AI program jails innocent man for 17 months, Katt Williams imperialist rant, Congress members denied access to Department of Education. Pod Save The People is back with the Blackest Book Club reading list in collaboration with Reconstruction and Campaign Zero. DeRay interviews author Dr. Brittany Friedman about her new book titled Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons.

 

News

Man jailed over police AI program, then freed 17 months after victim raised doubts

Trump says he’d deport US citizens convicted of crimes ‘in a heartbeat’ if legal

Members of Congress denied access to Department of Education

Musk to rehire DOGE staffer with history of racist tweets

Katt Williams Imperialist Rant

Akilah Hughes on non-voters

 

Follow @PodSaveThePeople on Instagram

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

DeRay Mckesson: Hey, this is DeRay and welcome to Pod Save the People. In this episode, it’s me and Myles talking about all the things that happened last week with regard to race, justice and equity. And then we want to feature an incredible book by an incredible author that is on the 2025 Blackest Book Club. And the book is called Carceral Apartheid. The author is the one and only Dr. Brittany Friedman. She’s the interview this week. Please buy the book. I learned so much. And it just is a really different way to approach the conversation about the history of incarceration. She looks at the Black Guerilla family. It’s brilliant. Read it. Check it out. Here we go. [music break] Now there’s a ton of rage bait in the news right now, meant to distract and overwhelm us. But today we’d like to focus on something positive. The work we’ve done to fight back and what you can do to help. This month, Vote Save America is making donations as a part of the anxiety relief program to Black led organizations and candidates of color helping us gain ground at the state and local level. Like Janelle Bynum, Oregon’s first Black congressmember who won her district by less than 12,000 votes in 2024 and is in a must win reelection bid that could determine whether Democrats take back the House. Learn more at VoteSaveAmerica.com. Paid for by Vote Save America. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. [music break] We are back for the Super Bowl week edition of Pod Save the People. And this is also, as you know, the wonderful Black History Month. We need some positive news because 2025 has been off to a bang. This is DeRay at @deray on Twitter. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: This is Myles E. Johnson at @pharaohrapture on Instagram. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Now it’s Myles and me today getting us ready to talk about just the wildness of the last week in politics and in culture. And before we get to our news. So when I think about the last week of Trump, um one of the first things that I am sort of thinking about, I don’t know if you saw Myles, but uh Marco Rubio who scarily enough got confirmed to be secretary of state. They are considering deporting U.S. citizens to El Salvador if they get convicted of crimes, uh they said, Rubio said, and I quote, “There are obviously obviously illegalities involved. We have a constitution. We have we have all sorts of things. But it’s a very generous offer. No one’s ever made an offer like that to outsource at a fraction of the cost, at least some of the most dangerous and violent criminals that we have in the United States.” And I bring it up because we have always known that the attack on immigration that they have conjured is disingenuous. And you know, that town in Colorado that Trump criminalized in speech, they rounded up I think the latest number was 400 people, 400 people people identified as immigrants. And I think one had a criminal conviction. So, like, we know that it is the data does not support it. But it is interesting to see the segue that they have made very quickly to this not really being about immigrants. This is about putting American citizens in a foreign country in their prison as a way to remove people from the country. And it just goes back to me to the great replacement theory, which is the animating theory on the right, this version of the right, which is their fear that America will be a majority minority country for the first time and they are doing everything in their power to prevent it. But I just hadn’t even you know, they flood the zone so much that I don’t know if many people even saw this at El Salvador is that the USA. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: –[?] Salvador is entertaining this. But what did you think? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, no, I think you’re right. I think the the news that I saw take over everything was the Palestine comments and the um and turning it into a Riviera and and I you you you illuminated me on this what’s again my big thing because I’m a history geek but also like I guess like Black radical geek just like Black radical tradition geek. And I always want to take things back to the root of what’s going on. This is open in my purview. This feels like open conversation around slave trading. This feels like we’re going to be able to build pathways via people who are maybe first incarcerated here, illegal or illegal, and then we’re going to be able to do it because these are the most heinous people. But how it goes is you start with those people, the people that everybody agrees on until it becomes, you know what? You can miss a parking ticket or you can do something that is not seen as that bad. And you can now imagine that there’s a world where you can be sent off somewhere else. Like that’s to me, is what these pathways are doing. And you use people who we um have a sigh of relief around, oh you’re getting rid of those bad people, and then who’s the bad people just continues to shift to make more and more people, the bad people. Until you see that the shift of what a bad person is, is right next to you. And you are you’re you’re you’re one bad decision away from not just now being detained illegally. You do so much work around that. But now we have a situation where you can be sent off legally. Like to me that is what is what’s happening and that’s what these conversations are meant to have, is starting to massage the American psychology for um for fascism. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: That’s actually I didn’t even think about that. And you’re right. You know, things it makes me think, too, about the hypocrisy because they are committing so many crimes. You’re looking up and you’re like, okay, y’all are like, y’all are the real criminals. And the president is convicted of crimes. And of course, people like him are not on the list to be in an El Salvadorian prison. Um. What did you think about Marco Elez, I think is his name or I don’t know how you pronounce it, but the DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, that is not actually a government department the made up department that Elon runs. The the staffer who resigned over the racist tweets um he bragged about being racist before it was cool. And I and I go here now because I think it goes to your idea of like the normalization of things that have been taboo to say out loud before. It’s like this is the being like, oh pro slave trade. And he’s like, team eugenics. One tweet was just for the record, I was a racist before it was cool. He tweeted, you cannot pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity. He also tweeted, normalize Indian hate. All of those tweets have been deleted and even even more scary. I don’t know if you saw this Myles. Is that the Wayback Machine, the Internet Archive has also deleted all traces of those tweets from the Internet. And JD Vance made that statement saying they want to bring it back. Elon’s like, you know, people make mistakes and you’re like, wow. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Well, that’s what happens when you have total control. That’s why I think it is such a I mean, we’re all we’re only going to see what ends up happening in the next four or five years. But there’s going to be a there’s no other word but just sheer stupidity for how come people aren’t saying, look at these election votes, because now you have somebody who’s controlling the Internet, controlling the technology, controlling the speech, the culture. Whose being chose and also showing you that they do not care about any of the rules or laws or pageantry you put into place. So what makes you think they wouldn’t have broken some rules on the front end before you even had, you know, like what, where are our minds at that we’re just kind of hoping that this kind of like democratic technology just corrects itself where there’s no it’s just in front of your face that it’s being used to upend itself. And the people who who believe in it, um it’s the it’s the wildest thing. But to to that point and a few other things that we um had spoke about in the um group chat, it’s all so much about culture DeRay like that’s how come when we talk about the police and of course, I mean, I don’t have to say this to this audience, but it’s like always, like not every single person you meet whose a police officer. I’m saying is somehow um a white supremacist. But the culture of it’s there, you know, and when you look at the culture of what’s in here, it’s like they don’t like people of color. They don’t like Black people. And they’re going to have [laughing] and I’m only laughing because they’re going to have people who because it’s not to Black people, because this is now anti-Blackness being expressed about other people who are not who aren’t Black, but it’s still built on [?] on top of anti-Blackness now you have people who are more okay with it. So meaning because a lot of our telemarketing systems are outsourced to places like India, there is a disdain for those accents and those people. So you have a disdain for those people who um who when your your phone bills not right. And you again, and you call them and that’s the accent you hear. It’s disdain for those people because those are the images of the people you see who are taking your jobs and who are the immigrants who are taking your high paying jobs. So there’s already this baked in disdain for Indian people that now you’re seeing is inside of the people who are working for Elon. You know, it’s not just made up. It’s something that’s being it’s already being created. And [?] J.D. Vance to say with the Indian wife and not connect those dots for himself or others. It’s it’s just disgusting. It’s just it’s just so weird. It’s–

 

DeRay Mckesson: Do you a part of me doesn’t think this lasts for four years, like, I just. I don’t know. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: You’re different. I don’t know. I’m always. I always love hearing your opinions. But one thing I always have to understand with your your opinions, or maybe even the fundamental difference between me and your opinions is that I always am at a cynical place and a pessimistic place when it comes to the status of America. And my optimism does not come from America not dying. My optimism comes from Black people surviving despite America’s death. I think sometimes I’ll hear your optimism and I just don’t see it. I’m like, I think it is going to last for years. And I’m like, and if it don’t last, then somebody who is like a J.D. Vance, who is actually more primed for power, is going to be there, and he’s actually going to be a harder all the vilification of Trump that Democrats in the media do in order to get people to wake up about Trump. That doesn’t happen as easily with J.D. Vance. So J.D. Vance could do things just as as racist, just as evil, just as dark, and he’ll know every single thing. And and I to dot and T to cross to be able to get away with this so I don’t see. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: But I don’t think I think Trump is the end of that’s why they’re trying to do it so quickly because I don’t Trump has the base you can’t he has their base. He has it. JD ain’t got the base like I don’t think JD could. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I don’t think Trump doesn’t have the base. I think that’s the huge– 

 

DeRay Mckesson: He has their base. He I think he has their that’s why the senators are falling in line is that they are afraid that he’ll come in and they’ll lose an election. And da da I think he does have a contingent of people who like rally for him on the Republican side. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: So here we so here we go about me and this [?], and cult lady. So– [banter]

 

DeRay Mckesson: We need to invite this, you need to invite her on the podcast. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I will. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Invite cult lady on. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I would love to. And she has her um. She has not to, you know, but she’s she’s she has prestigious degrees, the Harvard psychology degree and stuff like that. So she’s not just talking, but um, you know, like me who I’m just I’m just talking. But um but she’s so fascinating because she also states that a lot of times people are not in part of cults. They don’t understand that cults aren’t always around one singular person. And I think people with the Trumpism and Donald Trump, that’s not what’s unifying all these people in this cult like state. They just, for instance, think about Scientology. Who invented Scientology? That man’s been dead for years. He’s been dead for decades. The persisting ideas of Scientology has found new hosts to represent it. And that has shifted. And as long as those ideas are erect and and and and and and and being fed, then that all gets fed. So thinking that Trump’s death or Trump’s impeachment or any of these things are going to stop the white supremacists far right interest in this country is just not true. And you and I think even thinking that something happening to Trump will relieve what we’re feeling right now is us trusting in something that’s not real. I think that eliminating Trump actually just intensifies it because now it’s it’s– 

 

DeRay Mckesson: What’s the cult lady’s name again?

