Trump rolls back on campaign promises, Black feminist artist Lorraine O’Grady becomes an ancestor, and a debate on the future of the Democratic Party.

 

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TRANSCRIPT

 

[AD BREAK]

 

De’Ara Balenger: Family. Welcome to the last Pod Save the People of 2024. I can’t believe it. I am De’Ara Balenger, you can find me on Instagram at @dearabalenger.

 

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

 

Kaya Henderson: I’m Kaya Henderson. You can find me on Instagram at @kayashines. And today we’re missing our boo bear DeRay. Um but sending good vibes out to him as he does good work with the young people in Cleveland. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: We’re like Charlie’s Angels now.

 

Kaya Henderson: He’s [?]. He’s basically Bosley.

 

De’Ara Balenger: He’s Black Santa. Black Black Santa. That’s what DeRay is for the kids this holiday season.

 

Myles E. Johnson: We have to we have to do what we have to do our um signs. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Mm hmm.

 

Myles E. Johnson: Our gun signs. [laughing] Oh no, we can’t do that [?] post Luigi.

 

Kaya Henderson: Oh yeah, we sure can’t. We can’t. Mmm. [laughter] Oh my soul.

 

Myles E. Johnson: No gun signs, no sass. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Oh man. Well we can start with. You know, this past week, Biden um I feel like it was because of us. Um Biden decided to commute um the sentences of 1500 people. Um. And this is following sort of conversation, backlash, concern around him pardoning his son, Hunter Biden. And so, you know, they turned around quickly. This White House commuted these sentences, um I think in in the haste, some folks weren’t fully vetted or they were. And it just was like whatevs. Um. One of those individuals being um Michael Conahan, who we remember was a part of the Kids for Cash scheme. Um. So he was serving a 17 year prison um due to end in 2026, and he’d been serving that sentence under home confinement since 2020. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This fool is just at home?

 

Kaya Henderson: Everybody who he commuted is under home confinement. They they–

 

De’Ara Balenger: It’s home, is that–

 

Kaya Henderson: Yes. They let them out in 2020 because of Covid. And so all of the people were already at home. They are working jobs. They are living their lives. And he simply commuted the sentences of the people who were already out. I don’t know y’all. I feel like every time this dude tries to do something, he puts his foot in his mouth. I don’t–

 

De’Ara Balenger: I’m just–

 

Kaya Henderson: I just don’t understand why. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: I I I clearly didn’t read the details because now I just lost all of the exuberance I had and excitement around around this announcement. Um. I just, free Leonard Peltier. Somebody. Somebody somewhere free that man, please. Um. Well, that. Well, that happened. And I actually, I was at the White House last night for a holiday shindig, um which was nice, but also it’s sad, y’all. 

 

Kaya Henderson: I was going to say, was it melancholy?

 

De’Ara Balenger: It’s just. Well, it always. You know, the Biden White House isn’t necessarily you know, I wasn’t expecting to have a BET party like with Barack and Michelle Obama. So it is like–

 

Kaya Henderson: I went to that party. I went to that party.

 

De’Ara Balenger: Listen. Listen. So it’s like so first of all, I think it’s like it’s just my nostalgia for what I’ve experienced in that place. And then a friend of mine said last night, she said, you got to think about it. It’s just like going to a holiday party in Delaware. And I was like, [laughter] that is the vibe in here.

 

Kaya Henderson: Fair enough. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yeah. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Fair enough. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Um. And so, yeah, I mean, I I went just because I knew it was going to be the the, you know, a while before I was going to be in that in that place again. We really have no no way of knowing when we’re in there next. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Mmm hmm. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Um. But yeah, and it’s also just sort of a you know, and I talk about this in my news with um sort of the election that’s happening with the new chair of the DNC. I feel like it is sort of business as usual, which is really concerning to me. I mean, everybody is like sad and oh that, but it still just feels like people are just moving through it, not really understanding like the absolute crisis that so many people are already in and now going to be in even deeper. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Meanwhile, on the other side, Mr. Trump has aggressively asserted himself as not as the president elect, but he’s you know, I was watching the Army-Navy game yesterday. And–

 

De’Ara Balenger: Oh my God. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Traditionally, the sitting president goes to the Army-Navy game. Mrs. Biden was there. Uncle Joe was not. Um. But Mr. Trump affirmatively asserted himself in that space, took along with him, J.D. Vance, Elon Musk, Daniel Penny, the the dude who choked out the homeless dude in the subway and just got off. Um. Mr. Trump is talking to world leaders in ways that are traditionally reserved for um a sitting president, not a president elect. And this dude is like [?] here I am. And I ain’t seen Uncle Joe in ages. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, totally getting bulldozed. Um. I wanted to I wanted to go back to geez we kind of like we you covered a lot of territory really quickly, De’Ara. [laugh] But I wanted. I wanted to um. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Sorry. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I wanted to moonwalk back to what you’ve what you first brought up. There seems to be so much evidence of the communication thing. And I know that’s a just something that’s been said so often throughout media that Democrats and Biden has a problem with communication. But I’m just I’m just fascinated by it now because I’m like, well, you wrote a whole article, a public article around Hunter and his release, right? So why not write a whole article about some of the people’s releases that you commuted? So I think that what it seems like to me is that when you commute sentences like this, you’re going to get people that everybody’s not going to agree with that should be out of jail. That’s kind of like that’s kind of the catch 22 with these kind of like moments. But I feel like the opportunity was to highlight the people who you did commute, who people would be happy about. And now you know, the cat that’s why one of the reasons I don’t just say it because I want to be, you know, the group chat’s resident Candace Owens, um because that’s that’s what I am in my head. [laughing] But but I just don’t want to do that, but I do want to have like a bigger robust understanding of what articles are getting out there and what narratives are being spun in the in the world, because this is what this is being made out of and we have if we have three or four, if the left had three or four people who they wanted to highlight in these people who were on house arrest. And now they get to do these things, are not limited by this or now they’re whatever and have the public be happy about it. There was a chance to own the moment, but it just seems like Biden don’t want to own the moment. But then with his son, he over owned the moment. It just seems. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: It just seems it would just be I guess it would just be different if he just was. If the bad communication was just always a lack of communication. But sometimes it’s over communication about some things and no communication about other things. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Undercommunication, yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I’m like, I’m like, Biden, I can’t I can’t be in this relationship anymore. You don’t communicate. [laughter] What are we doing? What are we doing? 

