In This Episode
U.S. officials cover up a “secret cemetery” of 230 Black boys, Trump to attend a gathering of top generals, Solange Knowles launches a free radical library, and the legacy of Assata Shakur takes center stage while Kamala Harris hits the book-tour circuit to mixed reviews.
News
230 dead Black boys. A ‘secret cemetery. Officials knew, and didn’t act.
Assata Shakur, a fugitive Black militant sought by the U.S. since 1979, dies in Cuba
Trump to attend gathering of top generals, upending last-minute plans
Solange Knowles is launching a free radical library.
Follow @PodSaveThePeople on Instagram.
TRANSCRIPT
DeRay Mckesson: Hey, this is DeRay, and welcome to Pod Save the People. In this episode, it’s me, Myles and Sharhonda, talking about the news that you don’t know from the past week or news that you heard about and didn’t hear from the lens of race, justice, and equity. And don’t forget to follow us on Instagram at PodSaveThePeople. Here we go. [music break]
[AD BREAK]
DeRay Mckesson: It is another great week of a seeming democracy. This is DeRay at @deray on Twitter.
Myles E. Johnson: This is Myles E. Johnson at @pharaohrapture on Instagram.
Sharhonda Bossier: And this is Sharanda Bassier at @BossierSha on Instagram and at @BossierS on Spill.
DeRay Mckesson: So let’s start. There are two things that I really wanted to talk about. And because we have not talked, I’m very curious to see what you have to say. The first is about Kamala’s book, 107 Days. I don’t think any of us have read the book in full, but we have all seen a lot of incredible excerpts. She’s obviously on the book tour. I’m assuming you have seen some parts of the book tour. It was actually really beautiful to see her at Howard and to just see all of those kids outside. She’s in the bookstore. Kamala’s definitely doing a full-blown, old-school press tour about this book. And there’s a part of that that I that I do just love, but I’m interested in what do you all think about this book tour, about the excerpts that you’ve read, the conversation about it, Kamala’s re-emergence in some ways into public life. We have not seen her talk this much since the end of the election. She sort of just took some breathing time, I think, but now she is everywhere that you could possibly be. On podcasts, on TV, the news. What’s the what there?
Sharhonda Bossier: It’s been really interesting to watch um people really struggle with how to reconcile their desire for ultimate unwavering, unyielding, unquestioning loyalty from Black women with what Kamala is saying about particularly some high-profile leaders in the party. Um. I think people expect that if you are a Black woman, particularly a Black Democrat, um you will kind of hold and tow the line for the party. And she’s very clearly not doing that in a couple of instances, specifically around um the support she did or did not get from high-profile Democrats when she decided to run, um the places where she feels like there was daylight between her and Biden on some critical issues, including Gaza. Um. I think what has also been clear to me is that she probably, some of the feedback and energy that she’s gotten on this book tour has made her feel like she could probably run again. You know um I feel like her posture um on some critical issues has shifted a little bit. And I feel she is more confident in asserting her position and opinion because she’s no longer the vice president and because I think she’s trying to make a name for herself. So it’ll be interesting to see where she lands and how this tour wraps up. But the most interesting thing has been, what’s been so clear to me is that people think she’s been ungracious and ungrateful for having had the opportunity to serve as vice president. And that’s been interesting to see in the commentary surrounding some of her revelations.
Myles E. Johnson: I think so, I really liked some of her interviews. So Scott Evans, that’s the dude with the house. Very handsome, very bubbly. Love that interview. And I think she really shines in that context. A, she’s talking about food. I remember that viral clip that went viral. That viral clip that went viral. That viral clip that went around, um around her how to like baste a turkey. And I remember people really responding to her well. So it was really cool to see her in the context of cooking, in the context of being able to say things. I think when you’re able to wrap things around in kind of grounded homeboy, homegirl language, you’re to be that much more honest. And I think that she really gets lost inside of the kind of political rhetoric you’re being you’re called to speak in when um it’s time to run for presidency. So it’s interesting because I maybe even like two weeks ago was like, I think she should run again. Like I think she could run, like I still wouldn’t vote for her, but I think that doesn’t stop me from seeing that she could win. You know. Um. But actually there’s been some moments this past week where I’m like, oh, she can’t run again, she should not run again.
DeRay Mckesson: Really?
Myles E. Johnson: Yes.
Sharhonda Bossier: Interesting. Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: I think there’s so many um moments specifically with how she like handled the Palestinians. Like I think that she’s always gonna be able to activate that neoliberal base that was willing when she lost to go and drink Starbucks inside of their cameras and put it on TikTok. I think that she’s always gonna activate that. And that seems like reality when you’re on the internet and when your algorithms are trained to show you those things. But she is totally just out of her depth when it comes to talking about things that I think would shake the people who didn’t vote for her. And her responses just feel so um confused that Rachel Maddow interview felt really odd and weird. And she just doesn’t seem confident when it comes to certain conversations. And if I’m being really honest, I think she’s just blurry when it comes to her own politics. I think that she is a neoliberal candidate. And I think that she can’t endorse Zohran with her full chest. I think she can’t really speak to why Zohran is the superstar democratic candidate. And if you can’t do that, that also tells me like Palestine, what else you can’t do. And I think the people who are looking for that change are not gonna be satisfied with saying, oh, look at these candidates in Alabama who lost, you know who are also superstars. It’s like, no, we need to hear that you’re a part of a new Vanguard or a new frontier. And she just is not willing to do that because she’s um she’s an institutionalist, she’s a corporatist, she’s a Black assimilationist, whatever you wanna call it. And that’s just not her bag. And I think it won’t do well when it comes to a presidential election for her.
