou Jay-Z. Jay-Z was doing his good Toni Morrison. I was like, was there a thou in that? In the 4 IM’s? 

Kaya Henderson: Oh my gosh.

Myles E. Johnson: I was like, okay old English Jay Z. 

DeRay Mckesson: I was like oh is this is not this was not done by a firm, this was–

Kaya Henderson: A publicist. 

DeRay Mckesson: This was–

Kaya Henderson: [?] Yeah no [?].

DeRay Mckesson: You know as much as as much grief as people give, Yvette. You know, Yvette exists. I don’t know what was going on like. Jay-Z, What were you saying? This was a don’t don’t tweet Jay-Z Don’t tweet you’re Jay-Z, don’t tweet. But what do you all think? And the hard thing, too, is now you can’t. It’s just done. You can’t like you can’t take it back. 

Kaya Henderson: You can’t unring that bell. No.

DeRay Mckesson: You can’t unring it. You can’t even release a more middle ground statement now because it looks like a re–, like it just. And I’m I am sensitive to what he wrote. Like it is you know, there is some. And Kaya you lived in the public. There is just the threat of impropriety covers you so much that there which he names in the thing that like I have to sit down with my kids and there is a like there’s a part of this that like you know if you did not do it Jay-Z there you know you it doesn’t matter. You have to like deal with it and contend with it. The allegation and that is in and of itself, a thing that is real for you. Doesn’t make the statement. This statement is still very rough. Um. And and then the lawyer it was just a lot going on. It felt like a year happened in 20 minutes. I’m like, what? 

Kaya Henderson: Woo. So [laugh] um here is where I will say, I’m thinking about this very carefully. Um. I mean, you know, you like the whatever the Shakespearean thing is, the lady doth protest too much. Um. I feel like his reaction was quite outsized. It wasn’t it wasn’t clearly it was not vetted through a publicist. It was an emotional reaction, which we are human and we are all entitled to have. But when you are a celebrity, you should have those moments, write it on a piece of paper. I know Jay Z doesn’t write things on paper, but uh write on a piece of paper and then either give it to somebody to look at or burn it up. Um. I, I think that um I think that you’ve got to be very careful of what you say, because if this particular accusation does not apply to you, you could just say it doesn’t apply to me. That’s ludicrous. Um. But my grandmother used to say, a hit dog hollers, right? And so there does seem to be something very um strange about how vehemently he came after um or he responded to this thing. I used to say all the time, um you know, when you hear that Kaya Henderson set a house on fire, right? You’re going to be like, nah ah, because you’ve never seen me play with fire. You’ve never I don’t mess with matches. I’ve never done anything like this in my life before. Right. And so when when the accusation comes out that I set something on fire, I’m like, okay, if that’s what you want to say, do your thing. Right. I think while I think there is still there are still a lot of questions around who is involved in all of this Diddy stuff. And so and Jay-Z is clearly a prime um potential participant. And so I think that some of these words are going to come back to haunt him um if he is indeed implicated in some other stuff, things like, um you know, victims deserving justice. Um. That’s cool to say when you’re on one side, but not cool to say when you’re on the other side. Or um I think that the piece about the criminal investigation thing is a little dicey because we all know that statutes of limitations run out on criminal investigations. They don’t run out on civil investigations. And so I just think that there’s a whole lot of unclear territory here that maybe he would have been better served by just being quiet. That is the way I’m going to say this. How’s that? 

Myles E. Johnson: Good. It sounds like you it sounds like you’ve got an Yvette. [laughter] Purr. And an Yvette that the PR is for us all. 

