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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 De’Ara talking about the news that you don’t know. We talk about the DNC, where me and De’Ara were and Myles watched. We talk about some of the crime bill stuff [?] a lot of cool stuff going on this week. So thanks for listening. Here we go. 

De’Ara Balenger: Family. Welcome to a post convention Pod Save the People. This is De’Ara Balenger. You can find me on Instagram at @dearabalenger. 

Myles E. Johnson: This is Myles E. Johnson. You can find me at @pharaohrapture on Instagram. 

DeRay Mckesson: And this is DeRay at @deray on Twitter. 

De’Ara Balenger: Well here we are 70 some odd days out to Election Day. I’m feeling pumped after coming home from Chicago. I’m still so tired. I don’t know how, but I ended up working. Naturally as a Black woman in the Democratic Party. No way around it. No way around it. [laughter] So eager to hear what y’all thought about all the things. I’m still processing myself. I just feel like there was so much to take in, so much to be excited about, so much to question, so much to really have curiosity about what’s next to come. I did hear, just in terms of the election, fundraising numbers came out for Kamala Harris just in the 35 days since she’s announced, and I think it is over $54 million. That’s quite a chunk of change for just over a month. So I think that also has me excited about just her capacity to raise money and just the excitement around raising money. And I’m just hoping that the finance team for this campaign and for the DNC is building capacity for itself so that we can capture even more and more and more. I think right now everyone’s drinking from a fire hose. And so now post-convention, it’s like, okay, let’s continue to build infrastructure so that we can make the most of every single resource that we have. I don’t necessarily know where to start with the DNC. I mean, I think the highlight for me was Michelle Obama. I think it was honestly the best speech in American political history. 

DeRay Mckesson: Go ahead. 

De’Ara Balenger: When you’re talking about that stage, that’s one of all convention Democratic party time. I’m going to start there, but eager to hear what you all have to say and what you think. 

DeRay Mckesson: So let me just first by giving a shout out to one De’Ara Balenger. Because De’Ara helped us bring in the uh Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s mother, Miss Gwen Carr, who is Eric Garner’s mother, and then Lezley McSpadden, who is Michael Brown’s mother. We took them to the DNC. If you remember, they spoke in 2016. They were guests of the party this year. And we ran into some logistical hurdles because, you know, it was a Biden DNC. And then it becomes a Kamala DNC. So the people and all this have changed. But who came through in the end? De’Ara was working. And she made sure that the mothers were taken care of. And it was incredible and amazing. And then we had a small event around criminal justice called going on the offensive so that we weren’t just always was on the defense and we had Kim Foxx speak, and the lieutenant governor of Michigan and Caron Butler, and it was just very, very, very good. And De’Ara was a key part of it. So shout out to De’Ara. Shout out to the DNC. I was definitely ready to come home too. [laughter] Friday morning I’m like, I’m ready to go. Um. I thought Michelle’s speech was incredible. Uh. I thought Barack’s speech was incredible. It was cool to see Michelle get to be herself and not have to be this bottled up first lady who the news just picked on at every step of the way. I think it was also cool to just see, you know, the cool thing about the DNC is that everybody’s there. And you see anybody on the left who you are trying to see? We all in the same building, walking down the same hall. And and I got a lot of work done. I will say to the numbers, it was just announced today, I don’t know if you saw it, that they’re about to do the bus tour in Georgia. 

De’Ara Balenger: Mm hmm. 

DeRay Mckesson: Kamala and Walz, Coach Walz .They have 400,000 volunteers in the state of Georgia. There are 174 staffers and 24 campaign offices. They are saying that almost 4% of Georgia’s population is a Harris campaign volunteer. And I love it. 

De’Ara Balenger: How about that? 

DeRay Mckesson: So it’s so cool to see these states in play that people had sort of written off. Florida, Texas, Georgia, places where people were like, it’s impossible and da da da da da. And suddenly, you know, you get a good candidate and a good campaign and we back in play. 

Myles E. Johnson: And nobody should ever have been saying it was impossible because as somebody who’s lived in Georgia, almost half of the time that I’ve been alive, and the other part was Brooklyn, I know Georgia is very Black. And the feeling of seeing Obama win and being in Atlanta and being in Georgia during that time, it’s simply a strategy thing, if you can’t turn Georgia blue. Because the people are there. So what I was thinking every single time I saw the convention, so I’ve been having a lot more conversations with my boyfriend’s mom because um where I live now, she is very close and accessible, and she is a more radical by the day sixty year old woman and she um texted me and she was like saying, oh my gosh, this feels like church. I’m so happy listening to Michelle Obama speak and stuff. And when I was watching, so many different people speak, but specifically Michelle Obama, I thought, like to myself, oh, Democrats have the best gold sneakers. Like when we really put our minds to it, if we want to seduce people, if Democrat, I’m saying we, see? I’m drinking the Kool-Aid. 

DeRay Mckesson: Say it, go ahead. Where your flag at? Get that flag. [laughter]

Myles E. Johnson: If if Democrats want to seduce people, if they want to use cutting edge ways of videography, if they want to use celebrity power, they have the best gold sneakers. And the thing about it is you’re wearing gold sneakers without knowing you’re wearing gold sneakers. Meaning when you see Trump do something, it feels like pandering. It feels like political seduction. It feels like lies. And with, you know, Democrats, some of it’s true, some of it’s not. We all know how the political game goes. But during those four days. I’m drinking the Kool-Aid. I was disappointed like so many else. There was just no trans visibility and there was no Palestinian visibility. And I don’t want to say visibility and representation, like I’m watching a Disney film and I would like to see myself. I really do think that people of different identities, give different dimensions to the nation. And it felt odd to be talking about this new world, this world that is surpassing what the world that Trump was trying to project into the American consciousness. And for that new, exciting world that everybody is excited for. To not have significant groups of our population. And I get it because as somebody who’s on the gender nonconforming trans and Black and left and millennial spectrum, [laugh] I get why you wouldn’t want to speak to somebody from our group because you want to win and you don’t want to mess this up. And I totally get it. But that doesn’t make the disappointment any less real. And I do think, I wish there could have been a little bit more strategy of how do we still win? How do we still seduce and capture the people we want to capture, but still give more people chances to speak and be heard during um this historic moment? 

