FDA targets popular gay party drug, majority-Black town starts armed protection group, and Dems draw thousands at ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ rally. Myles interviews filmmakers Charlyn Griffith-Oro and Jeannine Kayembe-Oro to explore their short film The Aunties which shares the story of Black land stewards & culture bearers Donna Dear and Paulette Greene.

 

News

A majority-Black town starts armed protection group after neo-Nazi rally

FDA crackdown on poppers prompts rush on popular gay party drug

AOC and Bernie Sanders draw thousands of people at ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ rally in Denver

Heavyweight boxing legend George Foreman dies aged 76

 

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TRANSCRIPT

 

[AD BREAK]

 

DeRay Mckesson: Hey, this is DeRay and welcome to Pod Save the People. Happy women’s history month and we are back to cover the under reported news with regard to race, justice, equity, and what’s going on in the world. Here we go. [music break]

 

Myles E. Johnson: Hi everybody, it is just me, Myles E. Johnson and the beautiful and lovely and brilliant Sharhonda with me talking about all things that have happened in the week in news and culture. Um. Again, my name is Myles E. Johnson. You can find me on Instagram at @pharaohrapture.

 

Sharhonda Bossier: And I’m Sharhonda Bossier. You can find me on LinkedIn under my government name or on Spill at @BossierS. And again, if you find me on Spill, please, I’m taking lessons on how to use that app. [laughter]

 

Myles E. Johnson: Um. Oh my goodness, you mentioning Spill, I think there’s such um, I don’t know if it was like is or was, but there was or is such opportunity for that app. Um. And and I think it’s being a little bit underutilized. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: I think that’s right. I was checking the comments uh on the first episode where I joined you all and someone was like, oh, if you’ve left Twitter, you should think about Spill. And I was like oh yeah, I actually have an account there. And so I like logged back in to take a look and I just can’t quite figure out how to use it. I do think that people are really hungry for um kind of what felt like the early days of Black Twitter, what felt like a Black town square where you could get coverage and commentary on everything from politics to pop culture. And to be honest with you, I’m feeling a little unplugged from Black popular culture right now because I’m not on Twitter. And so like, I really rely heavily on you, Myles, to like, tell us what’s, what’s going on over there. So what’s up? I mean, it feels like there’s probably a lot I’ve missed in the past week, you know? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Um. There has been, okay, let’s just start in culture land. Let’s start in cultural land. So. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: First, the easiest one is George Foreman passed away. Um. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: For easy because RIP, he’s dead. I’m sorry about that. Say you know. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: 76 feels like a long life for a boxer. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: For a boxer. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: You know. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I’m like that is a that is a 102. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Um. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Shout out to them burgers with no grease and fat grease that really have that I’m sure have saved my arteries because we used to hit them burgers every other day. The turkey burger, we still use that grill.

 

Sharhonda Bossier: And all the kids with his name. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yes, yes. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: He named all his children some version of George. Do you know this?

 

Myles E. Johnson: Oh no, I didn’t know that, what? 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes, all of his children are George, Georgette, like all all of them so. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: What? 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That is. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That is some hood, that’s some hood Olympic stuff. Um. [laughter] But the big the the– 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –bigger news in culture this week was Jess Hilarious and um Loren, who they’re both co-hosts of the um very popular Breakfast Club radio show. And there were just rumors and I guess some of this tension that was kind of going on around Jess leaving for her pregnancy leave and then getting replaced by Loren and then when Jess comes back from her pregnancy leave, Loren is still there, and then the fans want her and eventually this all culminated into Jess getting on Instagram live, which is what we do if you’re under 41 apparently, and got on Instagram Live and said you know, I’m mad at the job. I’m mad at the situation. And then the next day, they had this kind of very, not kind of, it was a very public moment um where Jess was talking about her discomfort in the workplace. 

 

[clip of Jess Hilarious] Ever since I came back it was weird yes it was weird yeah I I at first no I did not I wasn’t too fond of Loren. No I wasn’t too fond of her when I came back because we had a whole plan even how when I when I came back. [?] pick her to fill in for me right. I come back she ain’t ever leave then all right cool that she don’t leave but she’s on only during my segment. If if she was meant to be a full host move her in another way why she got to be moved in on because nobody had a problem with Jess with the mess until she started reading right. You know what I mean? 

 

[clip of unnamed person] [?] right. 

 