 

De’Ara Balenger: And sometimes, like, even as I’m reading through, like these the folks they chose because and some folks did get clemency, but folks that had um sort of already been convicted to nonviolent offenses. And this might be. I’m still processing this post campaign and like thinking about where this party is and just how Black folks and my news is about Black women in particular in leadership in this party. Any time I worked in public service, I always had sort of a series of memos around what I wanted to do for Black people that I would pull, given the circumstance. Right. Like even things as like, I want Hillary Clinton to meet Nas. Let me write a memo on Nas. Like literally from like ridiculous to to the to the serious. And I just feel like for our people in this space. It just seems like there’s a lack of activist voice when it comes to particularly around like the clemency stuff and the pardoning stuff. Like I just. And I’m maybe and maybe they just didn’t win the fight, but there just seems like there should be an effort with our with our people inside that place that says here are the people that we’ve been following for four years. Here are the people whose families we’ve been working with. Here are the people that, you know, maybe they’re not out and they didn’t go back to school and they don’t have started a nonprofit that’s trying to end mass incarcer– like these are just human beings. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: The Democratic Party is totally bereft and like of a voice that is able to communicate things in a soulful, human way, not a snarky way, not an elitist way, not a policy way, not a cold government way. They have they have failed to create and generate somebody who can sit up and smoke a cigar with Joe Rogan. I’m thinking about Joe Rogan because I just watched that three hour um Quentin Tarantino interview he just did, which was amazing, I have to say. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Wow. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: So I’m in the white I was in my white man bag on Sunday. I was like, they were smoking cigars. Quentin Tarantino was talking he was with Roger Avery, and he was talking about going to jail for vehicular manslaughter. And they were talking for 3.5 hours about politics, about um January 6th came up in that politics. So Roger Avery was was was um defending um some of the people who are in jail for January 6th with some very riveting ideas and evidence. All those things were happening inside of that whiskey marijuana cigar velvet room of that of the common man. I mean, we’re talking about like millionaires just talking to each other, but the feeling of that, you know, and I’m like, that is wild that I can’t imagine anybody from the left short of like maybe Bill Maher sitting in this room. And I cannot imagine a Black woman in this room. And I cannot imagine like it was. It was just wild. I was like, I see it, I see it. And it’s and it’s and and it’s biting us in the ass it’s biting the left. I’m trying to stop staying us because I don’t I feel like I’m being brainwashed when I say that, but it’s biting the left in the ass when it’s time to really make those soulful human connections. And that that activist voice that you’re talking about is lost. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: And it and it but it takes having made and I guess that’s my point it like, part of us and this is like a public service announcement like for anybody in public service, but particularly Black folks in public service. We are there. We are there to create space and opportunity for everyone and really our people. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Mm hmm. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Like and so if even if your job, if you work at the Department of Education and your job is in the legal Counsel’s office, you still in that role have to figure out how to impact policy. Like I just, I just, I guess when I see announcements like this I just feel a lacking of sort of where we are in this conversation and where our push is. And maybe that’s just a me, I’m too hard on the things. But– 

 

Myles E. Johnson: No. It’s a really weird gap, if I’m gonna be honest with you. Specifically for the left. The Democratic specifically the Democratic Party who has so much control of media has so much participation in media. But, you know, it just it feels odd that you usually have the warmest people and the most seen and recognizable and familiar people who are usually on the Democrat side. And you just have so much available. I guess what I’m trying to say. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Exactly. Exactly.

 

Kaya Henderson: But don’t you think that this is also sort of a reaction to Trumpism and its overt pandering to whiteness and white people? And I think the Democratic Party has and its attacks on wokeness and DEI and all of that kind of stuff. And I feel like the left has tried to overcompensate by totally abandoning all of those issues to pander to middle America white voters. And that didn’t work for them either. And the rest of us are just outside in the cold like. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: And I think it’s going to be interesting too just and, Myles, interested in what you have to say, too, because like basically MSNBC is about to be a wrap. Y’all. Like it’s it’s like. Like. Yeah. Like [laughter].

 

Kaya Henderson: What? 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Like it’s already like it’s a wrap in terms of, like, people aren’t watching cable news, but it’s also like, you know, um and this like, I feel like it’s Comcast. I don’t know if it’s Comcast is the is the sort of chairholder thing over–

 

Kaya Henderson: It’s NBC Universal. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: [?]. 

 

NBC Universal? 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yes. Yes. Um. So, yeah, they’re going to spin off, you know, cable networks, including MSNBC, and it’s like happening soon. And so I think it’s even like for this party who communicates mostly through cable news and particularly through MSNBC, like where–

 

Kaya Henderson: I mean this is. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: –where are we going–

 

Kaya Henderson: This is this is–

 

De’Ara Balenger: Where are we going to speak to people? You know? 

 

Kaya Henderson: This is the this is the complete and utter like breakdown, right? I feel like the system is crashing and um and something new is going to emerge. Maybe I’m not so mad about the system crashing because it’s not working right–

 

De’Ara Balenger: Right. 

 

Kaya Henderson: –now. Right. It’s not working. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Right. 

 

Kaya Henderson: For anybody. And so–

 

De’Ara Balenger: Right. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Maybe we have to destroy it, tear it all down like the youngs remind me and build something new. I’m here for the build something new. I uh the tear it all down thing is too easy to do. But we have to have an a solid alternative that emerges from the ashes. And so I’d like to talk to the people who are building the new thing. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Right. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Whatever that is. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I want to I want to talk to those people, too. And I want to see it. And I want to. And I think that we and I think we all should have to be responsible for the new thing, too. You know, and I think about that all the time. Just even being on this podcast and like having the um the privilege to speak to DeRay and just two like really just knowledgeable Black women and being so familiar. And I remember in the podcast or excuse me remember in the podcast, it’s all the same, but I remember in the group chat me talking about my desire to see Kamala Harris um really going to um like intimate media, like podcasts and that she was foregrounding, that’s kind of like the initiation Internet test of like, can you stand the meme fires. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Right. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And can you stand like the sillification that the that that that uh that the Internet will do to you? And she did go through those fires and you see the memes and the videos of her being kooky and stuff like that. But the Internet is going to characterize characterize everybody. It’s just good that the caricature of you is close, you know, But it’s always the Internet’s always going to make a digital Picasso out of somebody’s personality. And I think that she was making such good foreground that she should continue. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: To like connect, connect, connect. And I wanted to say something around what everybody was saying when it comes to Trumpism and stuff. I’m still really on that when it comes to Trumpism and white supremacy and him activating people, I’m still really clinging on to the fact that he did not get this ridiculous amount of people to vote for him. We were we were severely under activated on the left. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And I think and I really want to hold on to that. And um Fran Lebowitz uh has like a quote that she that she’ll say that I think is really pertinent right now. And also Toni Morrison has talked about this too. Fran Lebowitz and Toni Morrison were friends. They talk about this often, too, about how the language of how we talk about the American person has shifted over the decades, how it has went to um the American, the American woman or American man, to the American citizen, to the American um voter, to the American consumer, and um how we and how even in the art world, it went from the art world, our community. Now people call it the art market, how we kind of shifted away from feeling communal with each other, feeling like citizens, feeling like neighbors to feeling colder. And what the right has done is, is, is, is notice that there is going to be these cold places because now everything is uh is Starbucks is is a coffee shop pretending to be a neighborhood coffee shop. Now we all have these things pretending to be the soft thing that we want. And what the right has done is created a soft, warm place for so many people to fall. So they created a place for people to feel comfortable to talk about masculinity, to talk about um the things that are weird about this world, ways to help, talking about bitcoins and stocks. They’ve created this really soft place for people to fall, and Democrats have not done that. They created a Beyoncé concert to fall, they created Mary J. Blige talking to Hillary and singing to at her on a 60 minute interview. You curated all these kind of elitist cold entertainment mechanisms that usually numb people, but we haven’t created a warm circle for people to undo their sweat pants and show their fat and say, you know what? I was late on rent. And I also uh you know to really have these kind of conversations. We just have we just haven’t done that. And and and Trumpism has, you know, and and I think that–

 

Kaya Henderson: That is a brilliant observation. That is a brilliant observation, Myles. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Thank you. [music break]

 

DeRay Mckesson: Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned. There’s more to come. 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

[clip of Nikki Giovanni] We need some happiness in our lives. Some hope, some love. I didn’t have a baby to see him be cannon fodder, cannon fodder. Something more must be decided. If it’s a real war, then he must be brave and true. If it’s a mental war, he must be Black and proud. But if it’s if it’s the wake the people up war, Martin Luther King did that. Malcolm X did that. Stokely Carmichael did that. Robert Brown did it. And if people aren’t awake, then perhaps the dreams are too good to be disturbed again. Perhaps Black people don’t want revolution at all. That too, must be considered. And I decided to be a writer because people kept asking, what would I become? And I couldn’t see anywhere to go intellectually and thought I’d take a chance on feeling. I didn’t want to get married, buy a five room house in the suburbs and have lunch at a Capronis as my big event of the month. I could see becoming a bored alcoholic social worker with a couple of kids I didn’t want. By a man I barely spoke to and wondering at 35 what I’d done with my life. The second greatest thing that happened to me was getting kicked out of Fisk University because I had to deal with my life. I could go back to school, join Delta Sigma Theta, marry a Meharry man, and go quietly insane. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Well, speaking of brilliant observers, we have to talk about our dear Nikki Giovanni. [heavy sighs]

 

Kaya Henderson: We lost a real one y’all.