Kaya Henderson: Yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: Um. So I’ve been thinking a lot about the civil the civil rights era and celebrity, how I love the Andy Warhol superstar of the factory era and how that happened right beside um the civil rights movement. And sometimes they seem like separate movements, but like if we if Andy Warhol was also like prophesizing and also creating the mechanisms that we use for celebrity culture today in that we’re kind of like just living in a post Andy Warhol world. Then I think that Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Angela Davis, a lot of these people were. I think that’s how come they feel like icons to us, not just because of the civil rights thing that they did, but also because of their entry point of how they became big. So Angela Davis, a lot of those shirts that we would see with her on it, a lot of times we think those shirts just happened in the last 10 or 20 years. But those shirts were popular when she was popular, too. So, like, that was the first kind of time where we would have somebody who’s in to civil rights but also in pop culture. And that mix happened. And I think of Jay-Z as somebody who has inherited that double place in our culture. I think that a lot of Black celebrities both occupy this space of superstar and untouchable and also occupy this space of my personal hero and my personal cousin and uncle. And there’s a really weird and fine balance, you know, and Jay-Z was able to be uh was able to evolve himself into a Bill Cosby, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier place while still being hip hop. So he employed Annie into into one of his songs. He he he he made sure that he would also do um records with some of the biggest pop stars to make sure so this Brooklyn boy became a pop star. And he did do things with R. Kelly and he was best friends he like an album he did do things with um with Diddy. He was he’s just documented friends with Diddy. And I don’t obviously I don’t know. I’ll be real with you, I do not want this to be true. So and there’s just been a shade roomification of this whole case that you have to kind of be really present about because some people are just full of shit. And it just and because his case is occupied, not like Harvey Weinstein’s was just just in the mainstream media. It’s also like the chitlin circuit media and the mainstream media. So like you’re dealing with all types of kind of bottom feeders. So I really want to say that Jay-Z was a victim of this, but I also feel like he’s a victim of his own, um his own ivory tower. I think because he is I feel like him and Beyonce are so distant from the public and so removed from the public that nobody can really say, you know, we can say that about Auntie Kaya because we feel as if we kind of know her. We feel as if we we know enough of her. We don’t really feel like we know enough of Jay-Z and Beyonce. And the only time they try to update us on their brand is when they’re trying to sell us something and also to let us know how much more rich and how much more distant they are, which creates these these creates the space to create narratives that are disgusting, that are bad, that I would never want anybody if ever who who who did not do those things to be accused of. But I there’s just something in that closeness of the civil rights leader and the celebrity and where Jay-Z finds himself and now that I’m like, no, there needs to be a better strategy if there unless the strategy is just to move to Paris and never talk to us niggas again which I which I think is fine. I would do it. But if the strategy is to stay participatory in this culture. I think there needs to be no we do need to know how we feel about something. Even with Oprah doing these Starbucks talks and stuff, you, you kind of need something in the culture to let us know, No, you still know who I am. Here I am in front of your face because if not, there is so much opening for people to create their own their own thing. And Jay-Z knows because he named the fake psychic. He knows this because he named the fake psychic Sloane. He he knows what’s going on. He knows what’s going on in the streets. And because this you know, I don’t I feel so bad. Like Beyonce got to perform on the 25th and [laugh] like all of this stuff is happening and it’s just like. I get the mystery, I get the mystique. But if you’re going to still occupy that space of of social leader and celebrity in the Black culture, you kind of have to feed that thing that makes us feel like you’re one of our cousins and that we know you. And you can’t go far off into wacko jacko territory where we’re like, we used to know that negro, but they might be so juiced up on Hollywood juice that who knows what they did specifically when the people who have been juiced up on Hollywood juice have been your friends and collaborators. 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, we’ll see how it how it plays out. You know, it is uh the civil process is really interesting. I can say that as somebody going through um being being sued by two different parties right now civilly. Is it is just a slog of a process. Depositions, the like turning over all the text messages and DM’s and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and really vulnerable. Um. And I will say again, as somebody having to to do them, I did not know how far you could get uh when it is not true. Now, this is not just about this is not necessarily about Jay Z’s case, but in my case with the police officer, I we don’t even know if the man got hit and I have been in this court case since 20 uh 2016, and it has been really incredible. But we’ll see how it all plays out. Unfortunately, we will all be front row to this one because it’ll be the thing everybody’s talking about. It’s also interesting. This is one of those things too, where because he’s come out so hard, he actually does need a ruling. Like it’s not enough you know, like Diddy, I think is like, get me out of this stuff. Just like if Diddy could get Trump to pardon them or whatever, Diddy would take that and go somewhere. He you know, we saw the video, so we not going to believe him anyway. 

Myles E. Johnson: Right. 

DeRay Mckesson: So he just wants to, like, not be in jail. 

Myles E. Johnson: Right. 