[clip of Jess Hilarious] So she started so she started reporting. [banter] I wasn’t hired as a reporter I was I was hired as Jess with the mess. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: A few reasons why I want to bring that up. A, I think that anytime, it’s what matters to people. And I think that’s always gonna be baffling to me is that this story did not need help. Breakfast Club wasn’t really just uh Breakfast Club has been waning in popularity, I would say, since Angela Yee’s leaving, and it was um astonishing to me that there has been so many stories that you would think that um maybe have a little bit more political bite, maybe even were more urgent, and they just cannot cut through. But this story really has captivated people’s um imaginations. The second thing that I wanted to bring up was the fact that how they treated Jess during that interview was so disgusting because I think that what happens is when there’s patriarchal capitalistic power at play, you get to see how the men who have the most control, the most power get to play silly and silent. Meanwhile, these two women who are forever gonna be known as the two women who argued over their Breakfast Club seat now. You know, Charlamagne is not known for any individual act, be it alleged rape or his disrespect of Monique, he’s not really known for those things, but these two women are now going to always be tied to this event. And they just were being immature, letting it happen. I remember even Jess saying in her live that Charlamagne said, oh, you should tell Loren to shut up on air again. Don’t tell her to hush, tell her to shut up. And then um the fact that we were all participating and seeing Jess’s breakdown in the workplace and how that was being recorded and monetized. It shows that, oh, there is a svengali, maybe even like Machiavellian approach to what Charlamagne is doing, but he’s also able to, in front of our faces, pretend to be a silly, absent-minded and um and on the wall when it comes to the drama, even though he’s profiting over it. And I said, well, if we want to see white patriarchal capitalistic power take place in a Black body, in a Black space, that was such an interesting and and vivid illustration of that. What did you think about the drama? Are you too above it? I feel like I put trash at your doorstep. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: I don’t listen to the Breakfast Club and have not for a long time. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Good for you. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: I think they have been an outright hostile and violent space for Black women. And whenever people have been on that I’m like, oh, I want to hear like that Janet Mock interview, like, fine, I’ll go to the Breakfast Club since that’s like where she did it. I’m always like, we should not be legitimizing and validating Charlamagne the God as serious about anything, you know? And I’m surprised at how he’s been able to, he feels like a Black pastor to me, right? Like he they kind of leverage access to this perceived kind of congregation or community and they legitimize themselves and then they become the go-to. Like you had presidential candidates sitting down with Charlamagne the God because they thought that’s how they reached young Black people. And it’s just such a deeply problematic show and space. I don’t know a ton about Jess Hilarious. What I will say I know about her, though, has is not good. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah yeah. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Right? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Is that she also has been anti-trans, that she has also been sort of deeply problematic. And I always take the, like, this Black woman is problematic, you know, assessment with a grain of salt, because we always problematic to somebody for some thing, right. But I do think that, to your point, listening to this Black woman come into this space and say, I feel disrespected here. I felt like I was trying to do something from a place of sisterhood as I was transitioning to maternity leave. And I came back and now y’all are telling me, I have to share without an explicit conversation about it. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Right. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Feels wrong. And I think the thing that went unsaid was like, you would never do this to a man. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Ever. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Right? Which is true, like Charlamagne would never play in a man’s face like that. And so I do think there’s an opportunity to talk about what it means for Black women in particular to be in these spaces that are outright violent to us and how and when we choose to stay in them, even though we’ve seen other Black women experience violence in those spaces, you know? Because I cannot think of the Breakfast Club as being affirming of any Black woman, right? And so, I don’t know, this is one of those things where it’s like, girl, why did you think you were gonna be different? You know? And I think as Charlamagne is trying to advance his career, I think he’s also latching onto an increasingly respectable politic about the kinds of Black people he wants to support and have on the show. And I think Jess falls outside of that. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Mm. That’s an interesting take. I think I think that he plays [?] gang really, really well. I think that he um because I think the follow-up interview, like I wanna say the very next day was Phylicia Rashad. And uh and I even saw in the comments, people will be like, we needed somebody to come and cool down the temperature and you kind of have this woman. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And you know. It’s just interesting to hear Phylicia Rashad speak as an authority on anything when it comes to Black folks and how we should be represented because she said some things about articles of clothing and slut shaming and–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That was, excuse me, that to me were a little slut shamey. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: And defended Bill Cosby. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: But I’m like that to me that but in that interview, she talks about clothes and women and clothes and respectability. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Okay. Yeah.

 

Myles E. Johnson: And I and I thought to myself, well. I don’t want to put Bill Cosby’s actions on your lap, but you came out and told us that those women were lying. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. Yes.

 

Myles E. Johnson: And it’s hard to even take many of our Black leaders in this current moment as seriously because there are those deep contradictions that have not been reconciled. But the other point that you made that was so good and that got, it was the whole reason why I wanted to bring this Jess Hilarious thing in is yes, Jess Hilarious has been extremely transphobic, extremely homophobic. And it is um interesting to me that somebody who has wielded so much patriarchal um uh oppression through her words, through transphobia and homophobia was now feeling the brunt of it because she because she was– 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Exactly. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –trying to be on in the in the boys club and and and be transphobic. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Exactly. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And be homophobic and do all these other things but as soon as it was her turn to be dominated it happened and it happened live. [laugh]