 

De’Ara Balenger: That. This one was real, real, real, real, real hard. Um. And I was thinking back because I was trying to remember the first time um that I experienced Nikki Giovanni and I actually think that it happened. I think it was so maybe it had been like seventh or eighth grade growing up in this house. But she’s just been so much a part of my sort of coming of age coming of queer like all of it, just my whole life. And so I yeah, I mean, and and Myles, this was a couple of years ago and you when you put us on to Nikki Giovanni’s album. And so then I started, I’ve been listening to her too more and more often over the past couple of years. 

 

Kaya Henderson: She’s just always been present in my, like, literary memory. Um. I don’t know when I first encountered Nikki Giovanni, I have always encountered Nikki Giovanni. Um. And I just appreciate um I appreciate her, her willingness to say the things in the most beautifully poetic ways possible. In ways that both pierced my heart and also held that heart while it fell apart. Um. I just I mean, she was astounding. And we all know that ultimately everybody moves on to be an ancestor. Um. But, you know, it still hurts when you when you feel like you no longer have access to um to that brilliance in real time. So it just is. I’m thankful that we had her while we did. Um. And yeah, it’s just it’s just a sad moment. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: It’s so wild because, you know, Nikki Giovanni wasn’t necessarily a spring chicken, right? But she but she but she–

 

De’Ara Balenger: But she looked so–

 

Myles E. Johnson: But she–

 

De’Ara Balenger: She just always–

 

Myles E. Johnson: But she was our Black dove.

 

De’Ara Balenger: –[?] as so young. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: She was our Black dove. 

 

Kaya Henderson:  Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: She was. [laugh]

 

Kaya Henderson: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: She was a soaring eagle. So I’m always really big on it. Specifically as somebody who has deep, like spiritual, um just like kind of like African um belief systems around spirituality and consciousness. I’m always just real about the life cycle of of, of death and life and birth and and and but I but I got to tell you, [laugh] with all that, I think I am grieving what her absence means. And when I thought to myself, I don’t know if you all got to see the Netflix documentary um, Going to Mars, but you should definitely watch it. It’s so good. It talks about her life. It just it just it’s just a beautiful documentary on on her. But when I, like, sat with it and really thought about where we are culturally and why this hit me so bad, I was like, oh we’re losing lots of people whose main priority in the public sphere was to preserve. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: That’s right Myles.

 

Myles E. Johnson: Black dignity. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: That’s right. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Black thought. And that was their–

 

De’Ara Balenger: That’s right. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –main motive. Their main motive. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: That’s right. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And their main thing that they wanted to do was to look dignified. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yup.

 

Myles E. Johnson: And and and be Black and be smart in public. And that was the whole thing. It wasn’t just around the Black cool. And just this this year we lost Judith Jamison, Quincy Jones, Nikki Giovanni, Lorraine O’Grady, Faith Ringgold, those–

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And and this this is a hard thing for me to say, but it’s the truth. The Black people who are in the public who I respect, that like that population is narrowing. There is so and I talk about this all the time, and I think we’re seeing the results and the and the and the and the backlash from it. But I talk about all the time how now that we have a whole bunch of black people who are participating in the public sphere in order to get to to, to to move up class class wise, they don’t mind maybe participating in modes of minstrelsy that are a lot. Some of them are about violence, some of them are about drugs, some of them about sexual. But it’s all type of like uh uh exploiting stereotypes and the worse ideas around Black people for gain. And there’s a lot of Black people who are willing to participate in those things uncritically and the amount of Black people who are unwilling to do that, but still want to be in pursuit of being a public person that is just slimming down. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: That’s right. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And and that is just that is just narrowing. And I think Nikki Giovanni’s passing, even though her as a person, I’m like child rest, rest, rest, Black queer woman who put language to fire and suffering, rest. But I am mourning the I mean, Toni Morrison’s gone, Bell Hooks is gone like um Maya Angelou is gone. I am mourning people, how I feel about there just not being a whole lot of people who are willing to be Black and dignified and thoughtful and critical. Um in public in the ways that Nikki Giovanni was. And I think the only thing we have like that to tie it and close it with my Starbucks reference is we we we have a whole bunch of Black people often who want to look like the thing, but they still want the riches and the and the power that comes with assimilation. So you’re compromised, where as with Nikki Giovanni, I always felt she was really centered. And even if I disagreed with her or Bell Hooks or Toni Morrison, I really believed what they said, I didn’t believe that they were in any way being edited. And I and I and I mourn uh the unedited Black voice in the in that way. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: I do wonder, though. Because, Myles, my my line of thinking went there, too. And that’s what I was going to get into. And I was like, when I’m 70, who am I going to be sad about that’s passing away? Nobody. Um. [laughter] But but I do. I think what this generation has in common is that they grew up through some form of Jim Crow. They grew up in sort of segregated all Black spaces. And I do think that there is such a power and sort of inherent pride you get in growing up that way um and sort of having, you know, obviously the the violence and the surveillance is there looming. But there’s also a certain a certain protection and a certain I mean, I think it’s akin to like your an experience at an HBCU and like what that can do for somebody. Right? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah.

 

De’Ara Balenger: But I do think that it also was sort of a different time in sort of capitalist culture when these when these folks came to be. And it’s and it’s a different landscape now but different meaning like somebody like a Ta-Nehisi Coates or somebody like um Elizabeth Alexander. Like there are still people that are out here fighting the good fight. But I think it is harder and harder for them when you’re not like on Instagram or on Twitter all the time. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah exactly. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Or have paid speaking engagements or like, I think it’s sort of harder for those folks to have sort of these more breakthrough moments. And I think Ta-Nehisi I think his book was just so much a part of the zeitgeist at this moment. And he is who he is. Um. But I do think there are um, Imani Perry, like there are there are people who I adore and think are sort of living in this legacy. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: And I think the question is, how can we get them more sort of space and amplification? You know, should I look to y’all for that same type of, you know, inspiration? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Agreed. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Um, you know, so I think that’s I think that’s the that’s like the it’s sort of like a times are so different we still need to do this work. It’s so much harder. It’s almost harder to do it now than it was then sort of reaction that I have. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: What what you were naming and I hope I didn’t make like represented like there– 

 