DeRay Mckesson: Jay-Z, I think especially because he went so hard wants to actually clear his name, which makes a settlement really just almost untenable. Even if he settles and the victim released a statement saying I don’t anything like I don’t even know what she like he he he at this point needs to be acquit, like proven not culpable because the alternative he’s put himself in this box where an alternative doesn’t work. Okay. My news is about the crack that the police made. Yes, you heard it right. The police were out here making crack and selling it to people and then entrapping them in good old Florida and Broward County. Now, I do not know that people knew about this for a long time, that the Florida Supreme Court ruled in 1993 that people couldn’t be charged in cases where the Broward County Sheriff’s Department had made crack cocaine and undercover deputies had sold it to people who were then arrested and charged. What’s interesting about this is that the people were not being you know, for all of the talk about drugs, people often think that it’s about people distributing drugs and selling drugs. No, they were getting people to buy crack cocaine that they had made. This blew my mind. And there’s actually an interesting intersection with the campaign that we have at Campaign Zero around drug free school zones is what the police were doing is that they were not only selling it to people, but they were selling it within 1000ft of a school, which in Florida is a drug free school zone and gets you an enhanced penalty. Which, you know, we have it’s not public yet, but we have this analysis of all the drug free school zone laws and all this other stuff. And one of the things that we know happens, but we don’t have a ton of cases about it, which is what makes this one interesting is that this went to the Supreme Court where the police had a strategy of selling it in the zones, because the way the law works is that it’s really hard for you to fight the zone part of it. Like once they get you in a zone, you’re sort of screwed. And and there are really big penalties because people don’t have a lot of sympathy for people selling drugs close to a school. Now, let’s be clear. Um.  1000ft is like two football fields. So that is actually not near that is not actually in front of a school. And that’s what becomes misleading when you read about drug free school zones. So, you know, you could be two football fields away from the school and the police were selling you drugs and entrapping you. And I just was floored by it because when I first read it, I was like, oh somebody is being dramatic. It can’t be. The police weren’t really making crack. But when you think about it, you have to. There are a million questions you have to ask yourself. Whose idea was it to start making crack cocaine? Where were they making crack cocaine? Who was testing the crack cocaine to make sure that it was actually crack cocaine? Like, this is a I’m just fascinated by the need to get people addicted to a drug and that, you know, this is it’s wild I had to bring it here. 

Myles E. Johnson: What in the conspiracy theory come true? Dr. Umar, I owe you an apology. So my first my first mind went to of course it went to culture. It went to how there needs to be some type of sit down with with with with with the with the hotep cousins and brothers and siblings and I don’t know I guess the distrust is the word that I want to look for. The distrust that this kind of confirms in in the police is is is there. But also, I just think about the distrust amongst Black people, amongst Black people who kind of tried to like um sometimes keep things rational, keep things um uh in the realm of of reality and not court crime drama, you know, and not in conspiracy theory land. And I think sometime I’m something about this this story just reaffirmed to me that sometimes we just have to wake up that we are in conspiracy land that that that a lot of these ideas um if not in the most dramatic fantastical ways that people are saying that they are true, have some um based in true or are not out of the realm of truth for this system. And I think that the more you understand what is actually true, you can become more empathetic to somebody who falls for maybe an exaggerated or less than factual truth of it. And I think there’s there’s some type of bridge to be made there that that literal conspiracy theory that you consumed on YouTube is not right. But you are may you are correct about the wickedness of this system and the things that have happened in order for um uh for people to to to to main to maintain to maintain power and villainize Black people. Like we have to have space for that kind of honesty because that’s who I’m thinking about off ramping nowadays. Everybody’s thinking about offramping these Trump, these Black or excuse me these white Trumpers and stuff like that. I’m thinking about how do we off ramp these like kind of hyper conservative, hotep Black men. How do we um uh how do we talk about men who are on the far right, who are Black and of color and kind of validate some of the things that they’re saying, but also say these things aren’t true? I’m just, my mind just automatically went there and to me this piece of news and this piece of um fact just gives an open off ramp to still using that kind of like radical potential, but in a way that assists actual things that happened, and not like conspiracies about people that that haven’t happened. But yeah, this is just a wild, wild, wild story. 

DeRay Mckesson: I will say before you go, Kaya, just as a point of um information, is that today in Florida, the consequence for drug free zones is a three year mandatory minimum. Crazy. 

Kaya Henderson: Thank you for bringing this to the podcast DeRay. Um. As I read it, I was like a lot of people had to sit around and and say together, like, we think it’s a good idea to make crack, to target poor people, like poor people. They didn’t do this in, you know, whatever the fancy neighborhoods are of Broward County, Dade, they did this to poor people. They did this to poor addicts, not dealers to like people who like this is a war on the poor people. Right. And and, of course, I assume that these are mostly white police officers and these are mostly um uh people of color who were affected by this. And so I thought before I make assumptions, why don’t I Google the demographic makeup of the Broward County Sheriff’s office? Well, guess what? Uh. More than 60% of its employees are minorities. 40% of the Broward County Broward Sheriff’s Office employees are African-American and nearly 20% are Hispanic, 14% are female. And so I thought to myself, wow, like you people had to sit together with like, together and decide that this was okay. Okay to to make drugs, okay to, you know, to to not just target poor people, but to target them for longer sentences. And who are you people and why is there no so one, of course, I think you should vacate and expunge the records of the people who were um who were affected by this. But who was the chemist? Who was making the crack? Who were the supervisors who said, yes, let’s do this? Where is the accountability? Like this is some trash. Once you figure out that these people sat down and this is not a conspiracy theory, this is a conspiracy. The definition of conspiracy means a group of people working together to do something. That this is a conspiracy. This is where where’s the Rico charge now, when we when we go after you know organized crime, we go we use Rico charges. Where are the organized crime charges for these people? That to me is the the thing that is more outrageous that we’re just going to, you know, let the people who are affected by this off the hook. But many of those people who made those decisions are still working in the Broward sheriff’s office. They will draw a full pension that we will pay for. And they have had no accountability, no consequences for a war on poor, poor addicts, a war on poor addicts. We’re like, sorry, okay, I’m done. [music break]