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: It happened for profit 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: And the last thing I’ll say about this is this is what I say to Black women all the time when they talk about like you know trans girls in sports, et cetera, et cetera. I’m like, if we start policing how people look as an indication of whose gender we need to confirm or affirm, et cetera, Black women are going to be the first place they start. You can look at the way that they treated Venus and Serena as an example, right? Serena has been pregnant twice, given birth twice, and people are still like, she’s not a woman. [laugh] You know, and it’s just like Black women are never going to be woman enough, feminine enough, etc. Right? And so our buying into those systems. it’s like girl it is only a matter of time, only a matter of time before it’s you. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Because that that agitation of gender is, and that questioning of gender is just like foundational to the beginning of the projection of like animal-ness or savageness onto Black people. So you have like, you know, [?] I a woman and those posters that say I am a man. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Exactly. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That kind of like asserting your gender in order to assert your humanity and the reverse of that is–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Correct. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Questioning one’s gender, questioning somebody’s place inside of gender is also questioning, um are you human? Uh. But yeah, the other thing that has been going on, oh my goodness, do we want to say a little prayer about this? Because I just feel like– 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Somebody call him. Mother Father Guy. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: You know, before it crosses your head. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Um. But the other thing that was happening in culture land was the Kanye rant. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Kanye said some. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Disgusting things that I will not repeat about Beyonce and Jay-Z’s children and I think the only way I can really talk about Kanye is zooming out, way out. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: What I do see is, you know, sure is it about bipolar or whatever else he has? Sure. Is it about his mother dying? Sure. It’s about um all these other things. Sure. But I think it’s also okay, or I’m giving my self permission to say it’s okay, that being inside of white supremacy as a public famous figure is a mechanism that is designed to um make a Black person go insane. It’s designed that way. And I don’t think that now that we’re looking at Kanye West and um now that we’ve seen Michael Jackson, now that we’ve seen so many different representations of what fame–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Sly Stone. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Sly Stone. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Now that we’ve seen so many rep– speaking of, who would think that Sly Stone would have outlived Roy Ayers, Pharoah Sanders. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: I know. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And like so many. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: I know. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Quincy Jones. I’m like, I’m like I’m like oh. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: I know. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay, Sly Stone did that. [laughing]

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Listen, Bootsy’s still here too, okay? Yes.

 

Myles E. Johnson: Listen, listen, but um but– 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: George Clinton too, but uh. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: So how do you feel about Kanye West, um yes that rant but then also I guess just Kanye West as how he exists in the public space specifically for Black people. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, I mean, I think you can’t deny Kanye’s cultural impact, right? As somebody who is like, I’m at the gym, I’m on runs. I what like you, you are going to hear Kanye, right. People have like canceled Kanye, but they have not canceled his art in the same. It’s it’s a very fascinating thing, actually, to to observe. Um. I also live in Los Angeles, which is like the home of sneaker culture. Right. And so people have stopped wearing their Yeezys, but people still listen to his music. Um. And I just, I find that really interesting because I think when we’ve had conversations around other artists and canceling them, that’s been less true. People it seems to be much more cut and dry. So I think Kanye presents a really fascinating and complicated like example of how people grapple with someone having shaped so much of who they are and how they see the world and finding that person to be in deep trouble right now. I’m not really on social media. So I had a friend text me and she was like, girl, I don’t know I’m, you know, put on your tin foil hat. But like if Kanye doesn’t survive the week it’s cause he’s on Twitter talking about Jay-Z and Beyonce. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: You know?

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay? 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: And so that’s kind of how it got put on my radar. And I the thing that I also think about is like, Kanye is not saying these things in public for the first time. He’s been saying them in private and no one has pulled his coattails effectively, right? I also that he is a rage baiter and I think he has figured that part out. And so I don’t know that we will ever have a real sense of what Kanye is thinking or feeling. But I do know that the ways that we have decided with other artists and other creatives that we are going to demonstrate our disapproval by divesting in their art and their music, we have not done with Kanye. Uh. And so I think, you know, Kanye still remains very relevant in cultural conversations. And I think for as long as that is true, he’s gonna continue to behave this way. And I think, again in an era where people are it feels both more aware of and more comfortable with the idea of boycotting, I just wonder why we haven’t fully done that with Kanye yet. You know?

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah I–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Does that make sense? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: It no, that makes a lot of sense. I think also Kanye comes at a moment where he was there for the Harvey Weinstein, the Bill Cosby and all of that. But he was also, he also managed to publicly live long enough for the fall of that, the people getting tired of that be people getting of uh uh maybe the things that they– 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, you’re trying to take everything from us you’re not gonna take this from me too. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah I’m not gonna take this and also but and also every person to me who’s pub–, this is just my opinion, every person who’s public. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Usually uh is a is a form of symbolic catharsis for whoever’s viewing them. And I think there’s a lot of people who don’t even, who don’t agree with what Kanye’s saying literally about, um let’s say, what he said about Jay-Z and Beyonce’s children, what he’s said about Jewish people, but they like that he said it because it is a cathartic moment of I don’t want to have to be this accountable for what comes out of my mouth. And he is a cathartic thing to watch I when you can see them yell. I know that I do it. It’s just, you know, Nicki Minaj verses. There are things that Nicki Minaj has said in verses that don’t go too well in the spaces that I’m at. But when she says it I feel this catharsis, I think that Kanye West is um energized off of that too. There’s so many people who want to be able to say things that are bold and and disrespectful and loud, and they feel like they can’t, but Kanye’s doing it and that catharsis is really powerful. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: That’s fascinating, because I think I think a lot about that with Trump, right? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Mm hmm. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: And like people saying, like, I might not agree with him, but at least what he says is what he thinks. And it’s raw. And he’s not he doesn’t feel the need to be politically correct. And he doesn’ feel the need to like care about your feelings. And I’m tired of caring about everybody’s feelings. Right. Um. I feel that, I just don’t know. I just don’t know what not canceling fully Kanye gets us, you know? Other than more moments like this. And I also don’t know what it gets him to continue to um just amplify what he is doing, right? And like, look, the truth of the matter is engagement is engagement, you know what I’m saying? And in a world where your attention is um the most valuable thing you have, I think to continue to give it to Kanye and to continue in some ways to allow him to exploit and manipulate it. Um. I think is telling also about where we are as a collective um and what we’re willing to expend our energy on. 