DeRay Mckesson: So here’s what I’d say. And so that’s interesting, Myles. And I actually don’t know if I disagree with that read, though I think we disagree on the diagnosis, is that I think that there’s a set of Black leaders who in Black the consultant class and da-da-da who have power, like whether it is you know deeply structural power or cultural power, it is power nonetheless. And what I found, because I know them and I’ve been in rooms with them, is that I actually think that there’s a thing that happens that I think is similar to what happens to people around the police, is that they they’re not proximate to people who didn’t have their experience. Like they just don’t hell know what people think. But they are like, because I’m Black, I know. They’re like, I just know. And you’re like mmm I’ll tell you, I canvassed for Zohran two weekends ago. Like I signed up on the website. I didn’t call a friend a favor, nothing. I just signed up. I go to a park in Harlem and I go canvass. And we have to canvass, like the last set of our people is in the projects. I am currently recording this at a jail in Cleveland. I have nothing to prove about being with the people, da-da-da. And in we in the projects in Harlem, and the stuff people said, either about Zohran, about politics, about the issues that matter to them was new to me to hear in that way. I was like, oh, like they never heard of the man. They are like, I didn’t know I had to vote again. You know I’m like, oh, what’s your issue? One woman was like, I’m just trying to make sure everybody at my house can eat. I’m like the police, da? She was like no, I’m trying to make sure everybody can eat, you know I’m like free busses? She was like, is that possible? I’m like yeah, you know they did it in Boston. She’s like, the busses suck. If somebody can make them free, they got. You know it just was a very different conversation to be in proximity to people. And I just don’t know when Kamala brought. Like I just don’t know when they, I think that they get, especially Black people’s experiences filtered through a consultant class that leads them to say and believe things that I think frankly they would, they just would not believe if they heard it from real people and not filtered through. That is, I think, that’s true. And I think that Kamala, you know, I met with Kamala a couple of times. I think Kamala’s like, you know listens and pushes, but I do think even the people who are around her for the election, it’s like I just don’t know, I think it produces a different type of person when every experience of people is filtered through a consultant class. I do think that is a that is a scary sort of world that we’re in. You don’t seem convinced by that Myles.
Sharhonda Bossier: I know I wish I could see Myles’ face. [laughter]
DeRay Mckesson: I do, I do.
Myles E. Johnson: I mean, that’s that’s that’s fine. I think, you know, listen, Madam Vice President is not sleeping under a bridge. She um, although they are trying to take away our books, although they’re trying to censor who gets to connect, you get to do those things. Like there’s nothing as as whatever, I’m not, I’m not, I’m just using me as an example, but like if somebody, hears what I say on a podcast and you’re Wes Moore, or you’re Kamala Harris or whatever, or Barack Obama, you get to choose who you speak to. You do not have to talk to this class. And if you also know that the thing that got Obama elected was his outside support by Black men, and we have just not seen that wave again, you would make it your priority to speak to people who have dissenting voices and who also have maybe different perspectives. And that just seems to not be interesting to her. So again, she talked to somebody to make her want to sit down with Liz Cheney. So whoever got to, and the last, um yeah, the last thing I’ll say around this too, is there’s so much from the Democrats and Republicans, so much love gone to this mythic middle-class poor white person and around their mind and talking to them. Do you not, do you remember how many little, many dots we’ve seen with people having bigger conversations with white supremacists? Like there’s so much of that. There’s none of that, I have never seen Kamala Harris sit down with somebody, Barack Obama sit down with somebody who is left of them, who at all, the closest I’ve ever seen to anything like that is um earlier when Hassan sat down with AOC and Bernie Sanders. That was cute, that was cool. But when it comes to Black political power, there is nothing like that. And I don’t think that that is uh just because consultants are doing a bad job. I think that’s by design because they know that their power would be deflated with if certain conversations went public. Because I do think they, in their head, know that they probably aren’t gonna satisfy the actual like a Black radical hunger. I think that’s just what’s going on. So they just be like, no, we need to talk to people who in their heads, they will probably just use the words normal. But as we can see, less and less people are normal.
DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, I actually don’t disagree. I’m not defending the decision to not talk to people. I do think there’s like a, just because and Sharhonda, you we know some of the same people. I do you think there is a class of consultants who are like, I know what people are saying and let me tell you. They sort of become the whisperers and the da da da. And I just think that is, I think they are wrong. And I, and you know the way Black people talk. Black people say different things when white people are asking questions. It’s just a different, you know, like we not, people are not stupid. So I think that that is um that is that. But Sharhonda, what do you make of Myles’ like, I don’t worry that she actually shouldn’t run. Like, what what is your response to Myles?
Sharhonda Bossier: I mean, as I said initially, right? I have a very different sense watching her on this book tour and that it feels like she’s finding her footing again, right. And like being in crowds, being on stages, she looks more confident, she sounds more confident. And I feel like people are, aside from the people who are pissed at her for talking about, you know, the support she did or didn’t get from people like Gavin Newsom. You know, I think people are eager to see her back in public. And I think would seriously entertain um another Kamala run.
Myles E. Johnson: I just didn’t wanna make it seem like, because like I said earlier, I don’t know if I said that on air or when we were not recording, but I wanna say it on air. Less than two weeks ago, I really felt confident around um her run. This is before the book launch even. I’ve been saying that since she lost for real um that I think that she should run again. I think, that it seems as though she’s not positioning herself in a radical enough position.
Sharhonda Bossier: I see.
Myles E. Johnson: On certain positions in order to really move that needle because she’s right, it was a close election. And a lot of the things, we can keep on talking about the price of eggs, but I don’t know when we’re gonna let the cat out the bag that this is not about the price of the eggs.
Sharhonda Bossier: Right.
Myles E. Johnson: That we’re dealing with another type of um, we’re dealin’ with another type of monster that people don’t wanna name. And I think that. I mean, if she does run and she does win, it will be really close. And I just think she’s not doing the things to give her that edge that I thought she would–
Sharhonda Bossier: I see.
Myles E. Johnson: –have done, you know? Even if you’re lying.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, I think that’s clear. I think you’re right. I think they think they can skim a little here, skim a little there. I think their running analytics. I think there looking at heat maps. I think to DeRay’s point, there’s a group of consultants that are like, if we focus on the following precincts and the following you know states we’ll win X number of electoral votes. I don’t think that’s gonna get her over the hump. And I actually think that what people are responding to is what you highlighted earlier, Myles, right? Which is like, she feels much more authentic right now. And the question is, how do we capitalize on that authenticity? And how do show that she’s learned in public on the issues that are not just bread and butter economic issues, that are issues that people care about that affect the US’s standing in the world and that impact our, at least sense, that we are on the right side of history when it comes to myriad issues domestically also.