De’Ara Balenger: I thought about this. I’ve been thinking about this as I was walking around the halls of the convention. And, you know, whether it was DeRay or Tamika Mallory or Carmen Perez or Linda Sarsour, like DeRay, this is a new thing, actually, that activists are at a convention like this, right? This is my third convention, and I [sigh] I do think it’s because of the work of folks in this party who and Minyon and I’ll talk about Minyon later, but Minyon says it best and this is what I live by, you don’t look in a room to see who’s in it, to see how important you are. You look in that room to see who’s missing. And that’s why it was so important to have those mothers there. Because of who they are, of how they are, and what they mean for this country and what we owe them. Right. So I think, Myles, to your point, what I would have liked to see more of, but I think we can achieve this, right? Because we can do anything now. Now that’s where my mind is at. We didn’t have a lot of activist representation in the programming, right? Like even in ’16, we had like Astrid Silva, who was one of the dreamers, like we did have more folks who were sort of from the movement community who were mainstage. We had that in like the repro space, Mini Timmaraju. Shout out to Mini, I love you girl. And others but when it really comes to sort of like the movement work we’re talking about, that was missing. But I am so encouraged by folks being in the building, because I remember in ’16 how hard it was for us to even be in conversation and be in community with activists. Right. So I think Myles like, let’s take our notes for inauguration programming because we are going to get our notes to the powers that be, i.e. Black women, and make sure that we do the job of being inclusive because it’s actually true. It could be better, but the inclusivity is there, the welcoming is there. But I actually read and I forget who it was. I think it’s it’s like the first Palestinian representative of Georgia, maybe, who the uncommitted campaign wanted to speak. And I read the speech, it’s in Mother Jones, and it was beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful and unifying from people who are so devastated. So I agree. I think that part was missing, but I think we can fix it. And I know that I’m going to do everything in my power to do that. So hope people are hearing that and you’ll be, expect my phone call. [laughter]

DeRay Mckesson: I second all of that. And this is not um an excuse for the party. Let me just say that on the front end before I say what I’m going to say. I will say I think the party is actually reading the mood of the country. They are reading the tea leaves correctly for where the country is today. Which is not to say they should not be leading us to a more progressive world. And like you said, De’Ara and Myles like helping to push back against some of the bad vibes that might be popular just because they’re not right. So recently YouGov did a poll of men aged 18 to 29. And I’m looking at the data the other day. And, you know, when we look at this poll done for subsets of people, whether it’s man or or women or all voters together, Israel-Palestine is not a top five issue for men. For Black men, for instance, Israel-Palestine is the lowest ranked issue. The only lower issue is other. And I say that because I do think that the campaign is like there’s a small part of the country who cares about this. And when they have to choose the top five issues, it is just, you know, it’s inflation, it’s housing. For Black people, crime and race actually comes in the top five. But the foreign issues actually are taking more time on the news than they are when people have to choose. And I think that is true actually in the polling data across subsets. And even in the, you know, people are really transphobic. And that also shows up in the polling data. Like however we ask it. But there’s a question that showed up and I was really fascinated by, it says there’s a question in the poll that’s like, you know, with the two parties, what do you think they’re focused on? And I was looking at Black men, and the number one thing they say the Democratic Party is focused on is trans issues. It is the number one thing that they poll, 18 to 29. 

De’Ara Balenger: Wait. 

DeRay Mckesson: De’Ara, I’m looking at the thing like. 

De’Ara Balenger: Wait. 

DeRay Mckesson: I’m like, this cannot be what you. And it is like there is this idea that has percolated in communities that like, that is the only thing they care. It was like trans issues and then feminism. And then with the Republican Party, it was like the party mimics or like has my issues at heart. It’s cared about freedom da da, and I’m sitting here, I’m looking at the polling data like, this is nuts. We got a lot of work to do, but I think that they are looking at the same polling data and trying to like, I think that they are not making the best decisions with the polling data. But I do think it is data informed that that makes sense, which is why I was saying I’m not making excuses for it. But I’ll tell you when I look at any polling data about attitudes, especially in this moment, because Trump really did a number on attitudes, it does remind me that the organizing work is like convincing work. It’s not just demand work. It is like laying the foundation for the argument over and over and over again. And it is making really smart demands. And there’s a part of all the movements. I’m not talking about uncommitted. I think it is true of the police work too, where I think we got really comfortable that people just get it and we stop making the case, and we only made the demand. And I never take for granted that we got to like, make the case and make the case and make the case and make the case because, you know, people can slip. There was a time where BLM was the most important issue for voters. It was, you know? And we have lost a lot of ground because the video alone doesn’t do it. We got to make the case. And Myles, did you know, this is one of the first conventions without trans representation in a long time? Like did you all see that article? 

Myles E. Johnson: I didn’t see that. But that’s where I wanted to enter on a little bit because so I think the thing for me, right. When the whole like prop eight and like marriage equality was big and Obama essentially had to say that he believed that marriage was between a man and a woman. And then during his presidency, he evolved. And I’m putting evolved, because most of you all will be hearing that, I’m putting that in air quotes, because essentially, I don’t really believe that President Barack Obama evolved. I think that he was always pretty cool with it, and he knew what he had to say to win. And I think when I was watching the DNC, what I really felt was, oh, here we are again. Here we are again with these people who are like, listen, you’re cool with us, what are your pronouns again? They/them. Cool. We totally get it. But just so we can get in, we have to dance for a ignorant majority. And I thought that felt disappointing for me. That felt disappointing because yeah, we can look at all the data from men. We can look at all the data for these other people when it comes to what they care about. But there are Palestinian Americans. I get my olive oil from Palestinian people in solidarity, and it was easy for me to do that because there’s Palestinian Americans. So I think as long as there are Americans who care about that and the fact that the issue was even listed. I don’t know. I just felt like that felt regressive. I felt like, oh, there’s not even. I mean, we have Janet baked in, Laverne Cox baked in, like, just put them on the stage in the our most, we got the most respectable ones. Like, we don’t have to give– 

DeRay Mckesson: You said baked in. You’re so funny.