 

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

 

[AD BREAK]

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay, so back to the serious land of politics. Outside of this, the very silly, bizarre land of culture. Um. They’re continuously looking more and more like, did you hear about the Bernie Sanders and the AOC rally in Denver? And if you did, what did you think? 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: I did. Uh. You know, a couple of weeks ago, we had a conversation about the Republicans having figured out the media and and and how to like get media attention and and look you know media ready and more media ready than the Democrats. And so I think it’s interesting that it’s AOC and Bernie. Um, you know, I, look. [laugh] I don’t think we have a meaningful political left in this country, right? And um I think it’ll be fascinating to see how this vote around government funding and avoiding a shutdown really does play out for Democrats and who has to um deal with the consequences of having decided to like fall in line so that a shutdown didn’t play into the hands of Trump, so to speak. I have always struggled with Bernie in particular, because while I think he brings an important lens around class to conversations, I think he lacks an understanding of how class and race are linked in the US, right? Or at least an unwillingness to talk about that in any real meaningful way. And so that they had a big turnout in Denver, which is actually a really diverse city but often is thought of and experienced as a really white place is is part of this challenge for me, right? Which is, it feels to me like an attempt at bringing white people in purple states back to the party, which I don’t think is is the right play here, right? I don t even really think it’s going to shift in the way that the Democrats currently hope. Um, and I think it’s a missed opportunity, you know, when they’re talking about working class people to think about who the real working class base of the Democratic Party is, right? And it’s people of color, and it’s people of color in like the Rust Belt or in the South, you know what I mean? And it is like those people you are not engaging, those people you are not, you know getting to turnout. And so look, I think, it’s important to demonstrate your ability to mobilize people. I think its important to demonstrate power in numbers. I truly believe in that, especially because I think some people are feeling very alone if they didn’t support and don’t support Donald Trump and the Republicans. But I just don’t know what this show of power gets us, um other than some liberal white people feeling really good about themselves having stood and waved some signs. [laughter] You know, the thing about not talking about this is I, you know, I don’t know where you’re going to land on that. You might have a very different perspective than I have, but that–

 

Myles E. Johnson: No that–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: That was my read. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That is that’s a great read. I think, again, I find a lot of peace of just like pulling out a little bit and and looking at the bigger picture. Even though the bigger picture isn’t any prettier than the smaller picture. It just, it just, I don’t know, there’s just some relief in it than just kind of getting mad or or annoyed by these little instances, but I am already scared, maybe is the word, about the 2028 election, um. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Because I just have and again, I’m open. I don’t think it’s gonna happen, but I’m open to having a totally bad read. You know what I mean? I’m in the Midwest right now. I’m between here and the South. That’s where my family is. I you know, all my friends are kind of in the Northeast or in Cali. But I I feel like I actually do have a really good temperature of what’s going on. And I’m and I’m just seeing them just gut and drain their support and focus on on the hope that one day they’re gonna wake up and it’s gonna be 2008 again or be 1998 again or like whatever. And that’s just not–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –what’s gonna happen. And the other thing specifically in this article that really just astounded me was how this kind of whole oligarch stuff. You know, this oligarch bullshit can only go so far because if we open the hood of the Democratic Party, we’re going to find just as many powerful men getting their way because of politics. So it’s really not–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: We don’t like oligarchy. We don’t like their oligachy. We don’t like that. And I– 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: 100%. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And I think that’s not really moving people. So even if you have 30K people come out in Denver, are those 30,000 Republicans who are regretful? Is that what the data is showing us? 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Then that will be convincing. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: But I don’t think that’s what the data’s showing us. I think you can go to any state and get a really big turnout of democratic people because no state is only exclusively one thing. So I think that the actual–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Right. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –changing of minds or active or the changing of minds from people to red and blue is not happening because it’s not just about politics and who you vote for. It’s a cultural cross and it’s a cultural line in the sand, and I think the only other way to do it is to get people who are neutral, aka people who don’t vote, people who don’t care, and get them to care and to get them to care blue. But they just seem like they don’t want to do that, because I think the people who would activate the non-electorate to do that are people the Democrats don’t want to um interact with. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: I think that’s a hundred percent true. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I’m glad I’m glad because I’m glad you think that’s true. Because because to me, I’m just looking and I’m like this person because, you know, you’ll see Democrats sit with Kid Rock. You’ll see Gavin Newsom sit with whoever. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: But will not sit with–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: The far left version of those things. And I’m, like, so why not? 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Right. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And I’m thinking–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Right. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Oh, it’s because we know that this person with too much power can overthrow our our Democratic Party mission. That’s what it kind of–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: 100%. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That’s what it starts to feel like. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: But I think this is my challenge with the limitations around not wanting to talk about race even, right? I think Democrats see talking about race as a liability and I just don’t think you move the needle meaningfully in this country without talking about the ways in which race and class are inextricably linked, you know? Um. And I don’t think that you get people to a place where they are willing to support the social safety net programs that many Americans have come to rely on if you also don’t talk about the truth about who those programs serve, right? And that means confronting the racist narratives that have been sort of crafted around the social safety net programs, right. A majority of people who get food stamp assistance are actually not Black people. So you voting against this, but you voting against your, you know, like there are, you have to say head on, we have to talk about race and class and how they have shaped our understanding of who we are as a country and what people in this country deserve. But the Democrats are reluctant to do that both because they hope staying silent on race means that Black people and other people of color will continue to show up and vote for them without questioning. And it will not make the sort of squeamish white people who are like, oh, I don’t know how I feel about that, right? But I think absent of a willingness to do that, I just don’t think you move the needle meaningfully on voter turnout or outcome. You know? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. My only push with that is we have talked about race a lot. We have talked about race and class a lot. We’ve and I actually would even argue that the Democratic Party exploited racialized moments that have happened in order to win. And I think that the thing that they’re finding is, so the best example, which is my favorite example, is uh uh reparations. Because I think that that is the–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I think that is the Obama of 2025, 2028. I think that you will not see Black people come out in mass unless you talking about reparations. You are not gonna get a smiley Negro or somebody who talks like a Obama-lite enough or somebody who got nails long enough to to to to signal to Black people to get to the polls. Like you’re gonna get the money that you that you get. And I think the Democratic Party are gonna continue to bleed um Black support until they until they figure out that that is the thing that’s gonna activate um Black people. I think that the thing is, let’s talk about race. I think it’s what is what are we doing about race? But anytime that comes along, Gavin Newsom all these–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Fair. That’s a fair push.