 

Myles E. Johnson: Her name is Knitting Cult Lady. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Okay, I’m really gonna look her up after this episode. I–

 

Myles E. Johnson: I’m going to I’m going to send you her book link and everything. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I’m interested, though, in what you think, you know, the Super Bowl obviously is happening, and um I don’t know if you saw, but Trump on Air Force One did an interview and he praises Britney Mahomes. Patrick Mahomes, the mixed quarterback um who has a white wife, who is an open Trump supporter, which I’m surprised by, because they had you know, because she’s married to a guy who is identifies as Black. Um. Trump said. I’ve watched this great quarterback who has, by the way, a phenomenal wife. Okay, she’s a Trump fan. She’s a MAGA fan. So I happen to love her. And I just I think I’m surprised at just how wild everything has gotten and how the Trump supporters that like the Snoops, don’t have to account for it, don’t have to account for the racist tweets or the like I can just look at an immigrant and know they’re dangerous. Like what is happening where where they get to just, Carrie Underwood? You know, these people who are like supporting this man who is supporting stuff that before the election, they were like a little more they were slicker than this. Now it’s like just straight up crazy. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. It’s that the the political control and the cultural control lined up. I think the first time Trump was um president, the political and cultural didn’t quite line up. I think we were still in that. You know, I call it the post Gaga, you know, Juneteenth cupcake, gay wash bullshit that we were kind of all in. But a lot of it was, you know, performative. A lot of it was really some, like, feminist politics meeting the the cultural zeitgeist and it just what and it was post Me too it was just a different it was it was during that section of like police brutality that that that wave of police brutality that was happening. It was just a different cultural moment. And a lot of that stuff just wasn’t. I mean, Beyonce. I mean, I hate, Beyonce is just such a great crystal ball because you can really look at the cultural moment and be able to decide, you know, the you know, Trump happened during Lemonade and then Trump happened again during Cowboy Carter. And if you see the esthetic differences in Cowboy Carter and Lemonade, you could also just kind of see the journey back to conservatism and and nationalism that a lot of different groups made for different reasons. You know, not saying that they’re all bad, but that means there’s a wave of people who are um fed up with the last cultural moment, but then also desiring to be a part of the new cultural moment in ways that I don’t think were true when he was first elected. So I think that that concoction lets a lot of people get away with a lot of different stuff. You know, if you couldn’t say something for this long, there’s been a couple of articles and essays on Gen-Z and just the Internet’s use of the R word and use of like just slurs again and seeing that kind of behavior that and a lot of people are saying this is a result of people being so tamed and can’t say much for so long, you know, and now people are just saying whatever they want. And I think some of that’s true and I think that’s what it is, too. Once you start canceling people for all these reasons and and and you said something and I said something, ugh I’ve been talking for too long. But the last thing I want to say about this, too, is that so many more people have had interactions with being socially exiled now. So I think more people are less likely, specifically when you get to the right, are less likely to do that social exiling, even if it does offend them. I’m not going to just because you do this thing, I’m not going to try to cancel you because I know I can say something wrong all about a array of issues on my Facebook or my Twitter and that might me have have me exiled from my community. So I think a lot of that’s happening, too. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: That is, I do I hear this idea that, you know, in some areas we might have swung too far. People felt like the the correcting was too far. And now the, you know, we’re we’re dealing with like the wild swing back, but I’m like, we got to find a middle ground. And I do still think the base I think the majority, you know, just like when Trump talks about a landslide and da da da it’s like Kamala did not win uh like Kamala did not lose by a lot like this was not a landslide. But I’m with you about like, you know, if they will do all this stuff now you better believe when Trump said this is the last election you gonna vote in, he meant that and that I believe they probably did something shady with that election. But what do you think about did you see the Congress people locked out of the, they tried to go visit the Department of Education because Trump is saying he’s going to delete it, um which he doesn’t have like the power to just do as president. And then the Congress people were locked out they’re looked like it was private security outside of the Department of Education that prevented them from going in. And then there were officers inside, like government officers inside. That just feels like that does feel like the end of days. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: It does. It does. But it also just feels like a formality. You know, when I look at the the rates, the illiteracy rates today um before Trump’s election, that that to me is always something that just just because my partner works in school and I’m just because I’m thinking about that often. But it just seems like such a it just it just feels like so much of the stuff that he’s doing is a formality for the incremental dumb, dumb, the evil that we’ve been seeing throughout, like throughout our lives in in in these in these systems. And there is just a public that is thirsty for the theater of it who who wants to see him, you know, drain the swamp and do these things. But so much of that stuff, I don’t know. It just seems like it just it was made easy for him to be able to um to to to do those things. Um. I don’t know what, a question I have for you, how do you feel about so many of these things being so easy to do? 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Like blocking the blocking the Congress, people, stuff like that? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I do think the organizer in me is like, okay, there was a lot of energy in 2020 and a lot of a lot, a lot of money, a lot of da da that went to organize. Like it happened. Like you know and I say that because I remember being the the recipient of a lot of criticism that like we were the only people who had money or and even when we didn’t or like that I was on TV and da da da and then all of a sudden 2020 happens and there are groups that got far more money than I’ve ever had at Campaign Zero. And just a ton of people had resources da da. And I do I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if people sort of um rest as revolutioned too much. Like I don’t know what happened, but I I am noticing, like an absence of organizing in a way that is really intense right now. Like for a lot of reasons. Like, I just don’t know what was built in those four or five years. And then a crisis happens and people are looking for like just guidance, like not even necessarily like leadership with a capital L. But it is not there. And that is, you know, so this is not this moment is not the organizers fault. And I do there is a question of like, you know, like where do you go for just what’s true. And da da da. These were we knew where the there were places to go when we ran into some of these issues four or five years ago. And today I’m like, where did everybody go? I am that is actually shocking to me. I think the part, though, that to answer your question directly, is that I am sort of I do think this like leaderless movement thing. Like I know it sounds silly like to bring that up as a cause, but I do think we got seduced with that. And I think that is like that to me feels like Cointelpro 7.0. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I thought the phrase was we are a leader full movement. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Well, that was what they tried to spin it afterwards, but it became like, you know, what’s that quote? Strong people don’t need strong leaders. Like that was like an old civil rights quote. So people say all these things. But then in a moment where people are people are legitimately looking for like what is true, the Internet, like we can’t even read, like you don’t know when you’re reading, you don’t know it’s true. People, I think, are looking for guidance. And I do think a lot of groups got seduced by this like leaderless movement thing. So when I think about the Congress people, when I think about a lot of this stuff, I’m like, you know, we don’t who what are the voices pushing back on Trump? I don’t even know. Like, I forget the Congress people, but I’m like in popular culture who is leveraging coherent arguments right now? Ezra Klein wrote that big piece called Don’t Believe Him. Which did you read that? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I didn’t read that. Mm mm.

 

DeRay Mckesson: That sort of was like the last piece that I saw a ton of people talk about it but and I say this because I remember in 2014, I remember in 2020, the amount of people sort of writing about race and the police was really incredible. Like it was. People are really moving ideas and I don’t know. I don’t know.

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, I think, yeah, it makes sense to me that it happened like that because I think that we and this is even prior to 2020, this, I just can’t remember a time where all the Black people’s organizing was like leaned on the government where that was always like a leg of how to establish something or how to like push back. But it seems like when it comes to people responding, let’s say, to what happened in 2020, everybody’s response was kind of the same thing, where it would be different if it was– 

 

DeRay Mckesson: What do you mean? What do you [?]?

 

Myles E. Johnson: I mean, I mean, um if we’re all writing and creating organizations or trying to get this thing passed in the in the government, like there needs to be somebody else or other people, not just one a singular person, but there needs to be somebody whose like, well, my thing is, how do we uh make pathways for people who are who are felons right? Or how do we make it so people who um are in kindergarten or first grade who are showing behavioral problems, how do we get them out? Like it seems like in those moments, everybody and I and I know there are people who are doing that work. What I’m saying is out of those like kind of um hot moments, it seems like everybody who was getting attention had the same idea to do the same thing. And I think that’s just because. Doesn’t matter how. It just doesn’t matter how many revolutionary uh money or resources you get. If you just haven’t activated a revolutionary imagination, you’re just going to end up doing the same thing everybody else do. And I think that’s a lot of times like like what we see, too. Where just it just everybody was just acting like little brand capitalists to me. You know, everybody acted like, okay, well, I’m going to be half Oprah and half like Martin Luther King, the one at McDonald’s, not the real one. And I’m going to figure out my way and I’m going to kind of be like and I’m gonna massage it with some kind of, like, you know, [?] like, corporate branding. And that’s what I’m going to do. And, and enough people do that kind of assimilation. It just guts the soul from a movement. You know? 

 

DeRay Mckesson: It did. That is. Yes. So I look up and yeah, I am it makes me it makes me sad because I’m like, this doesn’t I actually don’t feel hopeless. I feel like this is winnable. But when I look around, I’m like, I don’t know. I’m like, where are the people? What is what is going on? Because he’s winning on the narrative stuff. And and some of this stuff we should be able to like especially because it wasn’t a landslide. It’s like we have the base, you know what I mean? Like we there are more of us than them. There are more voters on our side than them and like, we got to deal with voter I.D. and all that stuff. But I’m like, you would think this was a 80/20 election with the way he’s running, this was like a 49/48 election. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I hear you. I hear you with the numbers part. I definitely hear you with the numbers part. And I think that’s important to say. Uh. 18 million people still stayed home. So like and the fact that yeah, it’s still it’s still a it’s still a weird situation because 18  million people still stayed home. And even though the gap between um Trump and Vice President Harris uh wasn’t that big, I think there’s just something really significant about that many people being deactivated for for for whatever reason. And I, I just don’t take that to be the voters fault. I definitely think that that is like big failures on the Democratic Party specifically. It shouldn’t be that close like, A, you lost whatever. Not by that much. Great. It should not be that close. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: [?] Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: There shouldn’t be there shouldn’t be people. But I’m just I’m I guess what I’m like also saying is there shouldn’t be that many people who see I think there’s a lot of people who see what Trump is and don’t think that Biden and Harris are are different. And I don’t. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I don’t know if I, I don’t know  if that’s true today. And I will say what he did. I think you’re I would have said I agree with you during the election. I think that’s fair. Da da da. [?]