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. Go ahead and give it. And then they showed you the speech. And I’m sure it just felt like we don’t want another Bush or conservative presidential run. And it felt like everything was kind of being, I don’t know, like it just it felt so weird. It felt it felt oddly regressive that those things were absent. Yeah. 

De’Ara Balenger: Mm hmm. 

DeRay Mckesson: It was ’16 and ’20. So there was a trans speaker in ’16 and in ’20.

De’Ara Balenger: And in ’20. 

DeRay Mckesson: And then not, not this year. 

De’Ara Balenger: And it looks like this convention had a historic number of trans and non-binary delegates. But historic number. Wowzers. It’s 45 out of 4700. 

DeRay Mckesson: And I will say I think that there’s a long tail for what defund did to us that we are still in the hell of. And they had a sheriff, Chris Swanson, speaking at the convention. I remember turning around and seeing him on the jumbotron. He’s from Genesee County in Michigan, and one of the, a lawyer activist tweeted, and I quote, “the sheriff featured by Democrats last night is the same sheriff we recently sued over taking cash from private equity owned telecom companies.”

De’Ara Balenger: Yup. 

DeRay Mckesson: “To eliminate the ability of children to visit their parents in jail, on the theory that families would spend more money on monopoly calls.” He went on national TV a few weeks ago and admitted banning family visits is wrong. Terrible policy, that he did it to make money and that he would end the ban. But his lawyers are arguing in court that children do not have a constitutional right to hug and visit their parents. And like you, Myles, I’m like, y’all could have found. I mean, clearly, I spent my career fighting against police violence. You could have found a very hokey dokey, nice sheriff who’s out there. 

Myles E. Johnson: Tim Walz don’t know nobody? [laughter]

DeRay Mckesson: Right. Right. 

Myles E. Johnson: [?] he have a beer with?

DeRay Mckesson: Who is out there doing Sunday runs with the kids, but instead, you find this guy you know I’m like, what are y’all thinking? So I don’t disagree with you. And I think that again, I just say I don’t take for granted that we have to do a little more of the legwork to shift the attitudes of people, because I think I took for granted how much the Trump world shifted people away from where we had gotten them, in a good way. I am interested. I think that she will be a more progressive president than she is candidate. I believe that in general, like on all the issues.

De’Ara Balenger: I do. I think you know y’all for me, I always go to the team, right? And I’ve been thinking a lot about this over this past week, because there are a lot of people like me that were in politics for a long time and then became entrepreneurs. You know, we’re still doing purpose work, but I ain’t in it. And sometimes I think. Maybe I should have stayed in it because I think we just need more numbers. We need more people who are really in it for our people. Right. And I think we need people that have experience. Because the thing is, I’ve worked two conventions before. There are a significant number of Black folks and Latino folks that have worked conventions. But not significant significant, if you know what I’m saying. It’s like having experience working those conventions. It’s like next level and going in and having people do this job for the first time and expecting them to do their job and do the work of making sure people are taken care of, which is always another full time job. Not everybody, you know, sort of has the bandwidth for that. I mean, I say all that to say, I think when it comes to the programming, when it comes to just the possibility of what more it could have looked like. I think we can do that. But I do think we need to get organized around it. I think we need to make sure that we’re getting folks set up and supported in the right way in this party. But, you know, I noticed a lot of things like, like DJ Cassidy, like no disrespect. DJ Cassidy, you’re great. But we used D.J. Cassidy in 2016. But once we got folks like D-Nice and others on board, need I say more? But I also think what happened is that a lot of these people were booked. They were booked and then our nominee changed. And then some of this we were sort of not stuck with, but it was the programming that sort of have already been approved, vetted, etc. and ready for primetime. 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. And I really do hope that we get out of this like, entertainer thing, you know, like how to reach out to people like, I don’t know how I feel like I almost am just like wishing on a star every podcast or and just every single day about just hoping that we get to a point where there is a better separation between like artists, intellectuals who are public versus celebrities. Because I am tired from both sides of this celebrity like I’ve just before I got on here, I like I know, like Miley Cyrus is interviewing um Vice President Harris and it’s no shade, but I don’t care. 

De’Ara Balenger: Yes, yes, yes to what you’re saying. Because partly the effort has always, from my perspective, is like we are trying to widen the tent. Right. And that means celebrities. But really, for me, it’s also like community leaders and thought leaders and sort of architects of culture. 

Myles E. Johnson: It’s just also a lot of people too. I get it, because I think the left still has to be conservative and to like a certain degree. So I understand the choices of who they make public. And I do think that if you really get the artists, like, for instance, not saying that I agree with every single thing that this person has said, but there’s just not a world where I look at the things that No Name has done and she not be engaged with and then see other people. I’m trying not to name anybody but other people from the Black community or from the entertainment community in general, not be engaged with, even if No Name says some stuff where you’re like, now girl, we ain’t doing all of that. We already know what you got. But it just shows I don’t know if there’s just a level of like disrespect and irreverence towards Black people that I feel when I see like, oh, so many entertainers go on. And I really feel that. But even broader than Black people too. That’s why I even mentioned Miley Cyrus. I’m over that in general. But just to answer your question DeRay, about Vice President Harris, I think she’ll be way more liberal for me domestically. But I think as I get older, the more I desire to see somebody who is also take making it really important that we’re not seen as this like imperialist bully globally too. And I think Palestine woke me up to that. But there’s been Congo I think there’s so many instances that happened. But I think and you know I’m not the first like that was what Vietnam was about. Right. Like we want to not be seen as this like imperialist bully. And that is becoming more and more important specifically as things make our world feel smaller, like, you know, climate change. [laugh] Where you’re like we might need some help, you know? 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah. The only thing I’ll say is I actually agree with De’Ara on this. I do think there’s a sweet spot for for entertainers or for celebrities only, because again, when I look at the polling data, for instance, amongst Black men of the men polled for Black men, for all men. But like when I [?] about Black men, LeBron James is the most trusted Black man. More than Charlamagne, more than Umar. You know, they trust Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, they trust them. But like, people really do trust they trust John Cena. They trust LeBron. Like there are people who disproportionately. 

Myles E. Johnson: Pharaoh. 