Myles E. Johnson: Or say something substantive about Zohran. Like, again, I think that Rachel Maddow interview, I was like, what are you thinking? Like, what, like what, like are you, this, I get it and I get the no, so much other things, global politics, geopolitics are not on the first thing in America’s mind. But I think we’re learning by um our mass shooters. I think, we’re learning by not to make light of it, but I think we’re learning that all these things swim in our human consciousness in different ways and express themselves, even if we can’t articulate it. And I just think that that was such a specific, like, there are ways to say, I do not like Zohran in ways that to me would still be substantive in in activating the people. Even if you took a stance of being like, I don’t, I think that he’s pie in the sky. I think that he doesn’t, like, like come on this PR thing is just not working to me, to me.
DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, the last thing I’ll say before we move on is that I do think that um one of the things that the Republican, that the right, not even the Republicans, but the Trump people have have figured out is that whoever gets the actual people sort of can do whatever they want. And I think that for a long time, it was whoever wins the media wins. Like, I think, that was the strategy. It was like, win the media, win the people. I think the that media filtering thing just doesn’t have the power it has. And I that her being like, Mamdani is the nominee. I like him. He says some good things, but actually get the people. People will be like, [?] She might lose some of the opinion columnists or whatever, but people will be like.
Myles E. Johnson: There are no opinion columnists, by the way.
Sharhonda Bossier: They are all getting fired for having opinions. Exactly.
Myles E. Johnson: I’m like, I’m like what a dinosaur.
Sharhonda Bossier: Shout out to Karen. Shout out to Karen.
DeRay Mckesson: But I do, but this question of um, and I think Myles is asking the right question. Who do you win over? Because the people that like Kamala already like her. Whether the book comes out or not, like they like her already. It’s like, who are you going to win over in this book and that the book title, no. But I like Kamala. I think she still has a chance. I do want us to do something about this consultant class of people that are filtering. Cause I think that they are way off. [music break] Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned. There’s more to come.
[AD BREAK]
DeRay Mckesson: Did you all see that Trump is mobilizing the army, it seems, to go to Portland? I saw this, and you know, I’ve been traveling. I had a funeral, a wedding. So I’m like, did something happen in Portland? Like what is going on in Portland, Oregon? That why, why is the army going to Portland, Oregon?
Sharhonda Bossier: He is saying it’s a war ravaged place.
DeRay Mckesson: Come on.
Sharhonda Bossier: Um.
DeRay Mckesson: Portland, Oregon?
Sharhonda Bossier: It also was one of the few places that I remember like white people really organizing and mobilizing and going hard at the height of like the 2020 protests, right? Um. So you might recall a lot of the action in the streets in Portland. And so I think, I think having, you know, run out of Black led blue cities to intimidate, he’s going to the next tier and Portland seems and makes sense that it would be at the top of that list, you know?
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, here’s how I think. Cause I’m pretending, I’m projecting to be a be a part of the umm the consulting class one day. Cause I see little gaps, you know? Like, and I think the response probably shouldn’t be, we should probably know Black people in Portland. Like we should, probably already have an image. We should probably already have a picture, a frame of what Black people in Portland are doing. Cause we don’t really think about what they’re doing in Portland, Maine and all these other places that we just think are are um are white and like, what’s the saying? Like, you know, if it’s in America, it has a hood. So I think, I think what’s sad about this is. I don’t really know if the hoods in Portland cause we know there are, there has to be some.
Sharhonda Bossier: For sure.
Myles E. Johnson: We don’t know how much violence that they’re experiencing. We do not know, we don’t know how they’re being ignored. We don’t know these things. And I think that fills such a gap because Trump whether he’s lying, telling the truth, whatever he’s able to kind of project his fantasy of what’s happening in Portland.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: Because we kind of just say if it’s not DC, New York, sometimes Atlanta, LA. You know what I mean? LA, it doesn’t exist. And I think this is, this is showing how us not kind of coming in with our own myth of what Portland is and what’s going on there can can create its own narrative. But I don’t want to speak too much about it because I don’t know it could, it could suck there for Black folks. Why not?
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, one of my closest friends from, from college she’s white, uh lives in Portland, moved up to Portland when we graduated from college 20 years ago which, oh my God, how did that happen? Um. And Portland is a racially and socioeconomically stratified city like a lot of folks, right? And a lot of the people who work for Nike, et cetera, right live outside of the city which presents that its own challenges, right. But a lot of the people who are struggling economically in Portland are also poor white people. You know. Um. And my, I’m wondering how much we might see a reaction similar to the reaction that we saw in DC which was a lot of the first voices I saw outside of my own bubble were people who were talking about being quote unquote “grateful” for–
Myles E. Johnson: Of course.
Sharhonda Bossier: The military’s presence there um especially because Portland, like a lot of cities has a significant addiction crisis, right. And there’s a lot of visible homeless, there’s a lot of visible addiction. And it’s not that deploying the military will solve that but it is that those people will be somewhere else. They will be out of sight for people for whom they make uncomfortable, you know. So yeah yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: You know, I know I shouldn’t be shocked but I am just like the idea that him sending the army has just become sort of a thing that happens. Not like, not a wild, crazy thing that is unprecedented in American history and da da da da. It’s just like, oh, he’s deploying the army. You’re like that is, and then when I was in DC for a conference and saw them walking up and down the street with guns, it’s like, you know what’s that Assata line, right. Like anything can become normal, right? Assata Shakur said, like you can, you can get used to anything after a while. And that was like such a good reminder to me. I’m like, oh, you really can get used to, like this is just sort of a thing that people complain about now. You’re like, that’s crazy, you know.
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, I just, yeah, again, I just hope that we just get to a place where we can just create our own narratives. Like, oh, I have not heard about Portland. You know, like let’s figure out what the art community is doing there. Let’s figure out what rappers are coming from there. Let’s figure out rappers. I’m sorry. I’m being stereotypical. But let’s figure, but let’s figure out what’s going on in Portland. So we’re painting, painting a picture of something. Cause if it’s Black people, there is creative. But like Sharhonda said, it’s also socioeconomically stratified. That way we’re owning the narrative that’s happening there and we just don’t own it. We just like pretend it doesn’t happen. And then we know that a lot of Black people are conservative. So you will be able to snatch those poor white people, Black people, rich white people all those white people saying, it ain’t that bad.