DeRay Mckesson: Don’t go anywhere. More Pod Save the People is coming. 

[AD BREAK] [music break]

DeRay Mckesson: It is. Yeah. And Kaya to your point, it’s like you were knowingly increasing the drug supply. 

Kaya Henderson: Yes. 

DeRay Mckesson: That is really something. Go ahead, Myles. 

Myles E. Johnson: You know what pisses me off about this, too? I mean, there’s so many things, like you could be angry for years with this article. What um what pisses me off, too, is so there’s this, like, idea. I can’t I can’t remember who. It’s just a very common idea, but that Black people kind of are the first wave of what happens in America. So, like–

Kaya Henderson: Yeah yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: If something happens um bad to Black people, it’s not. It’s usually never exclusive to Black people. Usually that is just like, oh then it’s going to happen to poor whites, and it’s going to happen to immigrants. But usually Black people, um the poorest Black people show where the trends are. So this crack epidemic obviously foreshadowed the um the opiate opioid things. And by the time that happened, like, could y’all imagine like could y’all imagine this story happening right now or coming out right now around people who white, you know, poor white folks who are who are addicted to meth. Like I just can’t I can’t imagine uh this story coming out and people not feeling disgusted, people not um feeling like like to your point, um Auntie Kaya that there needs to be people who are responsible for this, responsible for this, that they we need them to be accountable. It just is wild to me that now we have the we have bigger drug consciousness and [?] like we have this whole different culture around the addict that even the most underprivileged of white people get to be privileged by, because Black people took the front of the victimization and the and the and the and the and turning addict and turning poverty into predator to super predator for some people like that that that is what we’re living in and swimming in. So even I don’t know it’s just wild to even think that even the most underprivileged and poor of white people are still benefiting from um these kind of like metaphorical lashings that Black people had to take in being poor and Black in the ’80s, you would you would think about some crack too. You would you [laugh] you you would buy some too. I’m sorry if you were if you were in the ’80s and poor and you made it out without doing crack it’s because you are a superhero. Because I look at the stat I’m being for real, addict. 

Kaya Henderson: I know you are. 

Myles E. Johnson: Being a drug addict is a is is a common thing. 

Kaya Henderson: Coping mechanism. 

Myles E. Johnson: And [?] it makes sense. It makes sense. If it’s on your corner.

DeRay Mckesson: And none of them knew it would lead to like I think about when my father talks about using for the first time. He didn’t know. Like he was sort of like–

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

DeRay Mckesson: Everybody was doing it. We just doing it and then it– 

Myles E. Johnson: There was no crackhead. 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah. And then it just like, changed his life, um you know, it also, it makes me think of how Kaya to your point about like, the precision of language being important here, like not even saying conspiracy theorists, you’re like, this was actually just a– 

Myles E. Johnson: Conspiracy. 

DeRay Mckesson: It happened. It was a conspiracy is also like there’s, there’s some movement language that people have um people fight against, like they fight against this idea that, like, people were kidnapped from that’s a it’s a move. It’s movement language to say that the government kidnapped people and da da and you’re like, no, that’s movement language is right. We kidnapped people, we set people up and kidnapped them from their communities, trapped them in cages. And then we were like, why doesn’t everything work? You’re like, No, no, that was that feels like kidnapping to me. Like, yeah. So I this goes back to the call Dr. Umar that like, you know, some people there’s some people on the Internet who have been real, like everything’s a conspiracy and you’re like, you know what? We need new language because you’re right. To you Myles.