 

Myles E. Johnson: Well, that’s what I was I was talking about the her loss, so I can’t–

 

DeRay Mckesson: Okay. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –talk about post-election thoughts. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, I think that’s fair. I think what I’m surprised by and I the only way I can explain this away is whiteness. Like, I don’t have like, a better explanation for it is that, you know, when when Kamala or the left or the party rightly called Trump out, being like Project 2025 is the playbook, Trump said, I’ve never heard of it. He was like, I don’t know those people. I’ve never heard of it. Like, literally, that’s not a thing. And then he gets into office and does it. Kamala, remember, Kamala would talk about the tariffs and everybody’s like, she’s silly. What is she saying about tariffs? Then he does the tariffs and everybody’s like, this is crazy. I you know, I don’t I don’t know what some of this stuff I don’t know what the left could have done differently because even when he lied to people’s faces, they were like, oh no, he said he didn’t. He wasn’t doing that. And you’re like, what is going on? He literally said, I’m going to get rid of the department of education, got pressed on it. And it’s like, oh no, no. And you’re like, and then he gets into office and does it all. What do you do to that? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: But I mean, DeRay. They I mean, she went on stage with Liz Cheney. Like, I’m I’m I’m 30, but I’m I’m 33. So that’s not old. And so and I was in and I still remember Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney, because you know, 9/11 changed all of our lives, even if you were I was in fifth grade and I remember just everything in my life changing, going into going to middle school. And I remember the conversations that were on the news, it was all about Iraq. It was all about Dick Cheney, was all about those things. And if you see that a big part of your constituency is um is is connecting the dots between what’s happening to um to in Palestine, with what’s happening in Iraq and what happened in Vietnam? And they’re starting to be illuminated on that. I mean, not only did you kind of say the most unpopular thing you can say, you kind of parade around trying to seduce the very people who’ve already found their real Republicans that I mean, I just don’t think that’s ,listen. I just don’t know what you were thinking. Like having Meg the stallion twerk, and Liz Cheney. Like, who are you talking to? Not serious political people, because I’m a serious political person. I’m like, that don’t change shit for what do I care about? Like, what do I care about? I’m the person who will call 20 of my people to do a thing politically, you know, and not have and not have no celebrity who who who needs to shine on it. I think obviously you’re that person times 10000. Like that’s what we needed. And there was just nothing to for me to grab on to. And then once it came to Black men, I’m like, I’m gonna tell them about bitcoins. Like, what am I like what what are we talking about? When people are telling you and we critique, sorry, last thing was just piss me off. But people she kept on critiquing people and saying the thing about the Trump checks and, you know, and really talking to people and talking to Black people specifically, like they’re slow and saying, well, you know, Trump didn’t really give you those checks. And I think that logic was already I think they know that logic. What the what people wanted to hear is, what is your Trump check? [laugh] What are you what is the what is the check you’re going to put in my pocket? Literally. You know not not no economic da da da da in four years you’re going to feel it because you you’re gonna have $0.05 more in your high yielding save account. What is the 1200 you’re going to put in my bank account? Oh. Nothing. Got it. Couch on.

 

DeRay Mckesson: [?] we, somebody called Myles. Myles is free for consulting. He is, Myles is available not free, pay Myles. Could be a consultant for the party. If you are at the DNC, Myles is ready to work. Um. I did want to do one quick shout out to good news before we go on to Kanye, uh which you know is a whole moment, is that the Nape scores. So Nape is one of the national tests for education. It is fourth and eighth grade. It’s the National Center for Education Statistics. Mostly people report on the fourth and eighth grade math and reading scores. That is the news in education and I will tell you, the scores did not do great overall across the country, but there were some bright spots. D.C. public schools had an increase in fourth grade math by ten points. Guilford County schools in North Carolina, Baltimore and New York City went up by eight points and Houston up by seven. Alabama scored higher in fourth grade math and exceeded the 2019 scores. And then Louisiana is the closest state to recovering from Covid related declines in eighth grade reading and math. And the only state in which fourth grade reading scores were higher in 2024 than in 2029. [correction: he meant 2019] And I say that because you talked about the cynicism that I do think people have around education and some other things. And I wanted to lift up those bright spots. But that brief interlude is over because insert Kanye West, who roped me into his drama this weekend. [music break] Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned. There’s more to come. 

 

[AD BREAK] 

 

Myles E. Johnson: So I don’t know if you’ve seen everything with Kanye, but Kanye West has been tweeting up a a storm, a storm um saying everything from free puffy to um I’m a I’m a Nazi. I don’t even like saying it with my own like lips because because I’m afraid I don’t want nobody cutting nothing. No, AI, deep fake nothing. Um. I’m a. I’m a N-word. The other N word that ends with a I. Yeah. The other N word that ends with a. Other N word that ends with an I. And um DeRay actually responds to the ADL because the ADL says, here we go again, another egregious display of anti-Semitism, racism and misogyny from Kanye West on his X account this morning. Just a few years ago, ADL found that 30 anti-Semitic incidents nationwide were tied to Kanye’s 2022 anti-Semitic rants. We condemn this dangerous act. Then DeRay responds on Twitter. According to the ADL, Elon being a Nazi is good. Kanye being a Nazi is bad. Make it make sense. The ADL is a joke. And if you don’t remember Elon um did a Roman salute, which is the salute that uh Hitler in Germany appropriated for the Nazi salute, and he did it in front of a crowd of people and the ADL um did not say anything like that about Elon. It actually told us that we were um that we needed to calm down and too many things were happening. It’s sounding like okay tinfoil hat now and not did not go to Harvard. Space coming on. I’m like what does– 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I love when you say tinfoil hat, by the way. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Because I–

 

DeRay Mckesson: It cracks me up every time. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Because I need to let people know, I’m like, listen, this is tinfoil hat, but a lot of things in the tinfoil hat ends up being um real, real cooked food later on. And and I noticed something like, oh I was I was that so ravening that. But it seems as though Elon or somebody has a lot of power for people in compromising situations. It just does. It just seems as though, like–

 

DeRay Mckesson: Is him being rich not enough? Like, is the money not enough? Like you don’t think him being the richest person alive is the compromising position? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I mean, not sure. I guess that moves a lot of people and I and it feels like a Epstein thing. I’m a be honest with you. It feels like a it’s and then when you know the amount of information that he already has and what he was interested in. Even when you think about what Elon went to go do when he went to go get going to that database, the fact that that was the first thing that he was interested in. To me, shows a pattern in what his interests are. So if his interests are about private information, it is about utilizing those things and weaponizing those things, and using those things for power. Um. Why would I think that this was that was his first go around with it. And to me, it feels like I don’t know, it just feels everything feels so much more it feels like he’s like everybody just feels a little bit more compromised. And I yeah I don’t think it’s just about the money. I think that there’s other things to it, too. I think even certain celebrities participating in Trumpism, I wonder how many of those things are just about, oh he had the money for me and how many of those things are he has this information or he has that tape or he will do this to my taxes or he’ll get me on this. Like, I wonder how much of that, like, kind of like gangster mafia shit is going on in the background too. Not just, oh he had a lot of money. I’m a sell out. Some of this smells like more than just that to me. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Okay. Is that how you feel? You know, since you say that, I’m. I’m not gonna lie. It is. I did not expect Trump to round up the FBI agents and be like, I’m firing everybody who participated in a January 6th prosecution. I mean, that is–

 

Myles E. Johnson: [?] 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Well that’s gangster. That’s wild. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That’s wild. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Especially should because, you know, they are the law and order party and da da da da da. And, you know, these are career lawyers who all of a sudden might find themselves unemployed. That feels like some mafia stuff to me. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: It sounds real mafia. And then just what does it tell you that he’s trying to sig like he’s trying to signal a new. I think last week I said like the reorganizing of white power. And it just seems like who protects us is different now. Who litigates how things are done, the systems, all that is just being reorganized and the people who protected him unlawfully, protected in air big air quotes unlawfully by going to the Capitol are now free. And the people who fought against that are now being, you know, fired and also just like publicly humiliated. So as close as we can get to like a social imprisonment or death as possible with this kind of public humiliation. Um. That is the new order. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: What do you do to that? What do you do in response to that? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: You know, when you free enslaved people, you give them the 40 acres and the mule. Like I like the the the solutions to these things that we’re seeing right now are so systemic. And I know that is like annoying academic Black feminist talk and it’s like, so whatever. But I’m like, that’s why we say systemic. That’s why we say the root because this is just a ripple of the original sin and not correcting that. So that’s how you, that’s how you change all of this. There’s there’s there’s no um Band-Aid on the the disease that we’re seeing of white supremacy in power. [laugh] You know. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Why do you think, how do you explain the canceling of like the Institute of Health Grants or like all the the research into cancer and HIV? Like, well how do you explain those things?