DeRay Mckesson: Americans know and they trust. And I do think recruiting those people makes sense. I think what I get annoyed by is what De’Ara is saying. I’m like, I don’t know, D.J. Cassidy, but you know, I know a lot of people across every age group who knows D-Nice they just do. We were all on Instagram when he did those things. You know, people still want to meet him. People want to see him. He’s culturally relevant. He cares. And I think it’s not harmful. But I do think there’s a sweet spot. I think it can backfire less because I think that, you know, it’s hard to rail against the billionaires. And then all you see is famous people. Like I think that is a weird that’s a dissonant message. So I thought this did a good balance. And I think that they can highlight a lot of voices and blah blah blah so. 

De’Ara Balenger: Also it’s a campaign we need everybody. I think that’s when I get Myles to your point around the Miley Cyrus of it all. It’s like if our stars are going to be and we did this in ’16, if it is like Katy Perry. 

Myles E. Johnson: Not Katy Perry. 

De’Ara Balenger: And nobody else, and then we go ask Beyoncé to do something three weeks before the election, that’s where I get incensed. So I think it’s really it’s like we got to go after everybody. Like it shouldn’t be all the folks of color and like, that all comes last. 

Myles E. Johnson: And it might be me, like, and not even might be. It probably is me. Because as you two were speaking, it reminded me of that kind of like very viral now clip of like Malcolm X where he talks about them inviting, um you know, the white mainstream news media inviting all these entertainers and sports players who are Black and asking about political issues and Malcolm X poses that this is actually on purpose. This is strategic. Why are you asking entertainers and sports players about things that is outside of their expertise and then, you know, to y’alls point there are entertainers who are white who asked to engage about that thing, but it also feels like just as many intellectuals in big air quotes and statesmen talking about these things, too. It just feels more balanced for white people, [laugh] and it feels extremely not in balance when it comes to Black people, and I don’t think that’s accidental, and I think that people on the left should be more aware of those optics. And I know that sometimes just being popular or the poll numbers could be so enticing, but I just think that this person may not have all the followers. This person may not be as influential, but this conversation actually laid some really deep groundwork. It can do something that a zoom call with Lizzo can’t do. No shade to Lizzo. 

De’Ara Balenger: And I think that’s even and sorry to keep us here, but. Like even in some of our text exchanges over speeches like y’all, I am so excited just about having dynamic, nuanced substance to speak about. 

Myles E. Johnson: Oh my God. 

De’Ara Balenger: I mean, we don’t agree with all of these people. We are in reverence. 

Myles E. Johnson: You couldn’t get me to shut up. You could. I’m like, I’ll talk about this all day. Usually I’m like, I don’t care. 

De’Ara Balenger: But that is like, what a time to be an American. 

Myles E. Johnson: Absolutely. 

De’Ara Balenger: Like, what? A country that we have where some of those speakers. I mean, I was jumping to my feet and screaming when Michelle said, tell him this might be a Black job. I thought I was going to pass out. Like and even the beauty of like, Tim Walz and his son Gus in that exchange that they had, that was I mean. 

Myles E. Johnson: It was so beautiful. It woke my brain and spirit up. Like I felt engaged.

De’Ara Balenger: I mean, it is incredible. It’s incredible that that now we are living in a place and in a time where we can actually learn from the conversations we’re having, we can get even more engaged and curious from the conversations we’re having. And it’s, ugh we’re back. Or maybe we’re here. I don’t know. I–

Myles E. Johnson: [laugh] No. It’s it feels it feels so so so so so so good to do it. Because even as all the critiques that I usually do have and all the dissent that I usually do have, my dissent and my critics usually come from a place of love, you know? And, you know, my first people I was critiquing were like Beyonce and Barack Obama and Oprah, who I also want paintings of behind me because I love Black pop culture. But like it felt like for so long it felt like I hated the culture and hated what was being produced. And I also had to critique it. And it just it was just hard to do it just that was just emptying. And I just feel like I see new life in so many people who have engaged politically, and it’s just exciting. 

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

[AD BREAK]

De’Ara Balenger: So my news is about the Minyon Moore who I’ve known nearly my entire political career, but but for I would not be here. I mean, Minyon, and I think that’s sort of the gist of this article. It talks about her background. Minyon is from Chicago. It was a big deal that she was chairwoman of the convention that was in her hometown. Her first political gig was working for Jesse Jackson, who had his moment at the convention, and she went on to form this sort of political dynamite group called The Colored Girls, which is Minyon, Leah Daughtry, Donna Brazile, Tina Flournoy, and Yolanda Caraway. But these women, I’ve been blessed to be able to have worked with each of them, maybe less so with Donna, but definitely with the others in ways where I could see their approach to community and people and Black folks really come to life. And I think it has shaped so much of what my approach is not just to politics, but just my work in general and how I understand the importance of really connectedness with folks, being connected. Understanding where folks are coming from. You know, I actually like being in a room of people that disagree and seeing how we can find common ground, especially my people. And I think that folks like Minyon do it in such man, graceful. Minyon will take you to a place and you don’t even know she’s taking you there. And she’ll just keep asking you questions and you’ll just keep spilling more, spilling more. And then all of a sudden, she allows for you to use your own sort of instinct and intuition to get you to this place. And it is just a beautiful, beautiful thing. And so I was so moved, um by just this experience in sort of seeing and feeling her hand in it and then you know, we did have a moment to be able to celebrate Minyon, which was so beautiful too. So just hoping that she could feel the love and and sort of really receive her flowers. But I just wanted to sort of give her some love, say her name, get more folks to learn about who she is. But also how she is. It is just I think that is the beauty and the brilliance of Minyon Moore. And she’s someone who I don’t know how she does it, but and this article talks about it too, you can probably pick at random any Black child that has worked in Democratic politics, and they will have a story about how Minyon has supported them. It’s wild. It’s wild, so I aspire to continue to sort of walk in her footsteps and make her proud. So just shout out and love to Minyon and all the colored girls. To know them is to love them, to be a little scared too. But that’s all right. 