Myles E. Johnson: So today’s news is from Psychology Today. It’s actually the date of it was actually July 24th, 2022. The headline is depression is not caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. So one of the reasons why I wanted to bring this article to the podcast is because I thought about um how much content that I watch and and and how many YouTube videos and how many times I see you on Instagram. And you just have to be kind of uh like underneath a rock to not see the better help or the better me um stuff that’s that, that’s on. And it seems as though specifically post Covid but maybe in the last ten years that there has been this kind of proliferation into pop psychology. You have um famous um social media psychologists or therapists, you have um people talking about things. And one of the things that people talk about that just was. Was just just a common sense thing that that I don’t maybe you know, tell me if you all feel the same way. Was that, you know, don’t feel bad about your depression. Your depression is um an imbalance in your mind. And that really grounded depression and made it something that took away shame from depression. But it also is something that seems as though is not as true as we thought. So here’s a part of this article. The idea that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, specifically lower serotonin levels and can therefore be treated effectively with drugs that restore that balance appeared for a while to be an all around winner. It provided clear answers for both physicians and their suffering patients and an elegant explanation of the symptoms in a readily available remedy in pill form. Pharma companies made money. Before long, however, two non-trivial problems have emerged regarding this promising storyline. First, antidepressant antidepressant drugs turned out to be far less effective in treating depression than once hoped and advertised. About half of patients get no relief from these medications, and many of those who do benefit find the relief to be incomplete and accompanied by distressing side effects. Moreover, research has shown that drug effects are often no better than those achieved via a placebo and may not lead to a better quality of life in the long term. A 2010 review of the literature summarized meta analysis of FDA trials suggests that antidepressants are only marginally efficacious compared to placebos and document profound publication bias that inflates their apparent efficiency. Conclusions, the reviewed findings argue for a reappraisal of the current recommend excuse me recommended standard of care of depression. Antidepressant medication is no miracle cure. So this. So. So. So this is two parts. So, A, that to me was wild news and something that I never really thought about. And sometimes you can consume things. We get so many information and I and I kind of just laughed that away as one of my facts until it was like better. Like I was like oh, that that’s a little fact. And I read this and I was like, hold on. The other thing is, though, this was underreported by liberal and left news. So here’s the thing. When this kind of stuff is underreported and most people who are liberal, who are on YouTube, who are on the Internet, who are influencers, who are um engaging with people, with people, talking about um uh uh health, when you are Charlamagne uh doing maybe uh these mental health Black men things and this is your rhetoric, and then people are able to find that this is not true and this might have very much so been um one of those marketing campaigns by Big Pharma, because we’re going to say it’s true. Because it’s going to help us get more, be able to sell more medication. Then that breaks the trust. When something like this is not addressed by us, that breaks the trust and that makes the opening for even um wilder, uh uh even more disproven things to seep through because I can’t trust you. So I’m going to trust this person who I kind of trust, who I can maybe relate to, or who seems so um uninvolved with the with the status quo that I know at least that they wouldn’t lie to me, at least not knowingly. This reminds me of RFK Jr’s um appointing. This reminds me of so many of the granola to conservative um pipelines that we talked about, of how this kind of stuff that we let Big Pharma get away with. These kind of marketing, um these these, these these these marketing strategies that really are effective, that paint everybody who is both LGBT, who Black, who’s liberal, who left, who use these kind of um these kind of stats, it paints them as all either at best just uninformed, but at worse not to be trusted and bought. And I looked at this and I said, well, I’ve said things about that have used these facts before, and if somebody was listening to me, they would think that maybe I was paid by Big Pharma or that they’re just saying that because Better Me is sponsoring this podcast where it’s actually something that I that I think a lot of us thought was fact and thought that was that was just how it was. And I and I again, I guess we can all get subscriptions to psychology Psychology Today in our and do our good medicine uh news and make sure we’re plugged in. But we are already consuming a lot of information. But I think the answer probably more than likely is when something like this is shown, make this big news. Don’t make this underreported. Build uh ways that more people can bring in hey, we thought this yesterday and today we don’t think this anymore and make that a space that is uh more readily used than it is. And I think that sometimes we we we don’t use this news again. This is two years old. And I still see people talk about this and people who are deeply influential. And I think we’re seeing political results of it in that distrust in big pharma. And, you know, because of what happened to the CEO, because of um RFK Jr’s appointing. I thought this was a a useful thing to bring to our attention around how big pharma does manipulate things in our facts and what we say and how we say it. And if somebody does find those things out, then they will not trust us on other topics too. So it’s important to have space of being like, we were wrong or we got got, but we’re not bought. So I wanted to bring that to you all, see what y’all thought. Did y’all already know this. And am I late? Or did y’all know think this too and was this illuminating for y’all? How how what were what were you all’s response to this? 