DeRay Mckesson: Well, I’ll start with the news. My news is about the house of reformation in Maryland. I had never heard of the house of reformation. It began in 1873 was when Black boys first started to arrive at the house of reformation um and they were sent there mostly by judges under the supervision of a former civil war general. And they were given inmate numbers. Blah blah blah blah blah. It was essentially a place that was an alternative to sending these kids to adult prison. And there was a white version of this called the house of refuge. And obviously the Black kids and the white kids couldn’t be together. Now, by the third year of the house of reformation, three boys died of tuberculosis it shows, and they were reported. And then in 1877, there were six more boys who died. It wasn’t clear like exactly what the cause of death was but they wrote down things like pneumonia and whatnot. But over time, people started to question the deaths. And the short version, it’s a beautiful article in the Washington Post that like highlights all of this. Um. The short version is that there was a legislator who had heard rumors that there was a secret cemetery of these boys. Come to find out, they found 230 dead Black boys are buried who were victims of the house of reformation and instruction for colored children. And um the Washington Post helped to do this investigation and blah, blah, blah, there’s much more details about the investigation itself. But I bring this here because I just think about, I think about the way this sort of trauma lives for generations. Like a kid gets sent to a place, their parents get told that they like had pneumonia. They actually were killed by the guards. This is not new to Maryland. There’s a famous case that a movie got made about um in Florida. And I’m just like. That’s a lot of kids. That’s lot of kids that y’all killed. One kid is a lot of kids, 230 is just insane. So I don’t even have like a big takeaway besides, you know, I have to imagine where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And there are probably more of these all across the country that people haven’t looked into, there are no rumors about people and their families think that the kid ran away or died of pneumonia and really they were shot by a guard or killed in some other tragic way that, the article outlines, but I had no clue about the history of the house of reformation in Maryland and shout out to this legislator for actually like listening to the rumors and trying to figure out whether it was true or not. His name was Troy Brailey.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, I mean, I sort of made two connections, right? One is in Los Angeles, the city and the county are currently again, trying to reach a settlement with abuse victims who suffered abuse in LA County juvenile detention facilities. And so I just think about, DeRay to your point how this trauma lives in families generationally, but also how it hasn’t ended. Right um even with the degree of oversight we have now, um I also thought about one of the things that really pissed me off when I was reading Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys. And that is, and if you haven’t read it or seen the movie yet, spoiler alert, um that is that like, even in Colson Whitehead’s imagination, the Black boys who decided to run away couldn’t reach freedom, right? Couldn’t couldn’t be free. And I remember the scene where the little boy is gunned down in the field and I was so mad at him for having written it that way. Just, I was just so mad. I have never gotten over that actually. I’m furious. I refuse to read any of his future works as a result of that. But um, you know, we’ve seen this with Native American boarding schools, et cetera. And I’m also just grateful in the way that we’ve talked about the last couple of weeks for our history keepers and history teachers who won’t let us forget. Because I think it’s also just important that particularly in this moment, we are forced to reckon with um who we’ve been and what we’ve experienced and what we’ve done to each other. So I couldn’t imagine being the parents or the families of these boys and just knowing better, you know, and the gaslighting you must’ve experienced when you questioned what really happened to your child, you know? At this time, especially.
Myles E. Johnson: With what I’m about to say, I don’t wanna undermine, I dunno, I just don’t want to undermine the relief or the vindication a family might feel by this story coming in. Um. But what I will say is it reminds me that how Black people are treated in jail, how Black people are treated in prison, is how the white power structure wishes they could treat us legally and openly because they once did. You know, it’s interesting that right underneath our current modern society, there are these um uh activities, these actions that mirror how we used to be treated. And I think that, not to get like, I dunno, not to get like super philosophical about it around time and stuff, but like and when it comes to history, it’s all sitting right with each other. And I thinks sometimes we think we progress past something where it’s like, no, if you are bad enough, if you are um Black enough, if you are unlucky enough, whatever it is, you can live a Black reality in 2025 or 2000 or whenever these cases are, and it could feel just like 1619, you know? Um. Our actions and the government um, deciding if we’re good or bad, is a type of time machine, you know? And I think that this is what this reminds me of, is that we’re not all living in 2025. Um. We’re living in wherever our political, social political circumstances make us live, you know? And to me, this reminds of that because it felt old, as well as sad and tragic and all the other things. It felt it felt old.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. I also think about how far those families would have traveled to see those boys and sometimes would have arrived at the facility only to find out that they weren’t gonna be able to see them. You know? And part of the reason I’m thinking about that is because as you all know, I have a brother who was a lifer who was incarcerated at a facility that was, you know, depending on traffic, two hours away. And last week we were just informed he’s now moving to a facility that’s gonna be four hours away, right? And that’s a fundamentally different burden on our family, right, because a two hour trip is a day trip, a four hour trip, is not, right. Um. So just, and we don’t even know why. You know what I mean? It’s just, they just get to decide that. Um. Anyway, I just.
Myles E. Johnson: That’s what that is, right Sharhonda?
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: Like that like once you’re in the prison system, you’re absorbed back into chattel slavery. You’re absorbed into being cargo again. And there is no reason because they can do what they wanna do.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: And last thing, because that what you just shared pissed me off. And it’s also, to me, that shared, it’s that trauma they wanna project onto the family too. Like I do believe that about prison, the prison system and people doing it. It’s not just supposed to hurt the prisoner. It’s supposed to um uh harm the entire family, you know?
Sharhonda Bossier: Exactly. Exactly.