De’Ara Balenger: No. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –was no Black people who are doing that. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Mm mm no. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: But I think that now getting in and now there’s such a weird amalgamation of intentions that are all based in capitalist gain and all kind of algorithmized and and now we’re all so like, for instance, I love that I will never know what Nikki Giovanni thought about the dating scene, popping balloon games, things on YouTube. You know, I love that there are certain things that um that Ta-Nehisi Coates [?] somebody who I think is kind of in that tradition, like you’re saying, who also is like name recognized, and face recognized, I love that there’s maybe things that he won’t publicly participate in because he’s here in the public for this thing, you know, and to be seen. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: With the with this thing. And, you know, there’s playwrights. There’s just so many different people who are like that, you know, um who were like that. But now that it just, everybody can get through. It’s good for some in some ways. But also, I don’t know. [laugh] When we look at elections, when we look at uh just so many ways where we kind of need just serious minds, it feels like we’re failing that. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: There’s a book that I’m I’m really need to read. It’s called Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America. It’s by Eugene Robinson. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Mmmm. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: And it’s basically, you know, he argues over decades of desegregation, affirmative action and immigration, the concept of Black America has shattered. Instead of one Black America, now there are four. Mainstream middle class majority with full ownership stake in American society. Myles, to your point. A large abandoned minority with less hope of escaping poverty and dysfunction um that at any time since Reconstruction is crushing in. A small, transcendent elite with such enormous wealth, power and influence that even white folks have to genuflect. [laugh] I like this guy. And two-ly, and two newly emerging groups. Mixed race heritages and communities of recent Black immigrants that make us wonder what Black is even supposed to mean. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Hmm. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: [?]. 

 

Kaya Henderson: That should be one of our Blackest book club selections. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yeah it should. 

 

Kaya Henderson: For February.

 

Myles E. Johnson: Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. 

 

Kaya Henderson: And and so that we don’t miss out on current news. Last week um we were talking about the then unnamed shooter who killed the United Health care CEO. And now we know his name is Luigi and he is a folk hero for some people. Um. When last week we were sort of opining whether or not it was a disgruntled health care person or if it wasn’t the system, [laugh] the powers that be. Now we know. And Luigi has gotten quite a tremendous amount of attention. What do you all think about that? 

 

De’Ara Balenger: So first of all, when this broke, I was actually in Rome [laughter] and I was at a dinner. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Right. Well you know you know–

 

De’Ara Balenger: With a bunch, with a bunch of Italians. And I was like–

 

Myles E. Johnson: Were you at a McDonald’s? [laughter]. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Right. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: But it was so hilarious to be like at a table full of Italians. And I’m like, uh what’s going on with y’alls, with y’alls– 

 

Kaya Henderson: People. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: –people. Um. It just it just was sort of like a funny conversation that ensued. But it was it’s so interesting because, you know, Italy’s having you know, they’ve you know, they’ve got a crazy person running that place that’s, you know, in their words, who was fascist. Um and but it’s interesting, though, because there’s still, you know, obviously because I just talk about race all the time, like we got into that. But really, the the difference is what seemed to be the cultural difference and sort of like how things are landing here versus there is that we just are, you know, America is just so much about capitalism. And no–

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: And it’s just its own sort of evil um that it’s just so much hard to, you know, sort of have progress or turn a corner. Um. So it was an interesting conversation. And it’s also interesting to have this conversation with Italians because they just were like, I can’t believe y’all don’t have health care. They’re like–

 

Kaya Henderson: There’s that. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Of course people are, they’re like, why aren’t more people shooting up places? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Right. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: And I was like okay Italians. That’s how we know how you all get down. Um. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. [laughter] 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Um. But I will say, I just feel like with the news that has sort of come out with this, with this young man, it’s just it’s it’s all really deflating. It’s it’s I mean, I actually, you know, we were having this conversation on our group chat just around sort of you know, desperation, suffering where people are and how people you know, there’s just such a a desire, but also just a reaction for where things are that people you know, that this is sort of the origins of why this occurred. And to me, it’s just becoming less, and less that I don’t I don’t feel like I don’t want to lose that conversation. But I just feel like now we’re turning this into, like, The Bachelor with this guy. And– 

 

Kaya Henderson: Oh. Yeah, totally. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: And it just feels gross. And it just feels like we’re missing the point again. Um. So it’s just I’m just like. I don’t know. Some y’all, y’all are smarter. So I’m sure you’ll have something more connective to say. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Uh uh. So you remember what I was saying earlier about how the Internet creates like these kind of Picasso caricatures of people’s personalities and situations. So I think the Internet’s always going to do that. It’s a place that is just culturally on the Internet. It’s different flavors, but it’s all absurdity. It’s all extremism, and it’s all um what they would call edge lords. Let me let me let me um let me educate my um my rich Black aunties about what a edge lord is. Because I will because I will, [laugher] but an edge lord is somebody, to put it– 

 

Kaya Henderson: Could you see me sit up?

 

Myles E. Johnson: I saw it. Right. So um an edge lord is somebody who um, to put it super simply um gets a lot of traction virality on the Internet by posting edgy content. So that’s dark humor. That’s humor that is seen as subversive. And the Internet is really a haven for that kind of humor. And Black people engage with it too, when we’re maybe like talking about like disciplinary actions of our parents and things that maybe wouldn’t be funny to other people. But it’s funny to us intercommunally. Um, that’s a place for it. So I think that is a thing that we’re seeing with um Luigi, uh I do think so that’s why I think what we’re seeing with Luigi, because you have to understand that the Internet is also being occupied specifically in America by ten, 15, 20 year old like just everybody’s on here. Right. So I think that I, I don’t want anybody to be too tricked by what’s happening online. But I do think that the because that’s always going to be extreme and ridiculous. But I do think the warmth towards Luigi  is real. I think the extreme of it, I think is is is online fodder. But I think that most people do not feel sympathetic for Brian Thompson’s assassination. I think that I think that I think that is a true thing and uh just to tie it in, tie this in because, you know, I’m I’m a I’m a I’m a Black propagandist. So I want to I want to make sure [laugh] that I’m tying all these things in. I think it’s a Black I do think traditionally when I think about Ida B. Wells, when I think about Angela Davis, when I think about Nikki Giovanni, when I think about these different people, I think it is the Black press’s place and job to have a sobering effect on American ridiculousness. I think that when when Black people are looking at America, we are able to say, you look like a drunken stupid foool. Here’s how you have a society. And we do that with our own bodies. We do that with our own lives. Because if you do something well with Black people, you’re going to do something well, you know, so when it comes to abolition, when it comes to segregation, when it comes to all these different things, we are the person to take a moment and show you this is actually a symptom of your of your drunkenness and your violence. You know, so I do think that has historically been the place of Black people, Black thinkers, Black uh uh, Black Black political figures and social political figures. Which leads me to this Root article, because this Root article is wild. 

 

Kaya Henderson: I don’t know why you why you even [?].

 

Myles E. Johnson: No because I, because because when you have to. 