 

Myles E. Johnson: It’s so the research the cancer, any of those things but I’ll just I just picked the one the one that I chose. But we talk about the research of cancer and then we know about cancer alley, right? So if we know that um how Israel, Israel and America, have are mirror systems, in my opinion. So we know that Israel is doing things old school bombing the shit out of you. Taking uh doing all these type of violence, getting these people out their way in order for them to expand on their um imperialist project. America does that in different ways. So America knows that on the world stage it shouldn’t do those things and do martial law and kill people in front of the streets. We know that’s not going to happen. So what do we do, we have people in cancer alleys and we let them kill themselves and we don’t give you education. We have people become illiterate, so they are functionally unable to do anything but offer their labor or die. So we do these quiet legal genocides in different ways in order to expand the wealth. And then what happens and Zillow comes in and buys up all your land, and now it’s a shopping mall or something that looks like Brooklyn Williamsburg in 2015. And that looks and that’s how that looks now. And this used to be Black neighborhood. That is the slow, steady, incremental plan. You know. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: But white people will get killed in the in the end of cancer research and all that stuff. It won’t just be the Black people living in Cancer Alley. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Poor white people are not Black. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: [?] rich, white people. I’m saying like when you cut off like cancer trials. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: If you’re a rich white person, you’re able to pay for your own cancer’s survival and all this other stuff. You’re going to find a way to do it. You’re going to find a way to be able to survive this. If you’re a rich person in general, you’re going to able to do that. You’re going to be putting money back into the free health care marketplace and everything is going to happen. And we’re going to make sure that if you were a millionaire before this, you ain’t going to be a millionaire after this cancer thing. Because we going to get hit you with everything that you got. And that is capitalism capitalizing. We are capitalizing on your sickness and everything’s happened. And now if you’re in a situation where you cannot pay for those things if you’re in a situation where you would then be um parasitic to the US government or to the to the marketplace, then the natural order of those things for you to, to fall off and to die like you have to anti-Blackness does not just happen to Black people. It happens first and hardest to Black people, but it affects everybody. And no matter where you are on that class structure, you’re going to feel the ways of it. So when I’m saying those things, it’s not just I’m talking about now we’re talking about immigrant people. We’re talking about people who are immigrants and people who um who are undocumented immigrants. They’re all kind of feeling the ways of these kind of like anti-Black rules we we’re just the first ones to be told, no, you can’t come into our hospital. Now, this is a different version of telling you, no you can’t come into our hospital, you know, if you’re not rich enough. We don’t if you’re not supporting the business of this hospital, then we do not care about what happens to you. And now anybody who has found themselves at a proximate to the class expression of Blackness, not just the race, but the class expression of Blackness can have the same results as Black people, which is social death. So it doesn’t mean in order for you to feel the brunt of that, that you have to be Black, you can be poor and white. I would I would say as controversial as this is, I would say that there are maybe some Black people who underneath this imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy are more desirable to keep alive and sustain than other poor white people. That is the truth. That is a lot that is a lot of the of what we’re seeing being expressed and a lot of frustration we’re being seen and being expressed that now an Indian person who’s smart enough uh can kind of be on a different rank simply than than maybe the poorest white person we’re seeing we’re seeing that kind of express itself. But yeah, anti-Blackness is everybody’s problem. 

 

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

 

[AD BREAK]

 

DeRay Mckesson: Let’s transition to the news. My news is about St. Louis County, Missouri. As you know, Ferguson is in Saint Louis County. It is where Mike Brown was killed in 2014. And uh, you know, I still pay attention to the news there because we still work with Mike Brown’s mom, Lesley, who is amazing. But in Saint Louis County, Chris Gatlin was suspected of assaulting somebody on the Metrolink. Now, the problem is, is that AI is who identified Chris Gatlin as the suspect. He spent 17 months in jail. Only at the end for the prosecutor to realize that he was not the person. The victim was like oh I don’t really think it’s him. You know, I was in and out of consciousness. It could have been him or somebody else. They did no investigation. The victim said his memory was shaky. And still 17 months in jail. That is wild. So the body camera footage emerges after 17 months of the encounter. They realize very clearly that it is not this guy and the police department or the prosecutor’s office is just like, yeah, we didn’t know about the body camera footage and we requested it. Finally got it and realized there was no real evidence here. They sort of brush it off. And the police quote is just like, you know, AI’s not going anywhere. And you’re like being in a cell for a couple of hours is a lot. Couple days is a lot. Most people will not be able to do, their life will just unravel if they suddenly are going to work or at the house or anywhere and they just get locked up. 17 months is wild. No recompense. No, I just I had to bring it because I was it’s the first case like this that I have seen like where they were I you know, we even at Campaign Zero we do work around some of the AI stuff, shot spot is a nightmare, but 17 months for facial recognition that’s not real is wild to me. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah yeah um was that last week that we even spoke about the prices? The–

 

DeRay Mckesson: Oh the it was like two weeks ago, the facial recognition at Kroger’s. Yeah. Changing the prices. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Based on who the face was. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. Um. I’ve been watching because Bill Gates is on the tour on like a press tour and um I am a ’90s baby, so I love Bill Gates. So I’m like not like literally but as like a figurehead. I mean, Beyonce [?] uh Bill Gates, too, I think there’s a weird thing with like a certain group of Black people and Bill Gates um and he was saying how there there might be a time this might have been either him or Katie Couric setting up a question. I don’t know but either which way. There might be a time where we wouldn’t be able to successfully be able to um calculate what tomorrow might look like because the technology would be so advanced. So the idea is that once the i– once the Internet happened, once computers really happened in the late ’80s, you it’s really hard to predict what the next ten years are going to look like because of how technology kind of compounds time, but also just each time and has us do these, for lack of better words, quantum leaps into other and into other, just like realities based off of the technology. You could not have guessed in 2009 what 2019 would have looked like because we we just didn’t have it. Even though that’s a short amount of time um in the grand scheme in the grand scheme of of it all. And I think there just hasn’t been a whole bunch of storytelling around A.I., around realistic results. I think there’s been a lot of fairy tales around like iRobot and, you know, AI and Elon is one of those people who have been talking about these um who used to talk about these things. I was watching Kara Swisher and she was talking about how Elon was really obsessed with A.I., having um becoming like, conscious of itself in and almost like a science science movie type of like moment of A.I. um deciding to like, delete us. And that’s such a white people problem and that’s such a white people fantasy because white people fantasize about there being this kind of organized other that comes against them because they, you know, in my opinion, usually know they deserve it because it just hasn’t happened, like you know? Um. So I think that’s usually their anxiety. But the real monster is that there might be a whole bunch of A.I. systems uh that happen that literally make it so your Black life is harder just baked into the technology. Just and that to me is what’s scary because what happens when this person is Black and has a bigger nose and he and he has $20, has $20 eggs and or this person was on EBT so we’re going to we’re going to charge them more for the rest of their life because we know that that we can whatever, however that A.I. decides to work. And then that makes the the the chance for criminality just bigger and easier to get to. And if you’re there and you do do something criminal and now, like like and now we have this technology that can maybe false identify people and now you’re already in the system and now you’re falsely like accused of something even because now you’re in the system. There’s just so many different ways for a Black life to be deterred by AI that are not science fiction is I guess what I’m saying and I wish that there was more interesting romance. I’m sure there’s a lot of people who to try to let everybody know about it, but I think that that is the thing that needs to happen not I robot but someone needs to say no right now [laugh] here’s 10,000 ways here’s ten ways right now A.I. could ruin your life right today And I think that’s the that’s the actual villain story that people don’t know about AI. They’re so wrapped up in this um kind of dystopian future, netflix thing that they’re not seeing the actual dystopia unravel. Because this dystopia, although it’s dystopian, it’s still mundane and it’s regular and and it’s quiet. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Boom. I like that. This idea that uh the fantasizing about the organized other uprising because you being intimately aware of the havoc that you’ve wrecked across time and space. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: We always have these we have these poetic we have these poetic souls, right? So like, I think most people are always thinking, well, if I did this thing, this thing needs to happen. That’s just how people think, good or bad. And, you know, some people become pessimistic because they did a whole lot of good stuff and the and the and bad stuff came or whatever. But I think that when people are doing things that are bad, they still they still know that’s the where the anxiety is. If if people who were neo Nazis knew how much Black people are not thinking about them [laugh] because all the material that you all read, you’re like, oh I’m not gonna, let me slow down saying this. But I kind of wish Black people were this organized or thoughtful around one singular thing. And we’re just not. Like this idea of this, like, militant Black underclass that is just waiting to take over white America is just not the truth, you know. And but I think that that anxiety and that paranoia comes from this idea that, no, if you did this to these people, there should be a day of recom– reckonance and and we need to prepare for that.

 