DeRay Mckesson: I met Minyon during the height of the protests, and then Leah, one of the other colored girls, I was on a panel with Leah’s dad, who’s an old time activist, and he was riding the protesters. I called Leah afterwards, like your father was he was giving me a hard time in that [?] on Brooklyn. But they’ve both been very kind and supportive of the movement and the protests and, and like a, uh like a nice guiding hand if I needed advice and Minyon was who set up the meeting we had with Hillary, uh the second meeting, she was the I’m texting Minyon on, like, you know, and we tried to meet with her. I endorsed Hillary in what was supposed to be the New York Times. And I you know, I gave the campaign a heads up like they couldn’t edit it, and they didn’t, but I didn’t, you know, no need to surprise people. And, you know, I sent the op ed to the New York Times. The New York Times rewrote it in a crazy way. Like they were like, it was a crazy rewrite. I was like, I’m not doing this. I eventually do it in the Washington Post. But she was always really great, and I appreciate her for helping out, helping you help the moms of the movement, at the DNC, so shout out to Minyon. It is all these people behind the scenes. I’m telling it’s it’s one of those don’t be shady, don’t be mean. And if you got an enemy, make them a real enemy. Don’t even play in the middle. Because the number of people I met ten years ago who are now running things or somebody’s cousin, or little brother. And I’m like, you see? And Minyon has lasted a long time at the highest levels. 

Myles E. Johnson: Thank you for bringing this to the podcast. The only thing that I’ll add to this, because I haven’t had the have the pleasure of meeting her like you liberal elites. [laughter] But you know, I’m still in my freshman year of liberal elitehood. But um, but uh we need more propaganda like this, and I’m not using propaganda as a pejorative. Uh. It’s to DeRay’s point about trusted Black people and trusted um Black people who know what they talking about. I this article reminded me a little bit of Maxine Waters and um even Stacey Abrams, who I know got who’s collaborating with Crooked Media now with her own stuff. And I just think there’s so much that uh needs, I know we were talking about Black men before, but I think just Black people in general, we need more people, more propaganda. More articles, more profiles of people who are in this work so the public can be aware of them and begin the trust journey with them. 

De’Ara Balenger: And I think that’s right Myles. And I’ll just say just because I can’t help but to be petty is that if you know you know these women. That is true. But I think what ends up happening is that a lot of these like white political consultants sort of get the narrative becomes that they are the best and the brightest, and they’re actually the ones that help these candidates get elected. 

Myles E. Johnson: Mmm. 

De’Ara Balenger: Nah. 

Myles E. Johnson: Which is why we need more Black media. 

De’Ara Balenger: Exactly that ain’t it. Because the work behind the scenes of keeping Black communities and keeping Black movement leaders and keeping Black community like to know that you have a plug in this, that work, that’s what wins elections. It’s not because you sent 1000 emails asking for a donation. 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. 

De’Ara Balenger: So 100% what you said, as usual. 

DeRay Mckesson: My news and tying us into the election is that my article, I think, should be required reading for all activists who do things around criminal justice. It is by a legendary criminal justice writer and academic. His name is John Pfaff and he wrote for the Garrison Project. It is called, the biggest myth about the 1994 crime bill still haunts Joe Biden, it shouldn’t. And he teaches at Fordham. What he also could have written is that this still haunts Hillary Clinton, that it haunts Bill Clinton. He could have written that it shaped so much of the discourse around how mass incarceration becomes mass. And I think about this in the context of the election, because the thing that arguably killed Kamala’s first run for president was this idea that she sent tons of Black men to prison, that she was a cop. And that narrative became so decisive that there was almost nothing that could undo it. And this year, I don’t know if you all saw Emily Bazelon. She is the writer who actually wrote the critical piece in The New York Times that took Kamala out. The moment Kamala becomes the nominee, Emily gets on Twitter and she’s like, I support Kamala Harris. She’s like full she’s like, don’t call me about that last article. She said, I wrote it and I’m voting for Kamala and y’all need to write something else. Like but I say that be okay. So let me talk about my article. The preface for this is that, remember, there are 2.3 million people incarcerated in the United States on any given day. Around 200,000 of them are incarcerated by the federal system. The vast majority of people who are incarcerated are incarcerated by cities and states. And what he does so well is that he pieces apart what people call the ’94 crime bill, that that’s what people talk about. And remember that even though the provisions expired in the early 2000s from the ’94 crime bill. It still became a huge talking point with Hillary and the super predator thing. It was a huge deal. And let me just say flat out what he writes in here is he says, there is no evidence that the crime bill contributed to mass incarceration in any meaningful way. And why? And he is completely right, is remember, the crime bill was not one bill. It was a [?] it was like a collection of bills. So it was the Violence Against Women Act. It was the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act. It was the federal assault weapon ban. It was the Cops program, which is um, there’s an office of the DOJ that sort of works directly with police departments on PD and gives them money and stuff like that. It cut Pell Grants for people in prison. It shielded personal information of abortion providers and DMV databases, and it authorized funding for things like midnight basketball. But it also included what people are referencing when they say the crime bill, contrary to mass incarceration, it was called the Violent Offender Incarceration and Truth and Sentencing Grant program. If you don’t know what truth and sentencing is, truth and sentencing is a simple concept that there should be truth in the sentence you get. And you should not be able to get out earlier than the sentence you get. So at the federal level and a lot of places, it was like 80%, 75%. You have to serve that percentage of your sentence before you’re eligible to get out or you serve 100%. So this coincided with like the in the parole in a lot of places and blah, blah, blah. And the federal government did put up $10 billion for to incentivize states to pass these laws that had truth and sentencing provisions that like that made these percentage caps that like or floors that you had to serve this percentage, and that is not a good thing. And the money was [?] from from ’95 to 2001. But what he highlights is that between 1972 and 1994, the prison population grew from 200,000 to over a million people. That was before the crime bill. And then he highlights that from ’95 to 2001, when this version of the grant expired, it grew by less than 300,000. And then he’s like it grew at another time. But what he highlights is that 60% of the growth in U.S. prisons between 1972 and 2009 took place before the program that’s in the ’94 crime bill. And what he’s reminding us is that states and cities were already doing this carceral push way before the federal government passed the crime bill. And remember that the federal government can’t make states do anything. That like this is cities and states who decided to do it. And he goes on to say that even the people who had took advantage of the money, of the 27 states that actually did something with this truth and sentencing thing, 12 said the state the grants had no impact on them. They were already doing the stuff before. They just took advantage of the money. And then 11 states said that the grant money did work for them. Only $3 billion of the $10 billion was even used. And he just goes on to detail that like the danger of getting it wrong is not actually that you absolve all the people that voted for it and da da da. The danger is that you mislocate the actual person who did it. 