 

Kaya Henderson: [?]. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Because we’re in ridiculous times. And we have and people think if you’re not on the stage with a painted face, that you’re not [?], that if you’re doing it with a typewriter or if you’re doing it with a keyboard typewriter, where am I from? Um. But if you’re doing it with a keyboard and you do it on a computer in a publication, [?], that is no longer minstrelsy. So let me read a quote from The Root article written by Madison J. Gray. Here’s just a little paragraph. Maybe Luigi Mangione took this really seriously when he decided to allegedly bust a cap in the back of United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson on December 4th before disappearing. Some were shocked that a broad daylight killing could take place in midtown Manhattan, one of the most monitored areas in the country. Others actually cheered the killing of the leader of the company that has gained infamy among regular people seeking reliable insurance. Before um before Mangione’s arrest, when only an unclear photo of him at New York Hostel circulated. People were hailing him as some kind of brilliant vigilante, vigilante who struck a blow against the evil health care industry. Others were lusting over him harder than they do Timothy Chalamet. Many uh believed this mastermind had fled the country for a place with no extradition laws, never to be seen on American soil again. Um. So I wanted to I wanted to just have a clip of it, because at the best, that article is just reporting maybe some things that just were true and public things. At worst, it was riddled and I don’t have anything against slang or cursing or anything that in like language, but it was so riddled with unseriousness. And I’m like, if this is one of the Black places for the Black voice and we don’t have a Black person really wanting to engage in this health care conversation and how Black people have been denigrated and annihilated through the health of the American health care system. And somebody doesn’t want to connect the distrust in the health care system and the violence of the health care system with the violence towards Black people. That is the responsibility of writing while Black. And if you’re the Root or if you’re the Grio or if you’re  any of these places, legacy or new and you’re and you’re basically platforming somebody who I might be talking about who you’re giving I not even talking about him as a writer. I’m talking about the integrity of what you what you’re exposing, disposing onto the to Black American people. Like I just find it so upsetting because these are the opportunities to enlighten Black people. These are and the opportunities to for something to be happening in your daily life that everybody’s talking about it and connect it to our history in a way that you’ll never forget, that those are moments where people become radicalized and enlightened and expansive in their politic shift. And that is the Black responsibility. And you’re talking about some white girls who are bored or some gay boys who who want to go viral and what they’re doing with Luigi Mangione, calling him fine, because he has abs. If you dig just below the surface, you’ll have a very rich text about Black people and health care. And I’m just. And I’m just it’s just it’s just wild that that is not being taking care that that that that’s not being considered. And again, it’s not an Instagram caption. It’s not something that’s on Twitter. It’s not something that was through through text. This is something that one of the very few Black publications that we have in America, digital or otherwise, decided to print as as a dimension to the Black voice on this on on on this matter. And it makes me sad, it really does. And it feels yeah, it feels like a symptom to something. If it feels like a reason to why we’re often losing political power. 

 

Kaya Henderson: I agree. I think um we shifted so quickly from the the outrage to the circus um that it is an indictment of us as a society, that we are more interested in the shenanigans that this whole trial will bring um than we are in the root cause, the real societal opportunity to dissect what’s going on in health care. That ship has sailed. Gone completely. [music break]

 

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

 

[AD BREAK]

 

De’Ara Balenger: My news this morning is from the 19th. Thank goodness for the 19th after that Root article. Lord have mercy um but and the headline is, why aren’t Black women in the conversation to lead the Democratic Party? And so I wanted to I just I don’t want us to lose sight that the election for the DNC chairman, the new person to lead the Democratic Party is is like it’s imminent. It’s happening um. It’s happening in February. Um. And so I just wanted us all to be paying attention to who’s in the running, what this all looks like, what does this mean, etc., etc.. And so this one, this particular article caught my eye. And in the the picture that goes along with the headline is of Marcia Fudge. And I love Marcia Fudge. And it was so one like I remember when Biden stepped down and Kamala became the nominee. I was on the credentials committee and we had this big credentials call in advance of the convention. And Marcia Fudge just came on there and made everybody feel all right. I mean, I know that’s what Black women do, obviously. But she just it’s one of those things where because of all this Internet frenzy and foolishness and just our culture that is so much about um it’s just not about care. But she is so she was so gracious and graceful. And um it’s just I just was like, wow, this can be this this could be politics like this, she is it. Anyway, I digress. So the story basically goes into, you know, um Jamie Harrison, who’s the current uh chairman, is stepping down. And right now there are there’s sort of several folks that have emerged. Ben Winkler, who’s the current head of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, um Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party chair Ken Martin, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. They’ve all announced their candidacies. Um. This is hilarious. This this article also says even veteran Democratic strategist Rahm Emanuel, the current U.S. ambassador to Japan, has been suggested to fill the position. Yeah, I’d like to see that happen. That would be wild. Um. But largely left out of the conversation are Black women, which we know have been the Black, the backbone of the Democratic Party, um the most staunchest supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign. They, you know, backed Kamala Harris by a rate of 92% in November. Um. And just sort of have had like an outsized role in not just this election, but sort of every Democratic presidential election. Marcia Fudge is she’s she’s been an ally of of of Vice President Harris. Um very, very involved in the Democratic Party but has decided not to run. There’s also some other folks who um who are chairs of their state Democratic Party, like Georgia Rep Nikema Williams um and some others that sort of already feel left out of the conversation, but sort of have been felt left out of this past election. And so this is just where where we, and and I think just one more thing I want to say. Like even they’re feeling so left out that South Carolina Democratic Party chair um Christale Spain was in Arizona this week and said that while she was surprised that no one has mentioned a Black woman to lead the DNC, she’s not surprised. Black women aren’t stepping up to run after this hard fought race. She says she hasn’t got a call about running, but also added she’s not interested in the job. So it sounds like not only, poor Black woman, not only are Black women not being called, but they’re also like, do we want to take on this headache anyway? So I don’t know. I’m just finding this interesting and just, you know, there’s no, there’s nothing I’m excited about. There’s nothing I’m necessarily disappointed about. I’m sort of uh, you know, just feeling sort of numb to all of it, but also wanting us to make sure that we are we’re just paying attention. And what’s going to happen is that there’s going to be a meeting of sort of all the state party chairs, and they sort of come together to elect who that next chairperson will be. And you know, my other thought is we didn’t win none of these states. So I don’t know. I mean, [laugh] these state party chairs I mean. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Here’s what I’ll say. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Anyway. Please say something.

 

Kaya Henderson: Here’s what I say about this. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Please, please. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Um. One, I do think that it is a conundrum that um Black women are not being um recruited and sought after for this role. And apparently it’s a thankless job and you need a lot of support and da da da da da. And so you also sort of understand why Black women are are not stepping up. But at the same time it’s still the chairman of the Democratic National Convention. And so and it is a powerful role in determining, you know, who we are as a country. We have talked about what happens when Black women lead it’s a very, when women lead, A, number one. But when Black women lead, um everybody is well taken care of. And I will tell you that I was stunned that Jaime Harrison was the flipping Democratic national chair because he lost in South Carolina and we put him in charge of everything. Why wouldn’t we put Stacey? Stacey Abrams flipped the whole state of Georgia, why wouldn’t we put her in? Like, this whole thing is bananas to me. And so when you keep on doing the same thing, you going keep on getting the same results. Listen, it’s time for something different to happen, y’all. And this ain’t it. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I want to know if it’s a safe place for me to be really, really um shallow. Because I think that’s where Black people are or not Black people, but that’s where American people are um in totality. And I think it’s something that we’re not necessarily facing, but this article reminded me of and I just want to know if it’s a safe space first. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: It’s always a safe space. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. I think that if we if we have people who are willing to acknowledge that America is shallow and maybe some of America’s choice when it comes to Donald or um and not, um Kamala Harris is really about skin color and it’s really about gender. We also have to be real about how the politics of colorism. So we know that race is a thing. We know that gender is a thing. But we also have to understand that colorism is a thing, you know, and that every person, every Black person and how they show up does matter how people are going to engage with them. And I, I, I truly believe that when I think about Marcia Fudge, when I think about Stacey Abrams. Abrams, I truly believe that there are a lot of Black people, or excuse me, a lot of Black people who are part of the Democratic Party. A lot of these women who have a better chance at political power than uh Kamala Harris ever did, or have a better chance of forging roles with the American people because American people are used to seeing esthetically, some of those Black people in in roles of service. We kind of interpersonally as Black people know the stereotypes, the Lynn Whitfield stereotype of light skinned Black woman. We know that the that the history of the light skinned Black woman, the biracial Black woman is that one of trickster, one of somebody of race traitor. One as somebody who is um portrayed in both media, both classical and minstrel as somebody who um who who is willing to trick for power. Kamala Harris was wearing that history on her. And it’s and it’s a shallow history and it’s a colorist history, but it’s a true history. And if you think that people are not ready for to see somebody like um like like Marcia Fudge in political power, they really are. When it comes to Stacey Abrams they really are. I actually think when I unfortunately when I was thinking about that soft place for people to land unfortunately in– 

 

Kaya Henderson: It’s in the bosom of Aunt Jemima?