DeRay Mckesson: You know, I’m currently at a juvenile facility. And one of the reasons why we pour so much into this place and the kids is to try and like combat the stripping of people’s humanity that these institutions just do no matter what. Like you put the best leader in, you put the most progressive programming person in, you put the, and there is just something dehumanizing about the place. And we’re sort of like, can we can we like help people recover their humanity inside? And I think we’ve done a good job and the kids are incredible. And um especially young people, and this is what I thought about the House of Reformation. I’m like, adults failed these kids way before they got here. They like you know they were failed.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: By, you know there was a, first time I came here, we did this lesson on photography. Kids had to like look at these photographs and identify one that they were close to. Boy says to me, you know, me and my grandmother used to sleep on the subway when I was younger. He 13 years old. I’m like, when you were younger?
Sharhonda Bossier: When he was younger yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: What was what was younger? You’re only 13. I can’t imagine what that was like. You know like, we failed you guys way before you got to this place.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah
Myles E. Johnson: Absolutely, absolutely. And as we’re speaking, we can see the DeRay and the lights are fluorescent. The walls are brick painted teal. So I think about, it’s weird because I’ll say things and I’m queer and I am a sissy. So it’s like, oh, well, does that really matter? I’m like, it does matter. It really does matter, it does shape how people see hope and like possibility when you go somewhere and it’s like, and it is flat and cold and sterile. And I think about what that does. And the right knows that too, which is how come there’s another–
Sharhonda Bossier: For sure.
Sharhonda Bossier: –ballroom being built.
Sharhonda Bossier: Sure.
Myles E. Johnson: How come all this money is put to esthetics because it does have a psychological effect and yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned, there’s more to come.
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Sharhonda Bossier: Well, speaking of esthetics and pageantry, my news this week is about Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordering hundreds of the US military’s generals and admirals to gather for what he is calling um a speech on military standards and his vision for a quote unquote “warrior ethos.” Um. He is convening about 800 generals and admirals, many of whom are deployed across the United States. The Middle East, Europe, Africa, and the Pacific. Um. Top commanders at that level in conflict zones also usually travel with their lower ranking aides um and a senior advisor. So we’re talking about a thousand people being summoned to Quantico for this speech, which he has said will be less than an hour. Um. And initially Trump was not slated to attend, but over the past couple of days has announced that he will attend. Um. And that of course bumps up the need for security, the secret service is now in charge of security, et cetera, et cetera. Um. But it is estimated that the cost of flying, lodging, and transporting all of them, especially because they’re coming from very far away, some of them will be in the millions of dollars. U. And you know, what this feels like is Hegseth saying, like, I’m convening these people because I can. And then all of the reporting has been about how unprecedented a move this is and Trump’s decision to attend. People have talked about as being about upstaging, quote unquote, “Hegseth’s plans,” which is just like a one person flexing because they can and the other flexing because they can can. But people are also wondering if Trump will say more about his new, quote unquote, national defense strategy because he has been shifting attention and resources away from preparing for a conflict with China and other world powers to focus on domestic issues and the deployment of the military at home. His decision to attend this meeting and address this body also comes just days after he signed an executive order directing the nation’s law enforcement and military to be used against what he is calling domestic terrorism and organized political violence, AKA most of us who have organized and mobilized on the left. So I’m bringing that here because I think it’s important to just kind of highlight when these kinds of things are happening. We’ve talked a lot about the myth making, but also like the visuals and the drama and the pageantry of this administration and what it’s trying to signal. And this is an amazing photo op if you’re them, right? Um. But I also think, and you know a lot of experts have said that this is coming at potentially high security costs to the US, because having all of these people leave their posts, leave their rank and file members without commanders. And gather in one place seems unnecessarily risky, um but I always just love hearing y’all’s reactions because you always pull out themes that I have not thought of and things that have not been highlighted in the writing. So wanted to bring that here.
Myles E. Johnson: A few things like went through my head, right? So yeah, right, when it comes to the pageantry, all that other stuff, um I kind of fundamentally disagree with how people are talking about China sometimes as if like uh China has won. I think that we need to wrap our minds around that, that China has won, that Russia has won. That these places that have figured out that a hot war with us is probably not the way that it should happen, but a cold war is the way that it is gonna happen. A war that has to do with twisted with psychology and and and all this other stuff, like that’s how it’s gonna happen, and they have won. When you look at the money, when you look the power, when you looked at Russia now has a president, I don’t care what you say, Russia has now an American president that they control. And I think that some parts of this reporting to me sometimes feels like still like a little vestiges of that American arrogance to think that we’re still in a battle when we really have to soak in the fact that we lost in a lot of ways. The other thing too is how some of these things that would, I mean, they should alarm you, they should discuss you the amount of money and taxpayer money that’s going towards this, but it’s hard to discuss. It’s hard weaponize that when Netanyahu was just at a hotel for a thousand dollars a night in New York City. It’s hard to just–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: It’s hard to really weaponize that when democratic places, places that are underneath Democratic leadership are still doing the same stuff. It’s just that maybe one person is doing it uglier, but who’s to say? Like you know like, I tell me they’re both it’s all ugly, it’s all bad. It’s all a waste of money, but it’s hard to even weaponize those things or motivate people when the left, in hugest air quotes, the left is is colluding with the same type of like fascist powers, you know?
DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, I hate to say it, and I you know normally I disagree with you, Myles, because I’m like the eternal optimist, but I’m like, mmmm, might have won, they might have won, they got us, they got us. Man down, man down, man down. Because you know I don’t know, fFor a long time, I was like, okay, Trump is wild, but one of the other institutions will come in. Congress don’t exist. And I get that the left, we don’t have the votes, but I think about people like Susan Collins, these people, they know Trump is crazy.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: That first version of Trump, they were like, that man is nuts. And they are still voting alongside him. That is, we have lost. That is a, the thing collapsed, y’all, the Congress not real, it don’t matter. Like it is when Laura Loomer is calling Jasmine Crockett a ghetto, this ghetto b–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: Da-da-da, Congresswoman. And that is just like a normal, it’s not even inflated, like we’ve, they have eroded the norms and values, the system, da da, so they’ve done that. Supreme Court also don’t matter. Trump is openly being like, I’m gonna tell these players to do this thing and they doing it. Like, yeah, man down, man down. We, it’s a wrap. The only thing that I find solace in is that I actually think that the people are still on our side. Like I think that I think that we have seduced that the organizer community thought that the internet could hold relationships in ways that institutions used to. And I think there was a sliver of time where they did it. I think I exist because we sort of did it, like the, I think what we did not anticipate was that the algorithm would change. Like we just underestimated what happens when all of a sudden the thing just, the buttons don’t do what the buttons supposed to do. And I think that Trump has has clouded the information space so much that people, the people don’t realize that there are more of them who don’t support this thing than do. And if we cannot break through that, I think that this is just a wrap. That is actually why I get disappointed in Obama and Kamala, da da, because on our side, we actually do have a small handful of people. It’s like two or three that still people on our side respect and listen to, might not always love, but they hear them and they can move people. Those people on our side are either saying stuff that don’t matter or they are like demoralized and sort of not, I don’t know, they’re not doing a thing. And that freaks me out.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: I believe I saw like a headline that Cori Bush is gonna, like she’s going to um.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, she’s gonna run again.