DeRay Mckesson: I get that. That makes uh that makes sense. You need to write that essay. And what’s your news? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: [sigh] My news today is about the Internet y’all. I wanted to talk about the Internet. So the spirit of Bell Hooks came upon me while I was reading some things from Twitter. And I have a couple of friends who send me Twitter things now because I have an accountability um social media partner, so I’m not on social, but I have a friend who sends me stuff that is like, you should know about this, you should know about this. But I only look at it at a certain um time and you know, it just works out because they’re just they just know they’re a social media addict, so they’re not getting it all. So they get to use their social media addiction to help me not be a social media addict. And um it helps me see things from, in my opinion, a different view and a more temperate view and a more critical view because social media is just built on emotions and gossip and and and that kind of instant, instant takes. So the two things that I wanted to bring about, it’s really actually three things um that I wanted to bring up. Was, first, Katt Williams. So Katt Williams, there was a person in Katt Williams’ comedy show who heckled him. This person was um from Arizona. They were in Arizona. This person was of Mexican ancestry and essentially said that, you know, Arizona is Mexico. It was was Mexico’s land. And then Katt Williams begins to shout U.S.A. and tell him if USA, USA, USA at him and tells him if he doesn’t like it here, that he can leave um and you can go. And that made me go hmm. And then something else that is from the other side of comedy media personality land, which is Akilah Hughes who I am a whose Akikah obviously on X. Who I’m a who I am a fan of but I found her through like BuzzFeed and just kind of this like anti comic view way of finding Black comedians. And um she said some things to Briahna Joy Gray that I thought were that were interesting. And I want to quote them directly. So Akilah Hughes wrote first calling Black people genocide supporters by voting against a return to Jim Crow America is a choice also. Um. Briahna Joy Gray says not Black people in quotes, just people who manufacture consent for a genocidal candidate. Stop using your Blackness as a shield against substantive criticism. You uh you could have had uh you could have pressured Biden to abandon his genocidal ambitions and didn’t. That was a choice. Now, I’m only reading those two exchanges because I feel like the rest of it kind of devolves into something that’s a little bit too messy. And and and and and just a little bit too petty. But first, with Katt Williams, I’m always alarmed when Black people, specifically Black men, and I’ve been on this this very podcast for years now being like when Black men start talking imperialist talk, we’re going deep red. When our Black if anybody who stands into R.I.P. Bernie Mac but um Bernie Mac, Steve Harvey land anybody who is in that land of Black comedians starts talking about things that are transphobic. Imperialist. Anything that you’re usually represented of our like of the right. That is that that is uh a usually a sign and a signal of where at least Black men culture that uh and and and where we are. And it also means that Black men and I think it’s okay to have a relationship with America that you find pride in and that you have a love in. And I have that relationship with America, if you could believe it or not as well. But also, it’s something really odd when a Black person doesn’t see their relationship with um America with a critical view. You know, if a if a person who is Mexican is telling you this used to be my, be my land, and you’re telling them, if you don’t like it, if you’re going to talk about that, that you need to go home. He’s telling you that us all being able to enjoy this comedy session right now happened because of Mexican blood. And that is okay to say. That is not actually an insult to America. That is just the telling of a truthful history. Just like if DeRay at five years old took my Kit Kat, he took my Kit Kat when I was five. And that is what happened. And the the the the the response to it and Katt’s impulses to respond how he did to it, felt really uh uh felt like the temperature was way redder and way more conservative than I think that we’ve even seen for Black men, I’m being honest with you. I think even the things that we’ve seen with Snoop Dogg and Nelly are creating even bigger pathways for even bigger, stronger Black men cohort of like really um conservative, far right, far right views. And that could only be um supported by the anti-trans stuff because that’s just something that most heterosexual men will socially support because that is also reasserting your heterosexuality and your manhood. So transphobia is such a fertile place to connect to, to connect with and then, you know, share some maybe imperial imperialist views or deeper patriarchal views. The thing with Akilah that I wanted to bring up is, A, understanding that there is huge anti Islamophobic sentiment in this country that if somebody told me today that something was happening in Jamaica and there was a genocide in Jamaica or in Haiti or somewhere with Black faces, and I had nothing else to do. I can understand somebody protesting their vote or saying don’t vote or punishing the person who wouldn’t say the thing who’s supposed to represent me and my liberal or leftist politics and is not doing it, and me my only power being to not vote or to speak out and into into critique like that is just something I think empathy wise, we have to just get get better at in my, in my opinion. But also putting those ideas online as if any of these people were the the sole responsibility for an election or for Trump’s action is also, to me, helping share response is making somebody else whose a Black woman or Palestinian folks, responsible for American imperialism. That to me is my my my biggest discomfort with it is that Palestinians can’t both be significant and inconsequential at the same time. Black women can’t be 92% of the Democratic vote. And then we’re attacking another Black woman online. And to me, that is another expression of misogynoir, even though if it is internalized in another expression of imperialism and xenophobia, is is kind of making a target on your back because somebody didn’t vote the way that you wanted them to vote. Like, that’s that that to me is missing the point. That is gazing over the people who are actually in power who are actually responsible for getting people out to vote and blaming people because they had their personal reactions to the political climate. And they’re both very extreme versions of each other, but help this kind of xenophobic, imperialist sentiment. And I think Katt Williams might see himself as somebody who’s mostly on the left. And I think that, of course, Akilah would see herself as somebody who is mostly uh or all the way on the on the left, too. But when we make demographics the the and racial demographics or the subject of our of our ire, we help that imperialist machine. And I think again, with just putting my Bell Hooks hat on, I just want us to be able to think better about our reactions and who we blame things for specifically publicly, because social media is a cultural hotbed. So it’s not what you’re saying on the kitchen table. You’re adding to it. You know, you’re if you’re if you’re blaming not, you know, people who Palestinians or people who supported the Palestinians for it, you’re you’re you’re adding to the Islamophobic uh tension. And we just can’t do that. You know, we have to just have better, more complicated ways of talking about something and not just sink down to the moment because this moment is low. [laugh]

 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, it’s so it’s so interesting. There are so few moments where we, like, have big disagreements and this is going to be one of them. In that I actually I am um like, I know so like you I like Akilah. And I know that she obvs she has publicly said that she wants the war in Gaza, just the sheer decimation of what’s happening in Gaza to end. That that is like a horror line that she’s not pro Israel destroying uh Palestine and um and that the Palestinians have both a right to exist and a right to their country. Um. And I am with you on the sense that like the blame game as a as a blame game is not helpful. Like I and you know I don’t sometimes I worry that Briahna doesn’t engage in good faith, which I’ve seen across other conversations, but that’s for another day. I and I the comment I’m about to say is not specifically about the Israel-Palestine conflict, but I do I am interested in the people who told people not to vote for her, the people who told people not to vote, who were very loud about it for two reasons. One is like like we talked on another episode. I’m surprised at their shock because even on Palestine, it just is not true to say that her and Biden said the same thing. Now we can fight to the end. But she said two state solution. She said, you know um, we cannot ignore the suffering in Gaza. Da da da. You can say that you didn’t believe her, fair. You can say that you anticipated that she would do the same thing as Biden. But to say as a fact that they said the same things is just un it’s not true. It did not that is not true. The second thing is that the reason I care about it is that I’m trying to think about who do I organize with this with in this moment. And if your analysis of what happened was that it was okay not to vote for her and that people just have to suffer for whatever, for whatever reason, you made that decision and people should die and suffer with Trump. And that just is okay to you. I don’t I’m not I don’t I don’t know how to organize with you. I support you. I want you to win. But I don’t know how to organize with you. I don’t I don’t know what that means. That is like a hard thing for me. And I say that one. You know, Kamala wasn’t Kamala on the police was not where I needed her to be. That’s what I spend all of my waking hours working on. And Kamala didn’t meet me there. But I had this belief that if Kamala won, we would be able to move her and we’d be able to push her and da da da. In a way that I was confident Trump would be unable to to be moved. Um. And I just won’t ignore that like I don’t. So So so again, this is not about the Israel-Palestine issue. And I think the blaming people, you know, that language is not what I participate in. And I want us to be honest about the impact of the people who said, don’t vote for her or um or don’t vote at all. And like and what that means in real life now and for those of us who actively organize. Again, I don’t know what it means to be in an organizing community, when that was your analysis of that moment, given the sheer chaos, because he is literally like we are turning Gaza into a resort and if and if anybody tries to convince me that that was what Kamala believed. I can’t take it. I like, I think that is a disingenuous and dishonest way to engage the conversation about her. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I yeah, we do disagree. [laugh] Because because the more I look at what’s happening in Palestine and Gaza, the more it seems as though that the plans that took place after October 7th were already the ambitions of Israel, and that becomes harder and harder to divorce from. I get the theater of Trump and I get and I and I totally understand everything else. But there is a to me there just I totally get the idea that, no, these Democratic people the Zion– who are who we know are Zionist too, they had the same plans, but they were going to go through it in a different incremental way because they know that their base isn’t into it.

 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah I get it, I think people should be honest, though, and just say, I did not believe that there’s nothing she could have said other than my comment here that would have made me feel better. I like I that is on it. That’s more honest to me than what I’m seeing happen in public. Just say you didn’t believe her. And I the reason why I can say it is that, like the Biden people didn’t say a whole lot on the police. They didn’t when Biden ran, it was, you know, we got police light. What happened when they got in office is that that DOJ did more lawsuits and accountability measures against the police departments than any administration in American history. So like, I was like, you know, forget what he says right now, like ride it out. And I’m confident that the people who get it and at the priority will be there. They and it and it worked. So you know I’m I believed her. I did not think she would do what he’s going to do. And there are people who don’t. But but again, I the reason I care about it is that I don’t know what it means to plan with people who for whom that was their analysis. I think it is a dishonest thing to say that that Kamala would have done this, too. Like, I just don’t think that is. I don’t think that’s true. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I think that’s and I totally agree with you. And that’s where we hundred percent agree on. Because I definitely think there is a huge splintering that we pretend doesn’t happen, but you see it in the data that there is so many Black people, there or I’m just talking about Black people because we’re all Black, because because everybody who’s in this conversation is Black. But um there’s obviously a splintering in like what we think the priority is where whereas like there was a time in 2016 where I would always say and I probably still have said this since then, where I will always like kind of talk to talk about myself as like a pragmatist, like I might be have like revolutionary or radical ideals, but I’m a pragmatist. And that has steadily shifted throughout the years. But I think that there are so many people that have shifted with it too, and it has not shifted. They I think there are so many Black people who are ready for what is something that I can do that has nothing to do with this, because I am tired of this of the way that this goes. And I and I think that instead of saying that a lot of people are then participating in electorial politics that they already didn’t want to participate in. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I think that’s fair. I can give you that. Yeah, I think that’s right. I also think that there is something that happened with the organizers and I, I think the police issue is a great example of where we collectively did it right. And I say that not like I don’t think I had an outsized impact on that. I think that we all sort of we moved our parents, we moved our grandparents, we moved people on the police issue. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: But wasn’t it a cross generational problem, too? 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah. Yeah. But I’m saying like– 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: –it was everybody sort of, you know, like when we my father told me, be quiet, like he–

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: He was don’t don’t go, don’t argue. Just fill out the thing DeRay and make it home. You know what I mean? And but he’s not that he’s different today, and I do. And I say that not as a failure of other groups or like other issues. But I do think somewhere along the way I think organizers and actors forgot that like the the goal is two pronged. It is demand and persuade. And I think we nailed the demand and we did not always win the persuasion. We just like we stopped the persuasion, do you know what I mean? And I think there are some of these issues where like–

 

Myles E. Johnson: So who–

 

DeRay Mckesson: I think about some, huh?

 

Myles E. Johnson: I was going to, so who’s the cen– So are you talking about just like the pow, like the powers, the political powers. That’s who you’re persuading? 

 

DeRay Mckesson: No, no, I’m talking about the base. I’m actually not talking about the [?]. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: You’re talking about the people. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I think that like the people, yeah. I’m saying, like, what I’ve heard people I love say about abortion is so cra– I’m like, there is no, after birth abortion is not a thing. Trump is making it. But I’m like, wow. We really took for granted that people know the word and literally don’t know anything about abortion. Like the the men are out here like don’t know where a tampon go. Like literally I’m like, oh we we skip the teaching part. And we just kept saying the message, which worked long enough. But I think it’s so like I think that that is Israel-Palestine. I think it is the immigration stuff. The fact that people that we both know think that every illegal immigrant jumped like illegal immigration, that crazy phrase is people who jumped across the Mexican border is crazy you’re like–

 

Myles E. Johnson: Right. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: No, these people didn’t get–

 

Myles E. Johnson: Planes. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: –an immigration hearing. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. Yeah no I definitely I definitely agree. I definitely I definitely agree with you. I don’t think that we agree, disagree that bad on on that subject. I was expecting something that was like a little bit more extreme. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: No, no, no, no. I think that’s I just don’t think people are honest about, I do think, you know, when I think about the activist’s relationship to the politicians. I think that we persuade people like we convince the base, we move people, and then the politicians sort of respond to it. You know what I mean? I don’t think it’s the other way around, I think that this moment got jumbled where like, I think we made a lot of demands. Got a little loose on the persuasion and then– 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And you’re saying that’s what happened with but specifically you’re saying that’s what happened with the Palestine stuff?