 

Myles E. Johnson: I’m not endorsing this I’m not endorsing this stereotype but unfortunately that soft place warm place to land is often going to be a brown to dark skinned Black woman who may be 20 to–

 

Kaya Henderson: Is a little fluffy. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –100 pounds overweight and all this other stuff, because we have already created space for the mammification. And all we have to do is translate it to politics. That is what is the truth in an imperialist white supremacy, capitalist patriarchy. So there’s actually Black archetypes that can do better politically. And you chose one that is that is historically and culturally seen as villain. And seen as traitor and seen as too slick for her own good and secretly radical. When we think about Angela Davis, when we think about Bell Hooks even, and those are people who I love, Nikki Giovanni, these are people who I love, but these are also people who have been weaponized as these light skinned boujee race traitors. So I hate to be the sh– like that shallow about it, but that’s what this article made me think of. I’m like, you can run her and she’s not going to get half the things that um that Vice President Harris did simply on esthetics and colorism and fat and and and the politics of fat phobia. Now, if I’m not here in 2025, y’all. [laughter]

 

De’Ara Balenger: I will just say, I will just say you know I think I also want us to remember that, like, Kamala Harris’s campaign was eight weeks. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: But but the thing but–

 

De’Ara Balenger: And I I do believe and this is again. Because I got to stay sane. I do believe. And y’all gonna be like but she did. She already ran in 2020. I do believe if she had a longer runway. And the same could–

 

Myles E. Johnson: She would have lost by less.

 

De’Ara Balenger: –be argued on the other side that it was shorter. And then the you know. But anyway.

 

Kaya Henderson: We we made we made we made that decision. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: I just, but Myles. 

 

Kaya Henderson: We made that decision. And you gotta live with it.

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yes, I’m picking up everything you’re saying and I think part of, part and I wish that there was more thoughtfulness to all of this, because basically what’s going to go down is the state Democratic leadership people are going to all be in this like rivalry for who can get the most control, who can put their person there. And that’s what it’s going to come down to. And the reason Jamie Harrison was the head of the Democratic Party was because of Clyburn. So it’s it is sort of like this this it’s less about strategy and less about actually chops and more about the politics of it, which is so boring because we are losing. So if we are doing the same thing, to your point, we’re going to get the same results. And so I think. You know, even if there was just sort of more thoughtfulness about picking somebody from the Midwest, like we’re picking someone from the Midwest because we have this belief. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I don’t– 

 

De’Ara Balenger: That the da da da da da da da da. But it’s not that. It’s just like it’s like who can rally more votes? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: But I think that’s so but that’s what is so wild about this particular situation. Because what I’m thinking is they’re probably going to pick um Gavin Newsom. Right? And Gavin Newsom reminds me of other people as as somebody who is um I’m not even just saying just specifically just control of DNC, but I’m thinking about next people who are going to be in the sphere as like political. I’m just thinking in the next four years. And to me, Gavin Newsom seems like somebody who they might definitely tap or be in the forefront of the Democratic ticket. And he’s I’m sure super duper qualified. I’ve read about him. I see him in interviews. I like him. But he also is selling you a certain type of esthetic. He’s telling you a certain thing. Like he reminds me. He reminds me of the character in American Psycho. And the only the biggest pushback that I have Auntie De’Ara, when when when you say stuff like this is the fact that she lost to Trump, like, so and what so I, I truly think that a lot of people are kidding themselves and dizzying themselves when it’s real it’s way more shallow, it’s way it’s way more shallow.

 

De’Ara Balenger: No I,  I agree. I agree. But I also feel like had we if we had somebody like you that  know knew how the Internet worked, I also think that would be helpful. Part of this is like and and Gavin Newsom won’t be the person because Gavin Newsom probably thinks he’s too he’s too big time to run the then to run the DNC and he really just wants to be president. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Well I’m not even thinking so, [?] can I just say a little edit?

 

De’Ara Balenger: But again that would be like but that would be a good that would be a strategic choice for to your point. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: You know what I’m saying? Like, we want a shark. We want somebody who can go, but it’s not it. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: But I–

 

De’Ara Balenger: And that’s what’s so sort of frustrating about all of this, is because what the DNC needs is a CEO and and and not like a crazy not like a gross capitalist CEO, but like a moral capitalist, somebody who is going to whip that place into shape that says, hey, y’all, this is how you use the Internet. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and again, I just wanted to, like, be clear that I think the Democratic Party needs this, right? So I don’t think Black I don’t think Black women need like, this is the way for Black women to find control. I don’t that’s not how I feel. And a and according to this article, that’s not how Black women feel. They’re like, figure it out. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: That’s right. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I’m saying that the Democratic Party needs Black women. I’m saying that these slick white men who you’re who you’re probably positioning or these people who are POC and and and and–

 

De’Ara Balenger: I see what you’re saying. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And who are who are and there’s they’re actually um anti xenophobe. There’s xenophobic language being wrapped around their identities as they’re speaking. They’re not going to be able to build that trust. But Black women, specifically a Black women with certain phenotypes in skin color in skin color and weight are already uh are there’s already a carving of service for them that it makes sense that oh if you were being service for my my, my my literal home a centuries ago you could be in service of my um of of of this political home as long as you as long as you talk right. And and and you know it’s you’re still you you’re you’re you’re still a part of the bigger like political machine. But but that’s that’s I just want to make it clear that I just think that, like, this is what the Democratic Party should do because I’m like, there’s no other I’m just not seeing the other ways that other people are seeing. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Well I think I think I think from the I think the the construct here for Black women in Democratic politics is like we deliver. And so the delivering should be met with opportunity and ascension. And it’s not but it’s wild and you know, it’s not a corporation. It’s the Democratic Party. So just based on principles and values, you would think that. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: It’s not.

 

De’Ara Balenger: You know, that, you know and it, and it and I think–

 

Myles E. Johnson: It’s yeah, but I mean, that’s what it– 

 

De’Ara Balenger: But I think that’s what the thinking is. It’s like. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Because even when you think about [?]–

 

Kaya Henderson: Well listen. I don’t I don’t. I don’t even understand why we are debating this. None of this is surprising. None of this is like unexpected, like, why, y’all are like giving real brain power to this. And I appreciate that. I’m like, are you kidding me? Like what? Ay yi yi. [laughter] I’m sorry. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Whose news is next? 