DeRay Mckesson: Run again.
Myles E. Johnson: She’s gonna to run again, Like I think that is such a good opportunity to activate people and to your point DeRay. Like I do think so to me, with the right and the left, and this is just me as somebody who doesn’t necessarily see myself in either, but like that sounds weird. I’m on the left, but I don’t see myself like the kind of neoliberal Republican dichotomy that’s in this nation. But like what the right did was, they did everything with the digital landscape, did everything with these algorithms, right? And then they still translated it to in-person things, but they took that same energy. Like even when I think about dearly departed Charlie Kirk, part of where and where he got where he died was taking something that happened digitally and translating it to real life campus stuff. And that just seems to not have happened or the only time it did happen were through these, if I’m being honest and being an American, once you get to something that the left all agrees with producing, it is boring. It is um it is not controversial. It does not feed itself back into the internet. So it is not clippable and viral, like that just doesn’t happen. And I hope that more people see that because I do think that there’s, so to me there’s a abundance of ways to win. Not to sound like Ezra, but like there’s a like an abundance of ways to win. It just seems like nobody wants to take any of those strategies and bring them further. That’s to me what always seems weird to me.
DeRay Mckesson: I agree, it feels like we have a place to win and we’re just not doing it. Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned, there’s more to come.
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Myles E. Johnson: So my news today is around Solange Knowles. So speaking of, this is actually really, really great. I didn’t think about this um before, but we’re talking about things that kind of fill in the gap. I remember last week, I was talking about how, um yeah, all this stuff is happening with NPR and PBS and there’s no columnists and there is no criticism. But what was sad to me, it was that we don’t. Sure, we don’t have as many millionaires or billionaires on the left, but we don’t not have any. We have enough revenue out there to fund different people’s different strategies.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: And and and different niches. So we aren’t just kind of crumbling with power. And where Solange Knowles sits with this is because of her St. Heron um parent company. She launches a digital library of radical and um and and not widely available Black radical literature. So I’m gonna read a little bit. This is from Lit Hub. So it reads, and it’s by Brittany Allen. And it reads once again, Solange Knowles is using her popularity for a good cause. Last night on Instagram, the polymath poet, cultural worker, and song stylist announced a new literary project. An archive sponsored by St. Heron Knowles’ multidisciplinary institution referencing the spiritual act of creation, will house and lend a rare collection of Black and Brown intellectual, literary, and artworks. Knowles is the founder and creative director behind the St.Heron Community Library. Per its charter, the library is a new literary center dedicated to students, artists, creatives, and general book literature enthusiasts interested in often underserved corridors of archive. Based on the 2021 collaboration with Rosa Duffy, founder of Atlanta’s For Keeps Bookstore, the library aims to be an open educational resource. States-based readers can follow Solange’s insta stories for registration details and when the portals up and running, borrow work for 45 days for free. So here is Solange, who is positioned as somebody, so now she’s the patron and the artist, right? Cause she’s a Knowles. So, so she’s in a position where she can um uh use her popularity and use her money in order to create and fill in a gap. And to me, I wish I saw more people doing this. And again, this is calls coming from in the house. Uh. Our producer, everybody knows that like my whole 2025 has been about, okay, Myles. Don’t just talk about it, really create something. But I want more Black people to dream big in these moments. Like I know that it’s really easy to be cynical and nihilistic. And although I have sharp critiques on these things, I am neither. I think that all of these gaps leave way for creation that do not lean on government funding. And I think, that that is so necessary because like I said on last podcast of every podcast, I don’t think this wave of fascist is the first and the last. I think that we’re going to have this again and again, and they’re going to attempt to terrorize us by the institutions that are connected to the government. So I’m not saying once the government goes left or goes neoliberal again, that you cannot use that government for resources, but there needs to be other strategies and other ways to fill in those gaps. And I think this is such a great example. And here’s another thing too that’s interesting about this. Solange has a unique avant-garde esthetic.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: And she utilizes that esthetic to cut through the noise because the thing that is most blasted to, I’m specifically talking about Black people, are things that live in this Black excellent or gossip nothingness. So it’s either blavity or essence, and this is no shade to them, or it’s the shade room and Hollywood Unlocked. And because Solange is able to create images with Black people that kind of cut through, is able to get our attention and get our interest. And again, it’s a small gap. It’s not something that’s trying to be something for everybody. It’s something that’s for specific people, and it’s really um and it’s really tight esthetically and conceptually. And who knows in 20 years, 25 years, 50 years, that library, A, could turn into so many different things, but that brand, that St. Heron brand, could be a place where the person who is running against the Charlie Kirk of 2050 would want to go. And that will be a trusted brand because 20 years ago, they began this work today of preserving Black voices. So they are trusted inside of the community. And there are so many people looking to do that type of work in different ways. And I think that we get so lost in A, individualism. So if you’re gonna do a YouTube, if you’re going to do a thing, it’s gonna be all centered around you.
Sharhonda Bossier: Mm-hmm.