De’Ara Balenger: Uh huh. 

DeRay Mckesson: And the person who did it was your governor, your mayor. That’s who did it. It was your legislature who locked everybody up. When we look at the pie of incarceration, the vast majority of people are in state prisons. That has nothing to do with the federal government. And I say that because I just think about how much airtime this took up when Hillary ran. I think about the rooms that I’m still in, where people talk about the ’94 crime bill as like the thing that did it. And it’s like, no, it is your random governor who decided that he was going to lock up everybody who stole a $5 Snickers bar for 20 years. That screwed us all over. And I say that because he has a great sentence at the end where he says mass incarceration is a national phenomenon, but it is a local story, and that is just true. So I wanted to bring that here because I want people to know, I want everybody to read this, and I want people to stop talking about the crime bill as if the federal government did it, and locate the problem with their governors and their mayors. 

De’Ara Balenger: This is revelatory. Obviously. I don’t know who’s going to read this whole long thing and change their mind about it, but. [laughter] good thing we have this podcast. I think DeRay, what’s fascinating to me, and I think another narrative piece of this that is often missing and this is just from my experience sort of noodling over the crime bill with the President Clinton and folks that worked for President Clinton, like Minyon and others at this time, that we’re doing a lot of political engagement of Black folks. And it says it here, so I’m just going to read it. As James Foreman, we love James Foreman. As James Foreman and Michael Fortner have shown, tough on crime arrests and sentencing policies often had support from local Black leaders and communities. Sometimes they even lead the charge. So what I have been told is that in the ’90s there would be sort of pastors and community leaders and moms, Black moms that would be in the White House crying, asking for something to be done around crime and violence in Black neighborhoods and communities. We can sit with that, we can discuss it. All the things. But I just feel like that is something that is often missed. And I think even as we look at criminal legal reform now and how much sort of work we have to do within our own community. It’s just very telling, and I don’t think that’s something that we are necessarily addressing or getting better at because I think, and DeRay, you would know best. But what does data say? You know, if you go to a Black community right now and say, do you want abolition? Are they going to say yes? I don’t think so. So I think that’s something that I’m very curious about exploring and understanding more of just from sort of an intellectual, psychological, trauma informed sort of place. But the other thing I will say is that I think we’re also understanding as a nation now how important governors are. Governors are a vibe right now. They are, whether it is Tim Walz or Wes Moore or Big Gretch, like I think we’re seeing now how critically important Democratic governors are in protecting folks, communities, from the federal government. So it’s just like just like they can protect you from the federal government. They also can do wild things as well. And I think a beautiful example is like Tim Walz just deciding, you know, every kid in Minnesota is going to get breakfast and lunch. Like a governor can do that. A president can’t do that, but a governor can. So this was great DeRay. Thank you. 

Myles E. Johnson: Thank you for bringing this. So I was born in 1991, despite other people’s allegations that it was like 1901. Um.

De’Ara Balenger: I thought it was 2000. So that’s–

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. 

De’Ara Balenger: That’s good. 

Myles E. Johnson: Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Keep that astigmatism you got in your eyes. Vaseline on the lens. 

DeRay Mckesson: Not [laugh]–

Myles E. Johnson: But I’ve always loved. You know, I’m born in 91. I love I love the ’90s. But I’ve always been fascinated with just like OJ and just the ’90s just feel like such an important time for the things that I, a lot of the things that I care about when it comes to the intersection of pop culture and politics. And one of the things that used to always frustrate me when I used to hear people talk about the 1994 crime bill or three strikes you’re out or whatever, is that they would totally forget that a lot of Black people wanted that stuff to go through and wanted their communities to be safer, and they saw policing as a way to make sure that that that was happening. And I think trying to take this out of the abstract as much as I can, but I think that we just have to specifically, as Black people, just breathe in and breathe out and say, we have moved more to the left than we were just within our own generation, just within our own lifetimes. And I think sometimes we can’t really handle that. And we always want to create this perfect Black utopia that was on the left that was demolished by white supremacy. And that’s not wrong. But not white people versus Black people. It’s people versus white supremacy. And we all drink that Kool-Aid and we’re all just waking up to that. That’s what’s really going on. And I used to think the over I was just also watching somebody talk about um the Tulsa massacre and how the narrative is often that Black people were thriving. Everybody was rich. White people came, bombed everything, and that was the end of it. And then the truth of that situation is everybody in Tulsa wasn’t rich. Most people weren’t. There was still a class system, class wasn’t it wasn’t a classless place. And there was a lot of most people were laborers and working class and Tulsa came back and thrived after that incident, and that disrupts the perfect narrative. And and and hopefully I’m making some sense. But to me, that 1994 crime bill and that whole era takes a similar kind of comic book washing of good versus bad, white versus Black. And it’s like, it’s not Shaft, y’all. It’s not Foxy Brown, it’s not Cleopatra Jones. It’s not a blaxploitation movie. In the realm of politics, this is really complicated things that people are just now awakening to the fact that, you know, there was one lonely Angela Davis talking about, our prisons obsolete? And people were like, hell no, my, because my uncle is crazy. Like [laughing] and that nigga belongs in the prison. Like it’s it’s really a slow, it’s a slow thing. And I think sometimes I just hear in people’s arguments this disbelief that sometimes and oftentimes Black people are the conservative white supremacist people that has helped us stay kind of in modern enslaved socially as anybody else. And I think that’s a hard truth for us to um swallow. And I think reports like this make us have to swallow the complexity of us. I know that was scattered, but–

DeRay Mckesson: You got there in the end. I do think, too, this takes me back to how we started this conversation about the like the role of celebrities or people with big followings. I think that if if I wasn’t at Campaign Zero, what I would go do for the party would be like running an institute for influencers or somebody on the content, because you get all these people who have these huge platforms and they they can under we can teach people what inflation is like this is none of this stuff is so wild nobody can understand it. 