 

DeRay Mckesson: I think that’s why I think that’s what happened with abortion, I think that’s what happened with Palestine, I think that my father would be like he knows nothing about Gaza, but he’s definitely like, you can’t kill all those people. He’s like, that is crazy. Now, does he know anything else? Uh questionable. But he’s like, I can’t let them just kill everybody in that country like I but I think there are a lot of people who that is their take on it who are not connected on the Internet, or on TikTok or like watching Twitter all day. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I think I just have another just a different cynical view of people. And that’s why I’m not an organizer probably because I think that the things that we were asking people to care about, they don’t care about in the same intensity anymore. I think that I think the temperature of what Black people care about is different. And and I think that we should have–

 

DeRay Mckesson: But I don’t think so. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I think it I think I think it’s different. And I think I do think that the temperature feels like more pessimistic and cynical and more and more and more selfish and and less collective. And I’m of course, I’m not talking about every Black person. We’re saying that this is not still a top thing that Black people care about. But I think that and I guess only you can like you’ll be able to speak to this better than I could, but I would not be surprised if I saw numbers of people willing to participate in in organizing drop or people’s attention drop. Like I like I feel like the same thing with the abort the the abortion thing that’s to take on something that’s not so like raced as like police brutality. I think that you just saw a whole bunch of people who just did not have like the maybe care’s not the right word, but didn’t have the the the energy to propel them into um into action. That, to me is what–

 

DeRay Mckesson: No. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –keeps me up at night, is that I think a lot of people–

 

DeRay Mckesson: I don’t think that’s it. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –are, I think a lot of I think a lot of people who vote are a little nihilistic. I think a I think I think there’s been a–

 

DeRay Mckesson: I don’t think so. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –nihilism that has that has come over. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I think that like I think that people [?] like and we see this in polling, I think that people care just as much. I do think what has changed is that the performance of the caring has fundamentally changed because we have like me and you forget, our parents have lived through the fourth wave already. We we lived through 2014, which was like panels and da da da da da then we lived through um and then it was like that cascade of like, no, it was like Trayvon, it was Mike Brown then it was like Sandra, Walter, Freddie like we lived through all those and the performance of like how we not performance in a negative way, but how we show that we cared was was very particular. Then 2020 comes and we’re like, do we do it again and da da da da. And then Trump is president. You’re like, okay, we got one more go. And I do think that people are exhausted with performing their caring in that way I don’t think I think that is gone. People don’t want to go to panels. They don’t want to watch these sad documentaries. They don’t want to go to a town hall and da, like I don’t think they want to do that anymore. But I actually think that if they were given a concrete thing or if you polled them about like I actually think they still care just as much. But but I do think that the way that they are willing to engage is like fundamentally different. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, I think that’s I think that’s right. And that was just a better way, not just a more articulate, like sharp way of saying what I was like feeling was whatever care was the biggest word but whatever that thing, whatever propels you to get up and vote is, is not, is not, is not there. And um I love what you said about we’re experiencing the fourth wave, because even as you were saying it, I was like, well, it’s really four parts of one big wave, which to me is like the what was like the corporate wave. And I think that where what we’re seeing is specifically with Target, specifically with all these people, a lot of people are seeing that institutional corporate um appeal is just like we kind of reached a brick wall. And I do think there is a thirst to activate people with something bigger. And I think if it is politics, it got to be a policy like reparations where people are like, oh I’m getting a check and I’m voting for you. That’s the new Obama. Is this reparations politic or it needs to be something that I think feels like it is marooning Black people away from this, like kind of white supremacist system. And it’s not all about like, I just get tired. Like, I don’t know who that beautiful Black woman was talking. She had bald hair, but she had her preacher voice on. And she was just like, you know, talking about what Trump was doing. And she was like, and we will not let Elon Musk come into our uh place. I think I’m so tired of that voice. I’m so tired of people talking like that. I’m so tired of talking about evil white people. And I get that that is a huge yin part of our yin and yang. But we have to have something that is for us and something that feels like, okay, this is our digital village and this is and this is our digital Black Wall Street and our digital whatever. Even if it’s not material, we have to have something else because I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted with the Martin Luther King pastoral voice. And I think a lot of people are. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah I think I think I think you’re, we agree on that. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: And I think that people have like sifted through in their it don’t make sense meter is probably better than it’s literally ever been. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Are you still talking about as far as like the actions of these people? 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah. And just like the arguments, they’re sort of like like with Trump you you even when Trump lies, if you understand it, you don’t have to, like, Google for you’re like, did we spend $50 million on condoms in Gaza? Like it’s not you aren’t confused by what he said. You don’t know if it’s true, but you you definitely got it. You know what I mean? Or they’re stealing the cats and dogs. They’re eating the cats or dogs. [?]. How do you know that they’re eating the cats and dogs? He’s like, they told me. You’re like, okay, well, that was crazy. But but you actually understood it. And I do think the left confuses being morally right with making a good argument. And I think our base was I think people are like, I want the I want to understand it a little better. And I think that we are losing on that front.

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah no we definitely are losing on that front. And I get the the left argument. But again, I think there needs to be a Black left. I think that–. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: No I agree. I agree. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And I think Black people have been totally the leaders of um of these of the moral compass of America. And I think I do you okay last thing I know we have to go, but this is I only have one time to ask DeRay this. Do you think that a lot of the lack of movement, as in organizing that and I just hear I’ve been seeing like on mainstream news, a lot of people talking about like the lack of organizing, the lack of protest, the lack of things like that. Do you think there’s correlation between that and Black women saying we’re sitting this out and maybe like there being you know, you seening all these Black people starting to drink Starbucks, which was like this kind of extremely xenophobic and problematic. But this also message that, oh we’re your issues are your issues and our issues are our issues and my issues let me drink Starbucks. Do we think do you think that is a reason why we’re seeing not as uh a hot temperature right now? 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Not the primary reason. I do think that Black people are like, we put it all on the line. We stood in the street. We like quit our jobs. We changed careers. We went to the panels da da da. And I do think people are like, well, to what end? So if the the if I’m willing to do all that, if it’ll get me a change. And then I didn’t see the change right? Like, so I think that people are like, well, I might as well drink Starbucks because why not? And I think I think things actually have changed and we got to be better storytellers of helping people realize like things get better. I also think that there is a this is why I’ve been you know, this is why I’m happy when people pitch the podcast who write books because, you know, think about how few pieces of mass media or popular media you have seen that show the work of activists. You see the speeches, you see the marches. That’s really it. You don’t see the preparing for testimony. You don’t see the like trying to like the strategy meetings, trying to figure out what is the best structure, you know, so the Civil Rights Act, you know, we see it getting passed. We talked you where are the where is the dramatization of the fights about what got in it? You know like, so I do think there’s a I think about activists who come to me being like, what am I supposed to do? And I realize like they they are not used to the work. They like haven’t seen the work they like, loving Black people is like the main skill. And you’re like, that is a, you know, need that to get in the room. But that’s not the–

 

Myles E. Johnson: The foundation. Yeah.

 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah. That’s not the the whole skill. So I do, yeah. I think that we and you know, this is where Project 2025 is a is an example, not a good example because it’s a nightmare. Right. But it was, it was the detail. Like somebody sat down and said, here is how we take this thing over. Do you know I mean? And on the left like we have to train a generation and this is like why the old people got to go too. We need to change a generation of young organizers and activists to be able to do the like, how do we make this thing work for us thing in a way that I don’t think we’ve done well. [music break] Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned. There’s more to come. 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

DeRay Mckesson: This week I sat down with Dr. Brittany Friedman to talk about her new book, Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons. In the book, Dr. B draws from untapped archives and candid interviews to expose a California prison system’s longstanding alliances with white supremacists to eliminate Black militants. Her book is yet another example of the lengths institutions will go through to suppress Black political movements. Now you have to read it. I was blown away. I learned so much. And it’s she’s such a good writer that, like, you’ll fly through it. Let’s go. Dr. Brittany Friedman, thanks so much for joining us today on Pod Save the People. 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: Thank you for having me DeRay.

 