Myles E. Johnson: And we’re not thinking communal, and we’re also thinking as reactionary. So again, a lot of this stuff, um some of the dates that I read in here are 2019. These dates are um, these are places that she’s collaborating with that were already in works and people who were already doing that work, people who already showed interest in that work. And that’s where she’s deciding to collaborate. So I wanted to bring this because A, I think this is a really amazing project and idea, but I also wanted to bringing it in because last week I talked about there being such a gap in digital products and in-person products and ideas, and and okay, so what’s the replacement for this? Or what is the gap filled? Or who’s taking what we learned and what we haven’t learned and piecing it and piecing it together and creating something new. Like we need more and more of that and it can’t just be somebody with the last name Knowles, it needs to be other people, which happens when the socioeconomic stratification dwindles on the left a little bit more because we see that it has dwindled on the Republican side and there’s some there’s some well-funded trash over there and without naming any names. The last thing that I want to say too. Very, very last thing is around Rupert Murdoch, who I love mentioning in media because also when you look at, you know who values Black viewers? Fox.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: Fox gained its popularity with shows like Living Single and Martin and then went on to weaponize itself and its brand against the very Black people who are viewing their stuff and then you fast forward, if you’re saying that was the ’90s, who would have known, fast forward to YouTube on Fox Soul, who’s utilizing gossip and Black interest and Black community and is now utilizing some of our stars in order to do the same thing. So you have this platform on YouTube generating money that is ultimately still going towards the kind of conservative.
Sharhonda Bossier: Are they the same company?
Myles E. Johnson: The goal, Fox Soul. Yes. [laughing]
Sharhonda Bossier: I feel like I’m about to tout the company line where they’re like, yes, but the news and opinion portion is separate from the entertainment wing. Yeah, no. I’m yeah, okay.
Myles E. Johnson: Which we know is a lie.
Sharhonda Bossier: I, yes. Yes.
Myles E. Johnson: Which we, which we know is something that they probably even teach. I’m not saying this as um I’m not speculating. I know people a part of Fox Soul and I know, and I’ve–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
Myles E. Johnson: –been told that one of the things that they tell us is, oh, this is two different wings or whatever, which is what they tell you to be comfortable with taking the money and doing their work to generate more and more and more and more and more. And then, so I don’t want to go into it, but what–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
Myles E. Johnson: What I’m trying to say is that the right understands the importance of Black viewership in this, in these digital products, and we need to understand it, and it can’t just happen when somebody is a supernova like Solange who has the money, the fame, and the idea all at once. Sometimes it looks like three brains or three people coming together or whatever, you know, however that looks. Um. Yeah, I went a lot. I went to a lot of different places, but you know this is my passion point, culture, media, and how it affects the lives that we live. So I wanted to bring this in because I think Solange did great work. Do you have any thoughts, Sharhonda? How did you feel?
Sharhonda Bossier: Oh, man, I have so many thoughts, uh and they’re gonna be random. So apologies in advance, y’all.
Myles E. Johnson: I love it. [laughter] I’m strapped in.
Sharhonda Bossier: But this is how my brain connects dots. The first thing is, you know, we this week lost freedom fighter Assata Shakur, and I think a lot about just you know, Assata says, you know no one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes if they know that knowledge will help set you free. And we’ve talked a lot over the last few weeks, I think Myles, because you’ve been making it a point, right, to elevate the people who are, again, the history keepers, the storytellers in our communities, and how this is another form of resistance, right? The preservation of our histories, of our stories. Um. And I’m grateful that Solange is leveraging her brand and her resources and her reach in this way. Um. I, so that’s like one thought, right? The other thought that I have is I thought about No Name’s book club. Remember when No Name launched her book club?
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah.
Sharhonda Bossier: Right, and and didn’t have the same visibility, didn’t have the same profile, didn’t have the same resources, quite honestly didn’t have the the same protections, right. When she decided to do that, and like to be unapologetic also about a focus on people who are experiencing incarceration as the beneficiaries of some of those book clubs, right, and ensuring that um everyone got access to to literature, to our histories, et cetera. So also shout out to No Name in that way. Um.
Myles E. Johnson: Yes, I think I, she was in my news before, when she launched it, we talked about it on here. I don’t think you were here yet though.
Sharhonda Bossier: Okay. There is a little part of me that is like, what’s the capitalist upside of this, right? Because I have increasingly come to not believe in the benevolent billionaire or millionaire, right. And so even in just thinking about the way that Solange gets to do this, part of that is because it’s consistent with her brand, right, and what that means for how people have become brands. Um. And what it means for me as a consumer of those people, their brands and their material. And I love Solange, right. Um. And I already know that there’s a waiting list, right? People like, I try to get X and Y. So I looked at, listen, I get it. I’m captivated by it all too. But I think I’m also like, what’s the business part of this? You know what I mean? What’s the what’s either the tax write-off or the like, you know is this gonna evolve into something where I’m gonna be buying merch or a tote bag? The answer is probably. You know and just being honest with myself, I think about that too. And some of that feels like a little bit of hurt on my part, a little of bit of like just bracing myself for this thing to disappoint me. And I don’t know why I feel that way, right. Um. But I do. And so those are my random disconnected thoughts about this.
Myles E. Johnson: Those were good. So I think, and this is not to like cape for Solange.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: I do think that she’s in a very, very unique situation as somebody who I’m assuming does not have to work in the same way.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: That No Name even has to work. I don’t even wanna go–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah for sure.
Myles E. Johnson: –to like the working class. Like we can be–
Sharhonda Bossier: Sure.
Myles E. Johnson: Keeping in that celebrity artist class.
Sharhonda Bossier: Sure.
Myles E. Johnson: That she’s still privileged inside of that class.
Sharhonda Bossier: Sure.