Myles E. Johnson: Right. 

DeRay Mckesson: And we can like start helping people understand the content because I’ll tell you, I’m leaving the convention and I um, I’m taking an Uber back to the hotel, and the guy that picks me up, he goes, are you voting and da da? And I was like, I was at the convention. He’s like, Kamala or Trump. Like he’s like, I don’t know nothing about politics. And since we gotta ride, tell me. He’s 30 years old, so we talked about it and he’s doubled down on the stimulus checks. He’s like, you know, Trump gave people the stimulus checks. And then he’s sort of like, they all lie. He’s sort of like it all is like she is going to lie. He lies. Politicians lie, doesn’t even matter. So that’s and he’s not even like he’s like earnest about it. So we go back and forth and I’m, I’m talking about like, you know, the billionaires with taxes. And I debunked the stimulus check stuff. But it was like I wasn’t like speaking euphemisms. He, like, was smart enough to understand the issues. Like he got it, you know, he’s like, I’m like, do you think that the police should be, have immunity for everything? Which is what Trump said. Or do you think we showed them accounta– like, you know, he gets it. Should price gouging be something that the federal government engages in? Or should you just be left to fend for yourself? And, you know, if anything, he was sort of like hopeless about he was sort of like resigned to the fact that the government can’t do anything. And I’m sitting up here like, no, you know, you gotta make these people do it. Like you have a lot more power than the system [?] would tell you. But I say that to say that it was my reminder that like that the work of getting people on our side is real work. Like, they don’t just, like, get there because they magically get there. And we got to start trusting our people to know the content, and I do. I hear a lot of influencers who are, they defend Kamala like they defended Hillary and da da da and they are given the like, you just need to do it. And I think that you just need to do it is not a–

De’Ara Balenger: I agree. 

DeRay Mckesson: That’s not working no more. 

De’Ara Balenger: Totally agree with that. And that’s why I believe that canvasing during a political election is the most delicious and troubling thing that you can do as a citizen of the United States. It is just actually getting out of your bubble and having to articulate what your values are and what you really believe and this DeRay, to your point is like part of the thing that is being taught less and less in schools is just sort of like how to digest and synthesize information, make it make sense. And so I think part of the getting out there and actually knocking on doors, I know it is a wild thing to like knock on a stranger’s door. I mean, I think it’s a wilder thing to like, date somebody from an app. 

Myles E. Johnson: No, it’s not. Because y’all did Halloween. Y’all went to Hallelujah night. Go ahead and you knock on that door. 

De’Ara Balenger: Yeah, exactly. [laugh]And that’s essentially DeRay, what you were doing. It’s like you got to go out there and say, I believe in this. And you, our common ground is that we want this place to be better for both of us, for our communities, for our families. Let’s hash it out. Let’s talk about it. Not with our thumbs on the internet, you know? So can’t wait to get out there to canvas. Can’t wait. Taking everybody with me. Let’s go. 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. First stop Minneapolis. [laughter]

De’Ara Balenger: Well, my cousin has a food truck, so I’m like, you know what we could do? Just drive that food truck all around. 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. 

De’Ara Balenger: All around town, all the  around the north side. 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. We’ll [?]–

DeRay Mckesson: Can we call it cooking with Kamala? Come get your meal. Cooking with Kamala. We cooking. 

Myles E. Johnson: So I was going to say something about Lake Minnetonka. Because you know, everything’s–

DeRay Mckesson: Oh. 

Myles E. Johnson: –Prince with me. [laugh]

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

[AD BREAK]

Myles E. Johnson: So I know that I’m not the only spooky queer um out there. I am so over summertime. I am done. It’s complete. 

De’Ara Balenger: Same. 