 

Myles E. Johnson: All these different people. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –talking about reparations. They always say, we’re gonna study it. And I’m like, Ta-Nehisi Coates did that. People and of course, people way before him did that, but I’m, like, there’s been so much–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: For sure. Yeah.

 

Myles E. Johnson: –study about it and so much talk about it. Y’all just wanna keep on giving that as meat in front of our eyes so we can keep on running this race for you and it’s not working so um. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, commissions don’t move shit, exactly. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay, okay, okay. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay, okay.

 

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

 

[AD BREAK]

 

Sharhonda Bossier: We don’t know each other well, but, and I don’t want to make any assumptions about you, but I’m assuming you know what poppers are. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I do know what Poppers are. It came with the diploma. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: So for the people who do not know. [laughter] Okay. When you graduate from baby gay university, they tell you what poppers are. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Exactly. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: And that’s the undergraduate course, that’s the intro. So for the people who don’t know, will you tell us what popper’s are and what what purpose they serve? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Poppers are nail polish remover that have been rebranded and sold in different places like gas stations, sex stores, et cetera, because it has been found that if you sniff this um nail polish removal, that it uh creates a euphoric experience, that’s the high, but then also relaxes other muscles, muscles that are um better off relaxed when engaging in homosexual activities. Okay, okay you could let your kids–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: That is exactly. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: You could let your kids–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: That is exactly it. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –hear that and they wouldn’t know what was going on. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. Alright, thank you for keeping us in PG land. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Um. But the but the reason that I I wanted to bring it to the pod for discussion is because the FDA has decided to crack down on poppers, right? This isn’t the first time that this has happened in the U.S., but it does feel like a renewed push and it feels especially hostile under the Trump administration. One, because of the number of attacks on the and the number of fronts you know on which from which they are launching these attacks on queer communities. And also because, you know, good old RFK has said really problematic things about the link between poppers and HIV. And so uh you know, both producers of of of these products and users of these products are saying, like, something about this moment feels different. And it feels like not just, again, an attack on something that, you know, as is is the case with any recreational drug, right, has its own inherent risks, right, but literally an attack on a community and a community of adults who are choosing to engage in consensual activity with each other, right? And are and are choosing to um you know engage in something that you know has long been understood to be available and a and awidely accepted practice, right. And so I wanted to bring it to the pod because I think that this for me was like, oh, y’all in the deep cuts, y’ all have gone through the great thing, y’all are like, what can we go after? Yeah, that was just it was fascinating to me that the FDA was focused here and on this particular product. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Right. I think they’re looking for a win, right? That’s what it that’s what it seems like. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: They’re looking for like a symbolic win, because it’s such an evil but genius plan, because how do I look, even at 34, I’m not going to go protest and make a big deal about a drug or like poppers, but so you’re able to do, hmm, here we go. So there’s a movie that came out in 1980. It’s called Cruising. Have you heard of this movie? 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Okay. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: So this was– 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: I have not heard of Cruising.

 

Myles E. Johnson: OK, so Cruising is a film directed by William Friedkin, starring Al Pacino. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Oh. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, no, wild movie. So, I’m gonna send you so many documentaries around uh, and so many video essays around this film, because it is um uh, pregnant with so with so with so much that happened around both the filming and just in the text, um specifically when you when you look back on it. But one of the things with Cruising is that the premise of the movie happened in these leather clubs in New York City. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: So part of the resistance to this film from the queer community was because they were afraid that this film was going to demonize further queer gay men practices and at a time where gay men were getting bullied, killed, et cetera, that felt especially dangerous. And they were and they were um right. Also, this film is literally about a gay serial killer. So it was a lot of it was a lot of–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Oh wow. Okay.