DeRay Mckesson: Now, let’s start with the book, what made you write this book that is a history of incarceration in California, but seen through the story of the Black Guerilla family. I learned a ton about that gang. It upended everything that I knew about the quote, “gang,” the Black Guerilla Family. What put you on this path to write the book? 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: I wanted to write Carceral Apartheid because I was just dissatisfied with other writing on prison movements, especially in California, you know, really decentering the lived experience of people that were surviving state violence, coordinated attacks by the Aryan Brotherhood and corrupt correctional officers. And so that is I just was like, I need to go and investigate this and really speak truth to power about how people are fighting against a centuries long system of oppression that uses white supremacist civilians against Black communities and and communities of color more broadly. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Now, there are a ton of things in the book that I was surprised by that I didn’t know about. One of those was about the archives. It didn’t even occur to me that there are archives of like old memos from corrections people and and like, you know, you even talk about these things that you weren’t allowed to photocopy and you had to sit there and hand write. Can you talk through like, how did you find out about the archives? Did you already always know there were prison archives? Was it like a dark room in a corner in a basement somewhere? Are they at the prison? I had no I literally knew nothing about this until I read about it in your book. 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: Yeah. You know, honestly, it’s kind of it’s wild the way that I was treated at the state archives in particular. And and what I mean by that is, you know, I I learned about the possibility that there could be something I’d be interested in from historians who had written on the civil rights movement and its impact on prisons. And I I reached out to them. I was a student at the time, and I’m like, you know, I I need a kind of a lead. Where do I go? And they were like, well, you know, there’s some archives. Like there’s the Freedom Archives that’s run by some movement folks for a long time in the bay but then the state archives actually might have something for you. That is from the point of view of prison officials, which could be very useful you know depending upon what is on the paper, what they’re saying in their own words. And I’m and they’re like, but just go look, I’m not sure. Like, okay, let me go. So I went up there with my like, you know, IRB approval from my university and I was like, you know, here’s my approval. Like I have approval to see like, anything that I’m allowed to see. And they were like, well, since you have approval, you can see the restricted files, but some of them you can’t photocopy and you can only copy them by hand and you have to do it in the front. So I had to sit in this like huge room, this big like reading room sat right in the front row so I could be watched at all times to make sure that if I opened anything on my desk that had this big stamp on it that says restricted in like red ink. So it’s like you can see that, like, it’s like you can’t get away with it. Then um someone could come over and be like, excuse me? Like, excuse me Ms. Friedman no, like I saw you with your camera. So I’m just sitting there and just typing, typing, typing. And I um was just baffled by the wealth of information that those files contained, especially the um the investigations, as they were called, which is very much like Cointelpro and sort of like the big moment when those files were released to the public. That’s what I was looking at. And I realized that in the moment in the state archives, these secret investigations that the Department of Corrections was doing into uh trying to identify Black people that they believed were sympathetic to the civil rights movement and needed to be identified and then basically disappeared in their solitary units. So it was it was kind of crazy for me. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: That is that’s wild that they had somebody like watch you and make sure that you didn’t steal like a prison memo. And by steal, I mean photocopy. But are there any um any of the like super confidential ones that you remember that you’re like, wow, this was wild. But I couldn’t take a picture of it or like, I couldn’t do anything with it. What, what, what, what type of document reached that caliber of secrecy? 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: Yes. So one that is just crystal clear to me is when the Department of Corrections started to get sued in the ’60s, particularly by the Nation of Islam. So the Nation of Islam is one of the first organized groups that I found evidence of them being targeted and like named specifically. And it was in 1958, in this memo called Special Procedures for the Nation of Islam. And then they expanded it and it became special procedures for people perceived to be Black militants. But so the Nation of Islam, though, historically, when we look at that organization in the fight for civil rights, Black power eventually and prisoners rights, they were really at the forefront of lawsuits going against the Department of Corrections in California and also nationwide and hiring attorneys to fight on behalf of people incarcerated that were members. And so I will never forget this memo I found from a prison official where he was writing about conversations that he had with a top level attorney in California state government asking, you know, how do I do away with these lawsuits like what’s the best legal strategy for me to completely decimate their cases so that they have no luck in court? And I’m like, this is this is showing the systematic, coordinated efforts across government agencies to violate people’s civil rights, to violate free speech about the abuses that they’re enduring. And I’m like, this is why this is why you have all these like restricted files, because it is proving all of the alleged conspiracies that Black people have known about for generations. It’s not a conspiracy. There’s a coordinated effort to destroy our communities. And when people become incarcerated to completely destroy any means of fighting back, even if people are fighting back legally in the civil in the court system. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: That is. That is wild. Can you take us to um take us to the Black Guerrilla family itself, that there are a host of ways that you could have made your argument, which is rooted and correct me if I got it wrong, that that that the racial separation and the privileging of white supremacy is as present in prisons as it is anywhere else, and that there are real consequences of that that like, you know, one thing that is really clear in the book is how people have to choose a side that they get forced into this white or everybody else. And you could have made that argument a million ways using incarceration, but you chose the Black Guerrilla family. Can you talk to us about that choice, why it matters and what we learn with using them as the throughline? 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: Yes. So I chose the Black Guerrilla Family for two main reasons. The first reason is because the Black Guerrilla Family is the perfect example to show how Black protest and organizing against coordinated police violence against white supremacist violence will get you criminalized as a threat. It will have you facing the full assault of law enforcement and basically branding you as a criminal. Because if the government can brand a political movement, a Black movement against state violence, police violence, right. Then that allows you to use the full lengths of the law to decimate a population and to silence protest and the Black Guerrilla family in their movement organizing in the way that many of their early members are disappeared in solitary or they’re early strategists like W. L. Nolen, is murdered uh by being shot by a correctional officer after he gets incarcerated people to sign petitions against the Department of Corrections like they are the perfect example of how protest is criminalized and how it’s not done as a collateral consequence. Instead, protest is um it is criminalized intentionally and as a strategic act of political warfare by the government. And the Black Guerrilla family is is one of the perfect case studies to show this as a historical throughline. And then the second reason is because the Black Guerrilla family, and and their success actually at uniting people across racial and ethnic boundaries around this notion of we are one class of oppressed people. That arguably is what got them on the, uh you know, public enemy number one list for the Department of Corrections and their law enforcement allies at different levels of government. And so that really shows that what can also make you a target, first and foremost is if if you have a voice and you have the ability to unite people across divisions that are sewed specifically to prevent that, then you are very powerful and you are dangerous. And the Black Guerrilla Family shows that time and again in how their leaders are assassinated and disappeared over time because they are successful at that. And it has so many lessons for what we see happening across Black history and in the present in terms of people who get targeted for, you know, their organizing. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: And what do you say to people who would say, okay, why why are we focusing on the Black Guerrilla family? They are a prison gang. Don’t elevate this, you know, group of people who we’ve heard time and time again committed crimes. And it was just no more than a prison gang that just sort of existed. What do you say to those people? Because I can imagine that most people who have not yet read the book and you need to buy the book and read the book. Most people have an image of the Black Guerrilla family that would be totally upended by reading your text. 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: Yes, absolutely. And you know what, honest, that’s another reason I wrote it is I love to upend people’s world view and really show them that, you know, is your world view your own or is it something that you just downloaded from, you know, propaganda or from social conforming and norms that we are preached in society from a young age? And that’s why I think, you know, the Black Guerrilla Family shows that, you know, even before you ever fight back, if you are if you are speaking truth to power, you can be targeted, you can be silenced and you can be criminalized. And so that’s what’s so important, too, is that I show how before there’s any sort of major incident, Right. That can be spun in different ways. In terms of the narrative, the Department of Corrections is pointing out who we’re going to target. And so that’s why I use those archival records to show that as early as the ’50s, they were putting in place procedures to officially violate people’s civil rights, and that when you eventually get the Black Guerrilla family all these years later consolidating in 1970, I’m showing you all that they were fighting against, how they were fight, how they were trying to fight against uh people who eventually founded the Aryan Brotherhood that were you know uh fighting them on behalf of the Department of Corrections, that they also tried to use the legal system right they tried to to file lawsuits and and how they’re systematically squashed. And then it comes to this breaking point where some key people in the movement are murdered by correctional officers who set them up to die. They put them on the yard with the Aryan Brotherhood. And then when the Aryan Brotherhood attacked, the officers only shot at the incarcerated Black people who were very close to co-founders of the Black Guerrilla Family. So it’s it’s it’s why I show that it’s like you can be targeted way before you ever even really do anything that could get you, you know, put on a particular list. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Now. I was also struck as an organizer with the way you showed in that same vein, how actually organized it was. That it was intentional. They had structure. They had values and beliefs. It wasn’t just like a bunch of guys like trying to cause havoc inside of a prison. But one of the things that um that I that is a through line to me is also this idea that it seems that you are saying that it would have been impossible for the state to repress the Black Guerrilla Family and other Black organizers without solitary confinement. Could you help us understand that better? 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: Yes. And so solitary confinement is known by the international community as a tool of torture, and it is considered by the United Nations a tool of political warfare. Um. And it has been used as such. If you look at every assault on oppressed populations in history and so I I zero in on that because I want to show that the Department of Corrections knows this. They know the power of solitary confinement for destroying the body, for destroying the mind, for destroying hope. And they specifically use solitary confinement for that purpose, and they use it in in their own words. And so I show different quotes in the book of other correctional systems writing to California and saying, you know we have these people in quotes, right? We have these same people in our prisons. Like what do you do with them? And California responding and saying, oh well, as soon as they start talking like basically saying so like they use the word preaching, as soon as they start preaching, we identify them and we promptly segregate them. And they’re saying this very directly. So I, I show, you know, in their own words that solitary is this powerful weapon to decimate people. But how the Black Guerrilla family organizes even in the face of this. And I also show, you know, the the importance of being secretive for movements in terms of of your strategies and your what you’re going to do and even in terms of being identified and how dangerous it is to to end up on a list and to be headed to acquire that label, which can then have you subjected to all of these different tools of police violence. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Now, one of the most sort of beautiful parts of the book is the interviews. You interviewed so many people. I can imagine that you interviewed more people than made it in the book. But we can start with wherever which of the interviews you want to start with. Happy to you know, you can choose your own adventure in this because we’ll cover both of the big ones. Um. But what was it like to sit in people’s living rooms, and kitchens and talk to people about this period of time incarcerated that had to be nothing more than torture? What was that like? What did you learn? Why was it important for you to include them in the book? 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: It was important for me to include interviews because I felt like having these rich archival resources, they were amazing. Yes. But I wanted to bring them to life. I really wanted you to to hear you know the voices of people that are still living and not only think about this as some some forgotten past, but like, no, these are people who are a lot of people are still alive. And yes, they’re elders, but they’re still young enough in the sense of like they’re here and they and their voices deserve to be to be told with respect. And so I chose to do what I would consider to be the way that that that researchers and writers who do interviews. I think that this method should be used more broadly in terms of thinking of the interview as a ceremony, as a space that you’re opening, you’re creating a container, a container that is safety, emotional safety, but a container of truth where people feel comfortable like they can be their their real self and you won’t judge them because you were honestly there. It’s your job there. Your your job is to learn. Your job is not to um you know make judgments of people, regardless of what they’re saying. It’s to learn so that you can see the big picture and weave it together as the writer. As the scholar. And and that’s why I love the interview process. I love that people really opened up their homes to me. And family members would be walking by while I’m talking you know to their grandfather. And then they come and they’re like, I’m going to sit down. I had, you know, people’s children say, I never knew that, Dad. I didn’t know that that happened. And I’ve heard you. I’ve heard you talk some about your experience, but I didn’t know that. So it was also this, I think, a catharsis for the family to have their loved one speak on these topics. And then also, I noticed people just feel much more comfortable if they’re talking in the presence of people who love them versus, you know, in a stale room where it feels very clinical. Instead, it feels very much just like an elder who is sharing an oral history of their life. And then I have the privilege and honor of having my recorder. So I’m capturing it and I’m making sure that it’s not lost as I move forward. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Let’s talk about your decision to interview a white supremacist, a guy who seemingly did not choose to join the white supremacists in prison, but didn’t feel like he had much of a choice. How did you find him? What was that like? Um. What stood out to you? I know you know, when you all read the book, you will see why this is so powerful. But Dr. B, help us understand better the decisions. 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: Yes. So you know I decided to interview the person that I give the pseudonym, Andrew, because I had done some interviews up until that point with men who in the course of our interview described their various dealings, allegiances to or affiliations with white supremacist groups. And I felt like you know when I first met Andrew, which was through a reentry organization that was working with people who had been sentenced to life sentences and had served decades in prison and then had gotten out when there was a different a few changes to legislation in California. And so I you know, when I first met him, I I saw all the swastikas on his hands. And I’m like, you know, I knew he had served a good portion of a life sentence. Um. And I was like, I wonder if he will talk to me. Other people here are talking to me. Um. I wonder if he would be willing to. So we just got to know each other over the course of me you know having conversations. And I very much stood out in this organization because I also I had just recently had a baby. And so I had my like little pump and I’m carrying I have was caring my pump with me and this little ice box holding milk [laughing] the whole time. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I love that. How old is your little one now? How old is that little one? 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: Oh. So that little one. Let’s see. This was 2018. So that little one had just been born? Yeah, because she’s born at the beginning of the year. The ending of that year. So.