Kaya Henderson: Um. I didn’t know this, Myles, um and I was shocked that it was a two year old article like you sent it and I was like, oh wow, this is new news. Apparently, it is not new news. Um. And it made me think of a couple of things. The first um is their can’t. Like when I think about I’ll tell you this story very quickly um and it goes back to the comment about smoking crack. If you came out of the ’80s and not smoking crack, that was like you’re a superhero because self-medicating was a rational decision. I’ll never forget um when I was chancellor of D.C. public schools and I was talking to a group of kids about why they were truant. These were the most truant kids ever. And I sat down to ask them why before we you know did drastic things to them for being truants. And one young lady said, can I tell you the truth? And I said, sure. And she said, um I don’t go to school sometimes because I smoke weed in the morning and it makes me sleepy. And so I go back to bed instead of going back to school. And I said, great. Can I ask you a question? Why are you smoking weed before you go to school instead of like on a Friday night or a Saturday night? And she said, that’s a good question. She said, I smoke weed because my life is stressful. She said, I have three younger siblings. My mother works three jobs. My father’s in jail. I have to get the kids, feed them, do their homework. Then by 10 or 11:00, it’s my turn to do homework and I’m tired. And then I got to get up and go to a school where, like, some of these teachers don’t care about me. And if I don’t do something to take the edge off, I’m going to take one of these teachers out of the frame. And I remember thinking that was such a rational, rational response to her situation. And I thought about all of my suburban friends children who are on Zoloft or Xanax or whatever else as ways–

Myles E. Johnson: Weed moms. 

Kaya Henderson: –to manage as as ways to manage stress. Right. Um. And those things are not available to our our young people, to our people generally, to poor people. And then to find out these jokers don’t even work, while at the same time Big Pharma has helped to normalize conversations about mental health so that making so that you can it is easy for you. And I’m not diminishing anybody who has anxiety or depression or whatever the case may be, but it is much easier to get a diagnosis now and to get these these anti-depressants prescribed to you. And so in an age where we actually should be talking more about our mental health concerns and whatnot, to see Big Pharma profiting in this incredible way because we’ve expanded access and the drugs don’t actually work feels so crazy. It just feels crazy to me. Um. So that was one point. The second point that I thought a lot about is what else antidepressants are actually used for. And I learned this because I’m an auntie of a certain age, and you know I have come to learn that one of the sort of off brand um uses for antidepressants is in controlling menopausal symptoms. Antidepressants are very good at mitigating insomnia and hot flashes and brain fog and all of these menopausal um uh symptoms, I think they call them motor vaginal motor something. Anyway, don’t get me trying to be medical. So then I looked up what are the other uses for antidepressants? Because if they are not good  at evening you out, cause they don’t work the way they do. There is something that they are doing for somebody. And so I’m looking at a thing from the Cleveland Clinic which says that they are actually effective for headaches and migraines. They are very effective for neuropathic pain, chronic low back pain, fibromyalgia and chronic widespread pain, abdominal and gastrointestinal pain. Maybe they are just good painkillers. And maybe when you are not in all of this pain, you’re not depressed anymore. Anyway pelvic and ural gynologic problems, insomnia, and psychiatric indications other than depression like obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, etc.. Let’s just call the thing a thing. If they are good at those things, let us use them for those things. But let’s stop mass marketing to people who are trying to deal with real health issues with meds that don’t work. 

DeRay Mckesson: This this article um Myles a couple of things. One, so before Kaya. I actually have a question because I didn’t know this. Did you? You actually met with the truant kids yourself? 

Kaya Henderson: Yes. Mm hm. So I’ll tell you why. Um. I had one city council member who wanted me to send kids to Scared Straight programs who were truant. And I was like not working. I don’t think that that works. And then another council member who wanted to criminalize truancy, lock up the parents and then lock up the kids. And I said, have we ever talked to these kids and asked them why they’re truant? And the interesting thing I’m glad you asked that question, DeRay is when I talked to I talked to um the most truant kids at the two uh largest high schools in D.C. And do you know what the real problem was? The real problem was we gave them bus and train passes that only covered a half of a month’s worth of travel. And so by the 15th, they were out of transportation money. And so that’s why they weren’t coming to school. 

Myles E. Johnson: Wow. 

Kaya Henderson: And after that conversation, we passed the Kids Ride Free Act here in Washington, D.C., where basically your student I.D. is a bus or a train pass and you can ride as much as you want for free during before school hours and after school hours. And we watched truancy plummet. 

Myles E. Johnson: Wow. 

DeRay Mckesson: Shout out. You know, listen, it matters. Shout out to–

Kaya Henderson: You gotta go you have to go talk to the people. 

Myles E. Johnson: Wow. 

Kaya Henderson: Why are they being truant? And the things that these kids said were thoughtful and rational and and they were things that we could control. And so we did. 