 

Myles E. Johnson: -demonization going on. And when I hear about what’s going on with the poppers and the FDA, I see another attempt through through policy to demonize queer practices. And–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Mm hmm. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: The theater of being able to make something like that illegal would be a real a real right win, a real far right win. And if you try to say anything about it you’re gonna look like a crazy homosexual who is trying to advocate for drugs. So it effectively silences you. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Exactly. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And makes you wait. So you really have to wait for the–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Exactly. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –big one, gay marriage. Like you have to wait for the Big Big One. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: In order to say something. Meanwhile, they can just chip away at your your um uh, not just your rights, but also your place comfortably inside of society where there was, since we are in such this post sexual revolution age, there is something to sexual freedom in the marketplace and being able to say I’m into that and not be shamed, we’re in that moment. But if you can create shame in 2025 around gayness, that is a huge right conservative win. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: I think that’s 100% right. And I also, I wonder though, to your point, right I was even a little reluctant to bring it to the pod where I’m like, how do we talk about this in a way that doesn’t have us talking about the mechanics of, right? Or the intricacies of X or Y or Z. So thank you for taking that off my plate. [laughter] But I I also wonder, you know like there are a growing number for instance, of women who use them recreationally too, right? Like, I also wonder how, as I think there are fewer divisions between queer and non-queer people, communities, practices, et cetera, right, how that is going to shape this sort of crackdown in this moment, right. Um. Like, are are people going to say, you know, well, this this this man might not want to say anything because he might not want people to know that he engages in this kind of behavior, but I, right, as a as a woman feel like I should and can say something it’ll just be interesting I think to see if there’s any public pushback uh on this on this crackdown um it just feels again like of all of the things that they could focus on on all of the ways that they could attack our community. This being one of them feels I I didn’t see this one coming you know? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I’m I yes, yes, I do think I can see this one coming though. And I think we’re gonna have a lot of stuff that feels super duper small. Like I don’t like a niche brand being banned that only Black women enjoy. Like a niche institution. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Being shut down or defunded that only Black that was overtly serving Black men or Black men were overrepresented. I think that is gonna be a thing um just across the board, across race and and sexual minorities. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Well, we will, I’m sure, come back to this. I have christened myself the pods like pleasure and vice reporter so [laughing]–

 

Myles E. Johnson: I love that. I love that. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: So, something else will come up. Uh yeah.

 

Myles E. Johnson: I love that, and I was even thinking about the um, I guess like the kind of critique that was like bubbling in my head was a critique of the left because this situation, I think the left missed a lot of opportunities to deepen people’s understandings about the vision for society that the left had, because I think there wasn’t actually a whole lot of work about what that society looks like. And I think that we should have been um clearer around a lot of the things that happened. Just like when we talk about transphobia and transphobia doesn’t just affect trans women, but Black, cis Black women will be um. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Will be targeted. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I think that we have to know that when the government begins to care about our pleasures and our addictions and starts making that litigation. They’re creating prison-forced labor. They’re creating and they’re also creating a fascist society. So the freedom of sexualities and pleasure– 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: And risk for greater harm. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, that goes without saying, but I think that we should do a better job at painting the world that the that the conservatives see and the world that the left sees. And I think that we get so um caught up in the in the conversation about what the world should look like, then painting like, oh, this is what Jeff Bezos, this has not a whole lot to do with your article, but but but it does. But I think I have not seen the left say Jeff Bezos wants you to go to Amazon high and work at Amazon and wants your kids to go to Amazon hospital and then wants you to have Amazon shoes and ride an Amazon car and live in an Amazon apartments so that way if you’re trying to unionize or you try to revolt against anything that he’s doing you are gutting your whole family. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Homeless. Yeah.

 

Myles E. Johnson: You know what I mean? Like I think that that–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –picture has not been made about like they that they want a Tesla universe That you can’t escape from that you can’t–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –opt out of and that you just have to hope that you like your particular ugly ass home pod. Like you just have to hope that it’s cool with you. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Exactly. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And I feel like we haven’t got a, we haven’t been good with painting the picture of their fascist future or our kind of leftist utopia. Speaking of leftist utopias, let’s talk about what’s happening in Lincoln Heights, Ohio. Okay, so this has been–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –all a buzz in Ohio. Everybody who I talk to has said something to me about it within the last two months. But there was a Nazi rally in um the historically Black neighborhood of Lincoln um Heights. Nazis came out. Black people came and acted a fool. I don’t even know because we’re a listening podcast, but um I guess AJ, if you can, if there’s any like uh news clips that we can insert so people can hear how the Black people were talking talking because they were stomping out um stomping out Nazi flags, they were exercising and exhibiting their Second Amendment rights. And they were essentially saying–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That this behavior of white supremacy of trying to intimidate us in our community and also court other people who are who are thinking about white supremacy will not happen in our neighborhood. 

 

[clip of unnamed Black resident] The business owners, the fathers, the sons, daughters. 

 

[clip of unnamed news reporter] These are civilians, members of the Lincoln Heights safety and watch program. 