 

Kaya Henderson: I am next. I’m. I’m next. Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to be the wet blanket. But what, it’s water is wet. Water is wet. It is. It just is. Um in my–

 

Myles E. Johnson: So Auntie Kaya before you–

 

Kaya Henderson: Go ahead.

 

Myles E. Johnson: Before you go to your news. So do you agree with the like I guess it that the the the thesis of my idea that just like an esthetic shift could actually make like inroads with people’s connection with candidates that are not white men because it seems as though Republicans have gotten all the white men being mascots between Elon Musk and Trump. So if if, if if we’re trying to do the same thing they’re doing, in my opinion, they already found they already found the white man’s spot, they would be talking to Joe Rogan and all the other stuff. And I’m thinking, this is our only inroad to make actual connection. What do you how do you feel? 

 

Kaya Henderson: I don’t I don’t I think it’s a novel idea, um but I don’t think so, because I think at the end of the day, Black women are just consistently devalued. We are the mules of the world, as Zora told us. People want to work us. People don’t want to provide opportunity. And we keep showing up and we keep doing the thing. And this is how people think about it. I just don’t I don’t think if I think Mammy could get up there and do whatever and I actually don’t think there’ll be a zillion reasons why. She’s not pretty enough, she we don’t blah, blah, we don’t think she’s smart enough or yada yada, yada. Like, I just don’t think– 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I think you should– 

 

Kaya Henderson: –people are invested in Black women’s leadership. I just think I mean, people first of all, this country is not invested in women’s leadership, period. The end. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Period, yeah. 

 

Kaya Henderson: And we sure ain’t invested in Black women’s leadership. Boom.

 

De’Ara Balenger: Right. [sigh]

 

Kaya Henderson: Sorry to be the wet blanket. Um.

 

Myles E. Johnson: No, I don’t think that you’re being a wet blanket at all. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Well, thank you. Um. I’m not really sorry. I was just saying that because I thought it was the right thing to say. [laughter] In my news. In my news my the title of my piece is going to be, um Liars Be Lying, right. Liars Be Lying. Because y’alls president elect who campaigned staunchly on reducing grocery prices. Um. In fact, he I was watching some clips this weekend where he said on day one, grocery prices are going to go down. And if you vote for Trump, you’ll increase your net worth and you’ll increase your food security and you’ll increase this, that and the other and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Mr. Trump is now walking back his promises, saying that uh bringing down grocery prices is going to be really hard. He doesn’t think that’s going to happen at all. And um none of that is shocking to us at all, to those of us who pay good attention. Um. But I brought it to the podcast. There’s not a lot to say about this. I don’t think maybe there is y’all are on a roll today, um but I brought it to the podcast. I brought it to the podcast because as we started talking last week, last week, he did his um he did an interview on Meet the Press. That was his first interview since he was elected. And he was walking back some of the immigration rhetoric. Right? He can find a place for the Dreamers and DACA and he was sort of smoothing out a lot of his, you know, aggressive, intense rhetoric. And now this is his first interview for um Time magazine’s man of the year. And he’s walking back the economic promises that he’s made. And so I think it is fascinating, one, how quickly he is trying to smooth out the rhetoric that won him the election. And I wonder how people who really believed that this man was going to fight for the poor people that they are and make sure that their grocery prices came down and that he and his billionaire friends were going to, you know, make their day to day lives better. I wonder what they feel when they read these articles and when they see him backing off of the commitments that he made. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: It’s almost like these folks are as delusional as we are about Black women in leadership. If y’all really thought he was going to do anything for anybody. You know who you know who’s making out all right? Elon Musk. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Oh yeah. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: $70 billion. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Yes. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Or is it more than that? 

 

Kaya Henderson: No, no, I just read something. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Or was like his wealth increased 70 billion? Or he’s–

 

Kaya Henderson: By no, I read something. I read. I read an article. I’ll find it and put it in the chat. That he invested $277 million in the election and his net worth has grown by 200 B with a billion dollars. Like, say what now? 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Maybe they maybe they think there’s going to be a trickle down effect. They love saying trickle down. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Right. Been waiting for that trickle for decades now Reagan. [laughter] We been waiting for that trickle. 

 

Kaya Henderson: This trickle ain’t trickling. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I need some of that trickle. Um. Because I believe in my beliefs and my ideas. I am going to say this is further proof to my last argument about Black women in leadership. Here’s how. I do [laugh] um yeah I. So even when I was watching, um when I was watching the cologne being sold by Trump so the cologne comes out by Trump, the cologne has uh we we fight back on it and stuff like that. Tacky as you want to be. And it’s the gold sneakers. It’s the the selling the Bibles. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Bibles. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And there and then and then like and maybe I’m just like slow to the party. But I understood the Trump esthetic, you know. And again, so Bitcoin is the same thing, right? There’s these symbols that mean that mean money. Um. Again, the Starbucks, the Starbucks metaphor of Starbucks is a big corporation that’s pretending to be a cafe. And that’s kind of what we traded it in. And Trump has morphed himself into this symbolic, greasy car salesman, which is an archetype that Americans trust. And it’s also a archetypes that people are getting behind because why people are voting for Trump has nothing to do with what he’s saying. You know, like, I have to continue to highlight that we lost because people who are on the left are not activated. So people are remaining activated about Trump who are activated. But it’s not like we’re dealing with this this new um rush of people he is making inroads with, uh with with with Black men and and all that and and Latino men. But I just feel like it’s not enough to to really know if it’s counting for something. But we do know he’s creating a culture and that he is one of those mascots representing the culture. So Elon Musk is this is this Mars crazy scientist lunatic that that from Gotham and and Trump is this greasy salesman and they’re and it’s really they’re representative of this like elusive undefinable conservatism that’s still white that still cares about stocks and and that and so the policies just are not the point of it, which is how come I’m like, if we can create enough mascots and and on the left and enough people who it’s not just about what you’re saying politically, where you’re from, all these things that we think it should be about. But oh how can we manipulate the stereotypes and archetypes that already exist in Black or excuse me, in American culture and use them to our advantage because people already trust these stereotypes and these archetypes. Like, I really, truly believe that that’s it. Like if you recreate the Sambo or the Mammy to be of service, to be a mule to the imperialist project, it will be voted on, it will be responded to well, and I don’t think it means that Black women aren’t being appreciated, respected or elevated. It just means, oh this is an archetype or a symbol or a stereotype that we’re comfortable with and we will give that thing power. The powerful feminist white woman who was who who is who is who is smart, who is smart, or as smart as her husband. Hillary Clinton, was never a popular archetype. Neither was the the thin, attractive, light skinned, biracial, racially ambiguous lawyer, Black woman. But there are other there are other identities that relate to the left, that are archetypes that I think can make inroads between trust and comfort. It’s a nasty thing to talk about. But this reminds me of how it’s just not about policy. Nobody cares and they’re lying to you. They only talk about policy when it’s time to confuse the Democrats. But when they just talking amongst themselves, like we got a concept of a plan, we going we going to work it out. We going to talk about it. And you have and you have to be ambiguous with your it has to be ambiguous because you are entertaining Ku Klux Klan members and B lack men in the same party. So you can’t actually touch on anything real but a few things because you touch on one thing solid, the whole bottom falls out. So you have to kind of be vaguely misogynistic, but not too much because there’s still some women you have to be you kind of could play the push. You push the boundaries button but yeah. I’m so glad that we got to speak about Nikki Giovanni, and I wanted to make sure that we also spoke about Lorraine O’Grady. The reason why it was important for Lorraine O’Grady to be my news is because I know not everybody is familiar with Lorraine O’Grady. But I promise you, once you engage with her work, you will love her and you will be so amazed by her contributions. Lorraine O’Grady passed away at the age of 90. She was an avant garde performance artist, conceptual artist who made so can I can I tell you my my Lorraine O’Grady story. I, I have two very short ones that I think will serve better than me just um reading her about about her work. So the first one is I was working at AfroPunk um and I was working underneath Emil Wilbekin who was the uh he has a very accomplished career. And for my birthday, Emil got me this beautiful postcard of Lorraine O’Grady’s um work with a gold frame um in it where she gold framed Harlem community members and I had just got to New York and he gave this to me for my birthday. And that’s significant. And it was all these beautiful, smiling Black faces framed by a gold frame. The second time that Lorraine O’Grady’s work had interrupted my consciousness was I was in the Brooklyn Museum and there was this huge projection, and this projection shows up close and personal Black 4C tightly coiled hair, go moving through the wind. And I’m a lover of abstract and conceptual art. I love going to stuff that makes me feel all consumed of it. I love theater. I love that. And I and it was in that moment that I realized that I was never actually had been consumed by a Black thing like that. I’ve always been consumed by an Asian woman’s thing, a white man’s thing, um and maybe a Black person who extracted themselves so much from racial Blackness that I wouldn’t necessarily racialize the work until I think about it. But no, I was sitting inside of somebody’s afro because of what she created. And I think that is such a beautiful work. Like even with when it comes to her, um her sending out Black dancers in all white to hold these gold frames and then created made just ordinary people of Harlem into regal portraits and say you’re you’re you’re you’re due and and and and worthy of this gilded frame now, how you are now in your mundane ordinary now and she did that and that’s just to me that just felt like a better um homage to what her work has done for me, how it’s influenced my life. It has been a place of of push and of and of analysis of about how I show Black in art. And she’s she just is and was an amazing, amazing artist. And when it comes to Black people in the foreground of avant garde creation she’s just there’s just there’s just no, no, no, no, no, no other. Um. The last thing I will also say is she was also a part of Jam, which is Just Above Midtown. Um. And who where this Black, it was the first Black gallery just just above Midtown in um in New York. And it was about for avant garde Black folks. Lorraine O’Grady did choreography there. She did conceptual art there. If you can study about Jam, I would implore it because it’s good education. But then also it’s like, how do I figure out about Black avant garde artists? That is a good place because so many people who walk through that space are um Black people who engage in conceptual art, and avant garde art, and really made art that was vacant of a commercial gaze. Um. And maybe that is even again, looping back to what I said even earlier, maybe that is the thirst that I that, that that I have. And I and I feel when I hear about these ancestors transitioning is that there were people who were engaging with public space with no commercial motive whatsoever. And that changes how the art is created, why it’s created and who it touches and what the goal is. And and I missed that. And Lorraine O’Grady was a part of that legacy. So were you all familiar with Lorraine O’Grady before, did her passing illuminate her? What is your experience with her and um and and and can can I can I get a little commitment. Will y’all do one creative visual thing in the name of Lorraine O’Grady this week? I don’t care if it’s just a little doodle at your desk. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Mm hmm. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Um. 