DeRay Mckesson: That’s [?] and I love that you went. You didn’t send you know the–

Kaya Henderson: I took one group to I took one group to Ihop for breakfast and I took the other group for pizza for lunch. And we sat down and we just had a regular conversation. 

DeRay Mckesson: I love that. Um. I didn’t know this article. Two years is crazy. I think about the um the long tail of Occupy. Introducing the critique of billionaires and and calling into question that this idea of how much is enough. And when I read when I read this, when I hear you two talk about it, it’s like there is already enough profit. Like you are these like you guys are tripping over money. There’s no. 

Kaya Henderson: Yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: Right. 

DeRay Mckesson: The CEOs, the the companies are making a lot of money like there is. There’s no you know, and at a point, you know, I have never had a billion dollars or a million dollars. But I have to imagine that the difference between 30 billion and 35 at some point, just you know it, I don’t know. It just sort of whatever. And I say that because, um you know, it was interesting to see the placebos, you know, have do a whole lot of work in helping people feel better. But also that, you know, this is a money maker to sell people all these pills. And I’m hopeful that in this I do think that we are reaching a breaking point of all this. Which way we go, I don’t know. But I do think people are more primed to listen to what’s happening to them and like more primed to be like, that’s wrong, this is crazy. Da da da. Whereas I think before you just were on the like, no, that feels a little too crazy. But we’ve been through enough that is crazy that I think people are like, okay, but I even I think about like, you know, some of the I only know this because I was in a meeting with somebody who focuses on super rare diseases. They run a nonprofit that does work only around super rare diseases and how the only reason why we don’t have medicine for them is because it’s not profitable. But I think about the history of health insurance in this country, Blue Cross Blue Shield, separate entities that became one later. They started out as nonprofit endeavors. You know what I mean? Like this was not always set up to milk people out of money, life and limb. And I am hopeful that the more and more these stories penetrate through because and I have friends who are billionaires and I’m like, you just like, at what point do you need more money? You know, like even like, I just don’t I don’t know. 

Myles E. Johnson: The last thing I wanted like just say about this, um was also how depressed American people are. And I think one of the reasons why this should be more popular and people should start telling other people about what’s going on is because it seems as though a lot of American people are responding to their lives. And I think that the easiest thing was for big Pharma to, A,  make a lot of money, but then also say, here’s this pill that will cure you of this like dull uh melancholy that is like following everybody because you’re having a um reasonable response to your environment. And I think that this these these medications and the and the big, big pharmaification of everything makes it seem as though these pills are just this one cure and it kind of lets a lot of people off the hook because American people aren’t depressed just because that’s how we’re hard wired. We’re depressed because we’re responding to our society and our world. And our collective world is one that brings off, you know, human depression. And I think that’s a hard and more complicated thing to address. And a pill is easier. But dispelling these uh these these so-called facts is part of um us facing what’s really going on with our spirits and minds and our souls. That’s what I wanted to say. 