Myles E. Johnson: And I think that allows you to do things that are different. And I also think um again, I think that certain words, because they’re so associated with um capitalism, we don’t we like brand and profit are neutral things. They become weaponized things when only one person is able to profit and only one person or only one kind of brand is able to exist, the the–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: The the idea that you have these collection of esthetics and sounds and images and theater, and you put it into your artwork and you create a consistent offering to people and you’re able to turn that into something, that is not inherently bad. That is not like, there’s not no business when capitalism dies. There’s still gonna be business. There’s gonna be businesses that are not built on slavery and exploitation. And I’m not saying–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: She has to be a model with that, but I would–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: I do think that sometimes I feel the same things you feel. And I thought about that too, where it’s like, oh, I think that I’m too wrapped up around the language that I associate with capitalism than the fundamentals of capitalism itself. And the um last thing, because you mentioned Assata Shakur who passed away. Who um, I don’t think that anybody calls themselves a revolutionary without coming across Assata Shakur’s story and just there’s so much–
Sharhonda Bossier: Correct, yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: –reverence for her. And and and and I wanna say just like, thank you to her because I believe that human consciousness survives the body and she still can hear you. And when you put her on your altar and speak her name, she is right next to your cheek. But also, there was this um meme that got that I put in the um podcast because I am the personal terrorist of the Pod Save the People um pod [laugh] group chat, so I like to disrupt the thought systems. But also I thought there was such an interesting thing that was being said because in this meme, y’all, um there was Barack Obama hugging um Kamala Harris and below was Assata Shakur and then there was this language that said choose one. And I always reject binary thinking, I always reject things like that, but I thought it was interesting that this thing was going viral because to me what I what, I know what was being shown to me was, oh, you can you need to be this or this. But what was what what was being expressed, in my opinion, was that there are no bridges or gaps being built to do those things. So Solange is somebody who said something about Palestine. Solange is somebody, who, who is radically Black. Solange is somebody. I saw Linda Sharrock. If you don’t know who Linda Sharrock is, she is an amazing avant-garde jazz vocalist, Black woman who screams and hollers against jazz music and wails. And so I say that to say is that I think that there are not enough bridges to the things that I think are keeping us separate and bleeding power. So because–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: We just have this neoliberal Black excellent class and we have a radical communist class, and there’s not enough bridges to get people to be more radical. If you’re if you’re, if you are part of that Black communist class or to or to maybe um be like, hey, I know this is what you think, but please come out and vote with us. If your part of this, if you’re part of this neoliberal class, there’s not enough bridges. And if we keep on creating borders and walls for ourselves. People are going to feel like they have to choose. And what’s going to end up happening is people are going to choose and not going to hear each other. And then the most spectacular tragedy is that there are going to be so many people who are lost in between, who just are inactivated and not–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: –inactive, like I’m inactive, where I’m like, I’m still very active. I just choose not to do it.
Sharhonda Bossier: Right.
Myles E. Johnson: But inactive like they’re just ignoring everything. So um.
Sharhonda Bossier: Disconnected wholly, yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: So, again, I think with our leaders passing away, Roy Ayers, Assata Shakur, um Nikki Giovanni, I’m just thinking about the people who’ve who’ve who’ve passed since I’ve been to the Midwest. There’s so much more opportunity for us to be those gaps. Roy Ayers is one of those gaps, y’all, like, you know, these may, Frankie Beverly and Mays was some of those gap where you would see everybody at those concerts. And we.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah
Myles E. Johnson: And we need to we need to think about those um those new bridges as well. And I think Solange is a good example.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, I want to say one more thing about Assata, because I’ve had really mixed feelings about her passing. Right. Um. And that’s not true. I’ve been very sad about her passing, what I mean is like her passing in exile, you know, like has been. I’ve had really, I don’t know, mixed feelings about that, and I’ve thought about the price that she paid for her activism, for her radicalism, and, um you know, I don’t I don’t know that dying in exile feels like freedom. And that’ a thing that I’m really struggling with, you know, like. Um. You know, her her she didn’t know her grandchildren, you know what I mean? She didn’t really have a relationship with her daughter. And she talks so much about love and us loving each other and how revolutionary and radical that was. And to think about her paying the price of being separated from the love of her family as a result of her politic and her her love for her people. Right. Um. And so I’m going to make a plug for, if funny enough, another Crooked Media podcast. Uh. It’s called Mother Country Radicals. Um. And the episode 10, the last episode in that series, um is an interview with Assata’s daughter, Kakuya. And she talks about what it was like to have Assata as a mother um and just how how tough that is. Right. To know that your mother loves you, but also to know that your mother loves the struggle. And so um I don’t know. I think as a woman, as a woman who has navigated the loss of her mother recently.Um. It was an episode that really struck me and stayed with me over the last couple of years, so recommend it.
Myles E. Johnson: I’m definitely going to listen to that. And this is I think the intimate things, the familial things that happen when somebody’s in exile is totally different. But I do think this is coming from a privileged place of being objective.
Sharhonda Bossier: Sure.
Myles E. Johnson: But I do think that it’s always a weird give and take because because being in–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: –America, being awakened as a Black person in America is realizing you are in exile.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: And if you do not believe that, do one thing. Say, say, say one thing. We’re seeing it with Jimmy Kimmel, but that’s always been our reality. We understand that we are always one word, one action, one thought away from actually experiencing. Oh, no. In reality, my social position is loose African savage who has been colonized. And once that it seems as though that colonization is not working anymore, I will be caged again. I will be exiled again, if not literally, at least socially. So I think that we’re–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: –always in negotiation with some type of exile. And again, that is not to say that’s just totally different than literally–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
Myles E. Johnson: Being her daughter. But like.
Sharhonda Bossier: For sure. For sure.
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, we’re always in the [?].
Sharhonda Bossier: And she would have died in a cage here, right? So I’m–
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah.
Sharhonda Bossier: I’m grateful that that didn’t happen. I’m just.
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah.
Sharhonda Bossier: It yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: It’s messy, it’s messy.
Sharhonda Bossier: It’s messy.
Myles E. Johnson: And stuff. But what we do know is that what that is Black royalty of a family.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, absolutely.
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah.
Sharhonda Bossier: It is our duty to fight for our freedom, y’all. It is our duty to win.
Myles E. Johnson: Yes.
DeRay Mckesson: Well, that’s it. Thanks so much for tuning in to Pod Save the People this week. And don’t forget to follow us at Pod Save the People and Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. And if you enjoyed this episode of Pod Save the People, consider dropping us a review on your favorite podcast app. And we will see you next week. Pod Save The People is a production of Crooked Media. It’s produced by AJ Moultrié and mixed by Charlotte Landes, executive produced by me and special thanks to our weekly contributors, Myles E. Johnson and Sharhonda Bossier. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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