Myles E. Johnson: So in order to manifest cooler weather, full moons, the crunch of autumn leaves, a nice uh werewolf howl in the background. I have began watching horror movies. I’ve just started it. Usually I wait until at least mid September or late September October, but I just need it now. And one of the things that I, as I was watching some one of my favorite genres is exploitation and pulp films. I love them oh so so so much. And I of course I love Black exploitation films. But I found this film that I knew nothing about and I kid you all not, it literally went to like my top five favorite films and I have great taste you all. [laugh] Like I have really good taste in films and television, and for it to just cut through up to the top was that was not easy. The film is Bill Gunn’s 1973 horror um called uh, Ganja & Hess. So the story of Ganja & Hess is just the it’s a um, compelling tale as the film itself written directed by Bill Gunn and released in New York on April 20th, 1973. The Black vampire movie has lost none of its power over the last 50 years. It artfully depicts a wealthy anthropologist, Doctor Hess Greene, who is stabbed by his assistant George with an ancient African ceremonial dagger. Before George kills himself. The dagger turns Hess into a vampire, and further complications ensue when George’s widow, Ganja comes to Hess’s home looking for her husband, and the two fall hopelessly in love. So that plot summary hardly can do what seeing the film would do. When I say that there’s so many metaphors for drug use, metaphors for Black people’s relationship with Christianity, and the blood of Jesus. Um. Speaking of, Spike Lee did a not so good remake of this film. I watched that too, and that’s not, you know, but Spike Lee did do a film that concentrated more on the connection between um, Jesus and blood and Black folks, but this um film also has a lot of things around drugs, illicit sexuality, like obsession. It was just such an interesting horror fantasy film from any perspective, and I was so gagged that I had never heard this and as I cracked it open, I see that it’s very much so a cult classic that had um it’s like revitalation within the last like 20 years. So it makes sense that me being the spring chicken I am was ignorant to it. But the other thing, as I’m always kind of thinking about when it comes to Black um representation in media, is that the critiques surpass race critiques in Black film, which I find to be so hard to do and to define even today, like I loved well enough American Fiction, I should say. But I always think about how so many of our stories that are told differently are always based around kind of um these race epiphanies and race relations and stuff like that. And this deals with things that are of existential in nature. It deals with class in a really interesting way. It it talks about class in a really interesting way and positions uh what happens when uh Black people are sophisticated or when they’re elevated or, have economic mobility. But then there’s this other thing inside of us that I think is like, you know, the dreaded inner wild Negro that lives in everybody, that Dave Chappelle made comedies about, like, it really deals with that idea through the vampire lens and through this kind of, like, African um haunting and shadow that follows us at all times, as I’m saying with the African mask behind me. But there’s this African wildness that’s behind every Black person, no matter their education level. And it deals with that in such an interesting way. And I was like, wow, this is such good cinema, such good film. The article comes from BBC. It’s a pretty lengthy article, so there’s so many good details around what made the film get made. The one that I will mention is that he got the funding for the film because of the success of Blacula. So Blacula was a success in that he said hey Gunn, can you make another movie for us um that’s like Blacula? Let’s really exploit this Black exploitation horror trend and Gunn says sure I got you and creates this, like, arthouse horror fantasy that ends up getting panned by critics. Critic white critics hate it. Black folks love it. Black people in Europe love it. The oldest story when it comes to Black art ever, and it gets totally panned. So then it begins to the name that it was created for, which obviously is a play on Porgy and Bess, which is to me another layer of just like genius, but it ends up going straight to Grindhouse and going to um these grindhouse films. And if you don’t know, a a really um typical thing in grindhouse films is they would change the titles of films. So they would cut the film. So you’d go straight to the sex and the violence quicker and take out all the things that might give it an Oscar, and then you change it to something that if you’ve never heard of the film, you will love it. So it’s like Blood Couple, I’m making up names, but bloody African showdown like it’s become sensationalist. And then the MoMA grabbed it and the MoMA had the one uncut version and that was released and you can find it ironically on Tubi, which is, I would say, the place where all Black exploitation films live in modern day. But this is a real classic film that just blew my breath away. Cinematography, writing, themes, dialog. And I want as many as Black people and just people in general as possible to know about this film, to watch this film, to engage it, and to um also put it in the context of this revival that includes older films like Eve’s Bayou and Daugh– Daughters of the Dust. But of course, the new stuff by Jordan Peele and all these other Black horror directors. And I hope that in this Marvel IP world where that’s where the films are being greenlit, I hope that this type of film people can watch and say, you know what? We need to make something for grownups. We need to make something that is still really interesting and maybe not based off of a superhero, maybe? And, you know. I don’t know, I just have a dream in my head that A24 is not the only studio that [laugh] is going that’s going to make good films. So I like the idea that it is more studios that will be interested in making Black films, so we don’t have to all hope that people at A24 like us or find us, even though that seems like where it’s going. So have you all heard of this story? Have you all heard of this film? Um. How are you feeling about this, about this long, long, long summer, child? Um.

DeRay Mckesson: I hadn’t heard about it, so thank you for bringing it. I need to I actually don’t know if I’ve ever seen a blaxploitation film actually is– 

Myles E. Johnson: What? 

DeRay Mckesson: –the truth. So I need to–

De’Ara Balenger: Shut your mouth. 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever. 

Myles E. Johnson: He don’t even get it because he ain’t never seen–

DeRay Mckesson: I know, I mean, I know the meme. I know the meme. Ugh. Ah. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen one for real. 

De’Ara Balenger: Thank you for bringing this because I have watched them. I’ve heard of Blacula. I’m not a horror girl. I don’t like scary movies. I don’t. I never have. I can do, like, a suspense, but like a gory thing I can never do. But I’m familiar with the genre. Um. I wish I was more familiar with Bill Gunn, because I feel like I now may be–

Myles E. Johnson: Obsessed.

De’Ara Balenger: –obsessed with him. So he’s said somewhere in this article he said nothing is more confusing to a white man than a Black aristocrat. Bill Gunn, you’re speaking my language. He goes on to say, white folks can understand an educated Black man, but they cannot understand a sophisticated Black man. I don’t know why that is just really speaking to me, because I know I’m prejudiced. There’s just no people that are more sophisticated than Black people on the earth. I mean, you it’s just. It is a fact. So I don’t know, for some reason that just, like, conjures so much imagery to me and also just the sophistication. But also I think it’s like the ability in the expansiveness around the creativity that’s always sort of like grounded in this ancestral power. So that’s why the work is so good. And that’s why these critics are like, what? Huh. 

Myles E. Johnson: Hating. 

De’Ara Balenger: Hating. Okay, so this is spectacular. The other thing I read in here is that Maya Angelou has a film called Georgia, Georgia, where she wrote the screenplay, which I did not know. So I want to find how can we find that? And, Myles, I’m thinking maybe we do at some point. Maybe it’s a 2025 project, but maybe we’d, like, get a theater and fill it with some Black folks and, like, watch our movies. 

Myles E. Johnson: The real Project 2025 just dropped. 

De’Ara Balenger: Okay. [laughter]

Myles E. Johnson: Because that is it. Because when I tell you I’ve been thinking, I’m like, oh my goodness, I would love to show people these films that are entertaining. It will be a laugh. 

De’Ara Balenger: Right. 

Myles E. Johnson: Like if you like it’s not like, you know, I have the art house ones where I’m like, okay, only me and ten other people care about like will watch this. 

De’Ara Balenger: Right. 

Myles E. Johnson: But there’s so many that are so good. And I and um before we close out to your point too, that’s what’s so interesting about this film is because he really sits in what makes a sophisticated, aristocratic Black person scary is because if you’re a Black person in America who’s aristocratic in the ’70s or sophisticated in the ’70s, we know you didn’t get it from a land. We know you didn’t get it from all these other things. So the only thing that can be the reason why is there’s some type of supernatural way that you that you’ve acquired it, and then that births this supernatural power. And it’s just it’s just good. I’m. I’m here. Yeah, yeah. 

De’Ara Balenger: Well, the other thing I was going to tell you is that it reminded me is that Ryan Coogler’s new film is actually about vampires. And it’s being filmed in New Orleans. They’re not. There’s not, like, much detail around it. 

Myles E. Johnson: Ooh, that’s exciting. 

De’Ara Balenger: That’s forthcoming. So we should try to dig up what we can on that. 

Myles E. Johnson: Absolutely. 

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DeRay Mckesson: Well that’s it. Thanks so much for tuning into Pod Save the People this week. Don’t forget to follow us at @crookedmedia 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 was 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 Myles E. Johnson. 

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