 

Kaya Henderson: That is a great challenge. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: You know, it is. I I would. So I would see Lorraine O’Grady at stuff like at like dinners and stuff. And I’d always be like, who is that chic, fabulous woman. Um and so then then I learned about her. And she’s also um been a support of the Lower East Side Girls Club, where I’m on the board as well. And so it was sort of like I know her through New York, which I feel like is such, I’m always hating on New York, but look at that. It’s like it could only have happened there. Um. And so I’ve always sort of deeply, deeply just admired her um and sort of her her walk and huge presence um in any space that she’s in. And I also so then when I sort of got introduced to who she was, I was like, oh well, let me figure out more about her. And I remember reading this and um this came up again when I learned about her passing, about her performance persona, Mademoiselle Bourgeoise Noire. And I’m like, that me. That’s me. That’s me, going through white spaces, disrupting, and acting a fool. So I just. I thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Myles, for bringing this to the pod, because um what a special person that we can uplift. And, you know, she can still inspire us. And she will when me and Kaya do some something something visual. Something visual this week. 

 

Kaya Henderson: We going to do something visual.

 

De’Ara Balenger: Come on now. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Um. I did not know her. Um. So thank you for bringing this to the podcast. But um many of the artists that I follow on Instagram paid homage to her this weekend, and so I kept seeing this little cute lady on everybody’s feeds. And then um and then Myles, saw your um submission of news for the week. And I was like, oh, and she um one and in one of the pictures that I saw of her, she was friends with a woman who I knew as a doyenne of the Black art world, Peggy Cooper Kay Fritz, um a Washingtonian who um was legendary for supporting up and coming Black artists. And I got the chance to work pretty closely with Peggy. She was uh she started the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in in Washington, which is one of our premier um uh schools in D.C. She also was the chair of the school board in Washington, um and she was my friend. We worked together, but she was also my friend. And um seeing this picture of Peggy and Lorraine together told me everything that I needed to know about Lorraine O’Grady. Um. And then I read and, you know, I think it is very important for us to um to lift up you know, Myles, I was thinking a lot, as you were talking earlier about the juxtaposition of um reverence for Black people and and respectability politics. Right. Um. And I my face was sort of scrunched up because I was trying to sort of work out when do we sometimes we revere Black people and we are we respect them. We love them, we honor them. And in the same shake, we often um tell Black people that when they are not minstreling, that minstrelsy is a kind of freedom to do whatever we want to do and we don’t have to conform and whatever, whatever. And when people do it’s respectability politics. And so um I was that was sort of rattling around in my head. And I don’t know if I have a fully formed question, but Lorraine O’Grady makes me know that there is a way to be free and to create life and art on our own terms while still being um being somebody for our young people to look up to. Um. And so I think that is the that’s the thing that I am wrestling with. How do we how do we show freedom, how do we create life and art on our own terms without conforming? Um. Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I love everything that you all added. And just to um talk about what De’Ara and both of y’alls point um around her, her character, Mademoiselle Bourgeoise Noire, it’s interesting that our avant garde Black artists, when left to their own devices, often talk about class and class stratification and and create so, yes, uh uh that character was built as maybe a personification of who Lorraine O’Grady saw herself as in certain in certain ways, but also created a space um of critique for the Black Bourgeois and the middle class and the upper middle class and the separation. In what and that what that was um what that was creating and the aftermath. I think a lot of what we’re existing in today is the aftermath of of what um that class stratification and um uh did for us and yeah it’s just to your point Auntie Kaya, it’s all about I mean, I don’t have the answer to your question, but I’ve been it’s been through my head a long for a long time too. And to me it’s all about why are you doing the thing it’s never about what like, can you be naked or not? Or should you do violence or not or whatever? But if you’re doing it because of the dollar at the end, then you’re engaged in capitalist exploitation, which means that you can’t necessarily create something that’s erotic or sexual or violent or whatever. That’s truly from your Black imagination. If it’s always being pulled by what makes money or being stripped by what makes money. So yeah, I think that’s a question that’s going to be in everybody’s head for a long time whose Black and an artist. But that’s what I always say, is that there’s nothing you can’t do, um but you should think about everything you do do. [music break]

 

DeRay Mckesson: Well, that’s it. Thanks so much for tuning in to Pod Save the People this week. Don’t forget to follow us at @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. [music break]