 

[clip of unnamed Black resident 2] It’s a duty. Okay, let’s go. 

 

[clip of unnamed news reporter] The duty, protecting their neighborhood. The majority Black village of Lincoln Heights, Ohio. 

 

[clip of unnamed Black resident 3] Ain’t no body scared of you.

 

[clip of unnamed news reporter] After neo nazis held a rally here last month, carrying rifles, waving swastikas and hurling racial slurs just moments before children were let out of school. At the time, law enforcement officials said the neo nazi’s did not break any laws, but an investigation by county prosecutors is ongoing. Weeks later, the KKK came with these flyers. 

 

[clip of unnamed Black resident 4] First African-American community above the nation’s biggest line of staff. 

 

[clip of unnamed news reporter] Safety and Watch Group spokesperson Durrance Daniels says the police did not do enough, which was more chilling because the town was founded in the 1920s as a safe haven for Black residents. 

 

[clip of Durrance Daniels] Lincoln Heights is our home. If somebody broke into your home, you call the police, and the police says, you know, if they do it again, there’s no we haven’t broken any law, so we’re just gonna allow them to break into your home again. What would you do? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I thought that I thought that story was already really compelling to see those Black people kind of just instantaneously see something happen in their neighborhood and correct it. But the follow up stories that have–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –been coming out have been even more interesting. So the story’s from WLWT5 and the headline reads, Lincoln Heights residents form armed neighborhood watch group after neo-Nazi rally. So let me read a little bit of the article. Following a neo-Nazi demonstration that took place on Overpass in Evandale in February, many residents of the village of Lincoln Heights say they have started to feel unsafe within their own community. Founded in the 1920s, Lincoln Heights was the first self-governing autonomous Black community outside of the South within the United States. Crazy. Now, after the rally on the Overpass last month, many residents say they feel the sense of autonomy has been invaded and that local police did not enough to maintain order at the time, no one was ultimately arrested or charged in the neo-Nazi rally that took place on February 7th, leading to a great sense of frustration among many Lincoln Heights residents. In response to community frustration over how Hamilton County Police handled the situation. The Lincoln Heights Safety and Watch Program was founded by Daniels and others to offer more physical protection to residents in a manner that goes outside of the traditional policing. The village of Lincoln Heights does not have an independent police department and relies primarily on the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office for its police presence. The police have been more than silent. I don’t know what else to call that. Like that can’t happen nowhere else. So just so the um the listeners know. So what the um neighborhood residents did was take their rights in their own own hands, and now you have armed and also masked, Black people. escorting children to school, uh patrolling their own neighborhood armed, and really keeping that community safe. So you see the failure of the police happen and then you see community stepping in to ensure the safety of their own um community. And two things that I want to say before I um pass it off is that this is to me where when we talk about where working class Black people are, this is where they’re at. I think this is how come we’ve been so inactive. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I think that a lot of Black people, so, you know, Ohio in the Midwest, in the deep south, there are so many Black people who are um seeing that there’s real real threat to them. And it feels silly and feels like an under a underreaction to just talk about voting or just talk about election cycles. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Or just talk about policy when this kind of thing is happening. And my other critique is, I don’t get it. Why can’t, why can’t why is there a [?] person who’s in the Democratic Party going talking to people in Lincoln Heights because these are politically activated community of folks doing something. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And Vice President Harris said she loves her gats and her guns. So why don’t you talk to those Negroes who like their gats and their guns? I think we know why you won’t talk to them, but I want to, that to me is also illustrating how come so much of the how come the Democratic Party is destined to fail because they’re not actually touching people where they’re at and where they’re at right now is I’m going to put a gun– 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: 100%. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –on my back to protect my community and because the police aren’t–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –doing anything and there is no political officials doing anything either. How’d you feel about the article? 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: I think it’s I think it was interesting to call out the silence of the police and the absence of the sheriff’s department because I was like, oh, this is like Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus, they not there, because they’re the same person, you know what I mean? Like, the police can’t show up to protect you, baby, because they marching on the Nazi side today, you know? So there was part of that for me. I also, I think obviously back to, you know, being from California, the Black Panther party, right? And like their decision to take up arms and how that led to many of the gun control measures that we have both in the state and in the country, right? Because people were like, now wait a minute, we can’t have militant Negroes marching around with guns talking about self-defense, right? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Fresh off of desegregation. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: And so I do think there is is listen, and I do think there is something about seeing Black people step into, you know, they’re like, okay, if it’s the Second Amendment, then it’s the Second Amendment for all of us, right? That this country has a very visceral reaction to. For the first time ever, I’ve also thought about gun ownership. Like I grew up in Watts. I lost my first friend to gun violence in fifth grade. And I sort of was like, I’m never going to be a gun owner despite the fact that my grandparents were, right? Um. And they grew up, they were born in 1932 in South Louisiana, right. So their relationship to guns was also just very different, you know? Um. But I also am thinking about, I live in in mid city in Los Angeles. Uh. This is one of the largest Jewish communities outside of Israel, right? So there’s like Brooklyn. I lived in Crown Heights actually when I lived in Brooklyn, so I’ve also seen that. Yeah uh, and now I live in Mid-City. And, you know, I there are armed patrols in my neighborhood, right, for people who feel like they are there to protect members of the Jewish community because they feel like they are under attack right now, right? In post-October 7th, again, I’m a runner and a walker, right? So there are lots of you know community spaces, schools, et cetera, and they all have armed guards outside now, right. And there is not, and they used to, not that they weren’t armed before they were, but they used wear jackets so you couldn’t see their guns and now they don’t. Now you can just see their guns. They are proudly displaying them. And I think it’s really interesting to think about why in particular when Black people choose to take up arms in self-defense, it becomes this kind of story and it incites this kind of fear in people, right? And I wonder, you know, what it will mean if more of us think about this. I know people get nervous when we start talking about taking up arms for a host of reasons, but I do think there is something that says, something powerful when you say like, not here, you know, and not us. And if this is the only way that you understand resistance, then I’m happy to speak your language, right? And like, good for them, right. Um and I, there’s an organization here in Los Angeles called LA Progressive Shooters. It’s run by a Vietnamese refugee whose focus is on teaching, you know, queer, trans, people of color, how to defend themselves, you know, and it’s like, again, when I think about my own respectability politic and why I also have a thing around Black people with guns and how deeply ingrained that is in me as a Black person who feels very much like we have every reason to feel under attack and under assault and to defend ourselves. Um. But I’m going to be following this story and following this community. And I also think that, you know, the leader of the group whose last name is Daniels, I think you said um was saying like, look, we’re out here in masks, not because we don’t want our community members to know who we are, but because these people are gonna dox us, you know? And thinking about the other violence that people will not see as violence because it isn’t you know a person strapped. Um. Yeah, man, it’s a complicated moment in this country’s history. And I think I’m worried about the potential resulting political violence that we’re gonna see. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, I guess my only follow-up question to what you said was, do you think that there are missed opportunities? So I guess, my big thing is everything that you said makes perfect sense to me. But what doesn’t make perfect sense, to me, um is why are there not more politicians and people who say that they care about Black people and care about Black communities um talking about this. These people were terrorized by a neo-Nazi rally. If you want and you were the one calling Donald Trump the fascist and all these other different things, how come you aren’t um extending your olive branch? How come you’re not extending your help to this Black community? And I think we, and I’m being I’m being satirical. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: But it’s like, well, we can’t be we can’t be shocked that Ohio don’t go purple then, you know? [laugh]