Kaya Henderson: Okay. My news I found in The Washington Post this week that um a coalition of former prison officials, relatives of homicide victims, civil rights advocates and religious leaders are urging President Biden to empty the federal death row before he leaves office. Um. He could commute all of the death row sentences and people are pushing him to do this um because President elect Trump so staunchly supports capital punishment. In fact, um during Trump’s first administration, after nearly two decades of pausing on federal executions, Trump resumed, he resumed federal executions. And he’s made clear that he wants to not just resume and revive, but also accelerate executions moving forward. And so people are appealing to um Biden’s professed opposition to capital punishment. He had vowed previously to push for its abolishment in the United States. They’re appealing to his um his faith and his Catholicism and and his sort of moral presence and are pushing him to use these last days um to commute the sentences of 40 people who are on federal death row. And um I brought this to the podcast basically for three reasons. So the first one is I thought I believed I thought I was like staunchly anti-death penalty um just because I know how wrong it goes and how many um how many people who are executed are, you know, don’t have fair trials and maybe didn’t do it or all kinds of things. You know, the whole Bryan Bryan Stevenson thing, just mercy. I love that. I love Jesus. I want us to be the kind of people who don’t kill people. But I was challenged when I read that, who some of these people are. And so some of the people on death row are like Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black parishioners in a church in Charleston. Or the surviving Boston Marathon bomber, um or the attacker who gunned down 11 people at a at the synagogue in Pittsburgh. Now, other people are less prominent and have done you know other things, but it really made me think, um would I be okay with commuting the death penalty for some of those people? And it’s an open question for me. The second reason that I um brought this to the pod was because it made me think a lot about like, legacy and what what does Mr. Biden want his legacy to be? I think there’s a lot of talk that is trying to push him in one direction or the other. Talking about this will tarnish our legacy. Witness the Hunter Biden pardon or this will cement your legacy. And I think the only person who can determine what their legacy is going to be is the person. Right. Because Mr. Biden gets to decide what’s important to him and what he wants to, you know, put his thumb on the scales for. And that is not always the things that other people think are important, which then led me to think, is this the most important thing? Is this the thing that, you know, I could think of 25 things that I want him to do in these last how many ever days and um and so I just wondered um I wondered how you guys thought about this. I wondered what it made you think about the death penalty and legacy and the importance of this issue. 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, well, I think you’re I think um the way you feel is actually the way a lot of people feel. I don’t think that the I don’t think the majority of Americans are aligned on the end of that penalty when they think about the crimes. So when we ask people in the abstract, just like when we asked people in the abstract, like about max sentences of 20 years, they’re like, yes. When you say when you apply that to a crime, it is a resounding no. Right. It’s they don’t believe it for a murder, rape, da da, they might believe it for petty theft. But it’s [?]. You know, like that’s not the numbers don’t matter. So I think that’s right. I also don’t think that I think I don’t think he identifies as progressive. You know, I think that people want him to be progressive. He does not. That’s not. I think he identifies as the left and da da da. And [?]. But progressive is not how I think he would even self-identify. Um. And he didn’t commute anybody’s sentences or pardon anybody, for that matter. So commuting would be sort of making the consequence less but you still are have a real consequence pardon. You know, like a part of that clemency process, he could actually let people out. He could he could make it so all the people on death row just have life sentences and don’t get executed. Um. And I don’t think that that is I think they know that it would be popular to not do that. And Trump knows that it would be popular to execute some people who, you know, Black people would support Trump if he oversaw the execution of Dylann Roof. It would be a huge it would be something that people would never forget, that T– that they would say Trump did right, even though it the prosecution happened under another president and it was the Office of Civil Rights and all like it was an office that he is going to remove. Um. Still, he would be the president when it happened. You know, like so I or like he could be the president when it happens. I’m sure Dylann Roof is it’s like a while away. But he is so I don’t know. I’m mixed on it. I I don’t have any strong I, I think Biden is going to go out with a whimper, not a punch. I don’t think that this I think this is going to trickle down and it just sort of happens. 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, I agree with you. And then I also just wonder what some people on the left are thinking or where their minds are or did we not see the same president? Because everybody on this call seems to you know, the first thing DeRay said was this is Biden would not describe himself as a progressive president. So I feel like it seems obvious to me, but I’m but uh to me, it appears as though the Democrats are thinking that, oh we’re going to go to the right. Right. And I’m wondering where this appeal is even coming from if you know that people are if you if you know the Democrats are going to the right, it just seems like, I don’t know just a little bit of like cognitive dissonance, like a like almost like you, you don’t want to believe that the Democrats are going to be, you know, the next time they’re going to have them, the American psycho looking dude, and they’re going to be more right and it’s going to be more a more conservative uh moment. And I don’t know some something about this feels weird. It almost reminds me even of the the trans congressional congress protest that I like, that I saw over the weekend of the trans folks kind of going and going into the bathroom and stuff. 

Kaya Henderson: The bathrooms. 

Myles E. Johnson: And there lots of thoughts on that. But then also just I don’t know who you, y’all, think y’all are appealing to anymore because I just I’m maybe this is just the cynicism in me, but I’m like, oh no, Democrats are not doing nothing that can make them sound like no loony toon lefties anymore. Like that is that era just seems to be done. And we’re going to have to do a lot of fighting to get it back. But just reading this, I’m like no, they’re prepping of how to how do they sell themselves as still conservative. Still. Still not as radical. This to me would totally be in opposition of what they’re what I’m seeing that the rebrand probably is going to be. So I would just be deeply surprised if Biden did anything progressive because he wasn’t a progressive president in that way. But then also it just doesn’t, Democrats seem to think this is not the time to be more progressive. So I don’t know it seems like time has ran on on that push. [music break]

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DeRay Mckesson: Well, that’s it. Thanks so much for tuning in to Pod Save the People this week. Don’t forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. And if you enjoyed this episode of Pod Save the People, consider dropping us a review on your favorite podcast app. And we’ll see you next week. Pod Save the People is a production of Crooked Media. It’s produced by AJ Moultrié and mixed by Vasilis Fotopoulos. Executive produced by me and special thanks to our weekly contributors Kaya Henderson, De’Ara Balenger and Myle E. Johnson. [music break]

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