 

DeRay Mckesson: I love it. I didn’t know she was a part of the book too. She is. 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: She is. You know, and that that my family really supported me during this time, like my mom especially for that those rounds of interviews in in 2018, when I first met Andrew, like my mom came to California with me. I had two small kids, both in diapers because my kids are close in age. And my mom was just like, you know, go do what you have to do. Bring your pump, bring your little ice box and when you can drop off milk. So like I would I would be doing my interviews. I would put everything in the box and like and then run to my rental car. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I love it. 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: Drop off the milk. Say hi to my kids and then run back to where I needed to be in L.A. So you know, it. I just remember just being very welcomed. And I think Andrew saw, you know, I didn’t have any defenses up. Like, I’m just I’m there. I’m trying to get to know everyone. I have my little breast pump. Like, I’m just like trying to, you know, just glad to be in the space and and also see the organizing that was happening. You know uh that was a part of the story that I wish I could have said more in the book like that, that the men that were a part of that particular organization, they were organizing. And many of them had been members of various groups in California prisons that would have killed each other on site in a fight. But they were working together. And I, I wish I could do another project just about that and how the beauty of it and how when people are no longer in prison, you know, Andrew told me, I’m like, how are you here? Like you are, you are here and you’re working with people who were who were parts of the Mexican mafia, people who were a part of, you know, Crips, Bloods and Andrew’s like, we’re all here. Just we’re helping people that you know when they get out so they have somewhere to go, we help them find their way and uh we don’t need it out here. That’s what stood out for me, he said. He’s like, we don’t need all that out here. Um. And and Andrew finally he agreed. He’s like, yeah, let’s do it. Let’s do the interview. Like, you can record me. So we go, we, we sit on the porch of that house um with the little cat that I describe in the book, because the cat that cat was such an emotional support for all of the men that were working in that work. Um. And so I had I had to bring the cat in because the because the cat just plays this beautiful healing role. But I know Andrew’s telling me about what he survived in the prison system, how he went from going in as a young man who had survived horrendous childhood abuse, who did not see himself as a racist per se. Had grown up around people of different racial and ethnic groups. And and then how he comes to feel that he’s coerced that if he does not become a full fledged member. Right. He and he doesn’t get these tattoos to show his allegiance with swastikas that that he could be set up to be viciously assaulted by correctional officers. He could be killed by his own group. You know, and I I I show his story because the book is not set out to um to to vilify human beings in terms of one particular side. The book is I set out in the book to actually show the power of institutions, the power of prison officials and government officials to intentionally sew racial division, to intentionally allow conditions to happen in their prisons, where people do pick sides and do fight to the death. And how that serves a greater purpose and how there is an incentive. And that’s the that is the goal, because I think if we if we focus too much on right, like, well, Andrew’s this evil white supremacist, it’s like, no, like I’m showing you that Andrew is just like a regular white boy who gets incarcerated and that shows the power of the system. If I can prove that to you. Versus showing like, oh he came in and he was this, you know, raging white supremacist. No, he’s just a regular white boy. Think about the average white boy you go to, you went to high school with. That’s Andrew. And that’s why I really center his story in that chapter called White Above All. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I thought you nailed that, too. I was. I was I was a little skeptical at the beginning. I’m like, okay, [?] like didn’t choose to be da da da. And then the more I read, I was like, I get it. I get how it was like death or join the white supremacists. And if those are the choices. I’m like, that actually makes sense to me. And let’s uh let’s close about the book with um with talking about your decision to interview some of the surviving original members of the Black Guerrilla family. 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: So that was something that, you know, it’s a it’s really a case of that sometimes you don’t know who you’re talking to until later. That’s, I would say, how this describes that situation, because I did when I spoke to historians about archives, I met a historian who also said to me, well, you know, I interviewed people for my book and, you know, I can’t tell you how, but there’s some people that I interviewed that might have something to add to your project. So I will make an introduction. And that’s all he said. And that’s good. That’s ethically what you’re supposed to do. So he went and had a conversation, told them about me, and they said, sure, like let’s see what she’s talking about. Made introductions. So I do a series of phone calls with someone that I I knew was influential in prison organizing, um but I didn’t know how. And we got to know each other over a series of phone calls. And then eventually this person he outed himself to me, like confided in me and said, you know, like, this is who I really am. And I’m like, Does so-and-so know this? Who introduced me to you? And he’s like, yes, like but he wasn’t he’s not going to out me just to anybody. You know? And so that was just it was it was quite a beautiful moment. But also for me like as a student, I was shocked. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: That’s cool. 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: I was yeah like, I’m like this whole time! And he’s like yeah. He’s like, I had to make sure you weren’t the police. [laugh] He’s like, I [?]. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I love that. He said you not getting me cooped up. No, ma’am, you’re not getting me caught up. 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: Yes like yes. He’s like I had to make sure you were not the police. And then after that um, it just opened up doors. Like he basically made calls and was like, you know, she’s doing this project if you, here’s her contact information. And um and he really was he stood as a gatekeeper, I would say, but rightfully so, protecting people that have you know faced years of state repression and violence and survived so much that like, he’s like, I’m not just giving out the contact list and who’s who and identifying people for for anything like that. Um. And also what’s important about that, too, is he said to me, he’s like, you know, I have very rarely in my life ever gone on the record to say I’m a co-founder of the Black Guerrilla Family. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Oh. Interesting. 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: You know, like, that’s why that historian, it’s like, who made that introduction. You know, you people, it’s the ethical thing to do to take um steps to conceal people’s identity. Because you don’t. You never. And that’s what why for me as a sociologist, I am grateful that it is in our tradition to use pseudonyms anyway. Like that’s what sociologists we do in our in our interview work. But like in this case, even if we if it wasn’t normal to do that, I already would have because I would have even I would have been like, no. Like I said to him, I was like, I never want to um you know, I never want to be the cause of you ever being re incarcerated of you, of you ever having anything like that happen. Um. And so he definitely but he made a series of introductions. And then what’s interesting, too, is I was introduced to people through a different network because uh you just have to network so much when you’re doing this type of investigative work. So I was introduced to someone else through doing this investigative work, and I kept track of my like introduction tree as a researcher so I could see how the connections were lining up for myself. And sure enough, it led me back to him. Like it just it led me back to him. But through another way and through that way was me connecting with people who were a part of the original Black Panther Party in the Bay. And eventually it led me back to this same person, and that helped me to like to validate like, yes, he is who he says he is, and he was a leader in the in the Black Guerrilla family during his incarceration. And so that just also speaks to the the power of being very methodical in your work and and to, you know, going following almost like a journalist, like you’re following different leads and then it leads you back and that’s how you know you’re in the right place. And that when that happened to me, it happened to me quite a few times. And I’m like, Yes, like I ended up with the same interview network but from all these different sides. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: That’s really cool. What do you say to people who in moments like this are challenged by everything going on around them? They have no hope left. They’re sort of like, we are eternally screwed. Um. You’ve done a lot of work on incarceration. I know you because of our other work around your incredible focus on the fees that incarcerated people have to pay for their incarceration. What is your message to people when they read books like yours? When they read your research, what do you want them to walk away with? 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: I want people to walk away honestly, with hope. I want people to see, wow, this is what a whole generation, a current generation, has survived and is surviving and they’re still here. And that organizing is still powerful and that there is a momentum. I want people to know that we are not standing alone when we are doing this work and that instead we are standing on a legacy and we all come here to really pick up the flag of what our role is. And so this I feel so inspired by everyone in this book because I’m like, wow, you went through all of that and the state still didn’t win. That’s what I take from it. It’s like when I I’m like the you, they still didn’t win because people who I got to know closely and got to know their families, they’re still doing the work even now. And they’re elderly, they’re still doing the work in their communities in different ways and really being a pillar and being, you know, an inspiration. And so I want people to read this and think about, um you know, their invitation. And that’s why I end with an invitation to awaken in this book, because I want people to think about what’s my role, how can I join um and how can I become awakened to my gifts? 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Boom. Remind us of the title of the book and where people can find it. 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: My book, Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Their Prisons can be found anywhere you get your books. But I do want to hype up some independent booksellers. Reparations Club here in L.A., one of the first to have the book up, a Black woman owned shop, it’s awesome. And Harriet’s Bookshop in Philly. So I want to shout them out. But anywhere you get your books, you can find it. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Dr. B, we consider you family of the pod and can’t wait to have you back. 

 

Dr. Brittany Friedman: Thank you. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: [music break] Well, that’s it. Thanks so much for tuning in to 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 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 Myles E. Johnson. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. 

 

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