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also think that a big part of it, though, Myles, is like, our political discourse does not allow for nuance, right? So you got to be pro gun control or pro guns, right? And so even Kamala had doing the thing where she was like, I love my guns, right? Was about her trying to, but what she can’t say is I love Black people with guns because that, to our earlier conversation about who actually makes up the donor and power base in the Democratic party, they are also nervous when they see Black people with guns, right? And so I think this is, again, where not talking explicitly about the way that race has shaped our perceptions of who gets to enjoy what set of freedoms in this country is manifest, you know? And so if this were potentially, right, like a group of progressive white people in Colorado, which is also a state that loves its guns, right, who were like, we came out to do X or Y or Z, the framing and the coverage would be very, very different. Right? It would be about a battle between equals and good white people on this side and good white people on that side. Right? But we don’t do well when the only white people in the story are bad, you know, and we especially don’t do well when Black people have decided to, you know, embody and potentially threaten the same violence that they have been threatened by. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I just think that if there needs to be somebody who doesn’t want to be president, I guess, who likes who loves Black people, and who and who, and who says I’m gonna be here, because I’m going to I’m going to be I’m gonna be that bridge because I just to put it like blatantly, I have nothing personally against any of these people, but just just to put it blatently, like like if you’re Jasmine Crockett, if you are um Kamala Harris, if you’re Michelle Obama, if you’re Barack Obama, and you don’t actually talk to those people who are being terrorized, in 50 years, we’re so obsessed with this imaginary history book that probably won’t even exist because people who are stopped reading and there’s not going to be any such thing as history in 50 or 100 years. But we’re so–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –obsessed with it, but nobody, um uh I this story just didn’t is not getting interacted with. I’m not even talking about the white people. I’m talking about the–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –Democratic Black people who are in those spaces. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Who say they like Black people so much. They should be there saying, listen. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Listen, I feel y’all. Let’s figure out how to utilize what’s going on. Like there’s just there’s just no strategy. And I think that is what–

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –scares me because if that is the pattern, in 20 years, there’s not gonna be any Black political power. There’s just not. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, well maybe Charlamagne will invite them on to the Breakfast Club. [laughing]

 

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

 

[AD BREAK]

 

Myles E. Johnson: So there are stories that root us, there are stories that remind us who we are and where we come from and where we are meant to go. The Aunties is one of those stories. It’s a testament to love, land, and legacy unfolding on the same soil where Harriet Tubman once walked. Donna Deer and Paula Greene met in 1974 and together they built a life at Mount Pleasant Acres Farm, an ancestral sanctuary on Maryland’s eastern shore. As women in the life, their love has been a quiet revolution intertwined with the earth they both nurture. Their farm is more than land, it is a living archive, a site of healing and a lesson in what it means to steward both history and future. Their story found its way to filmmakers Charlyn and Jeannine Kayembe-Oro, a couple whose own devotion to land, legacy and justice made them the perfect storytellers for this moment. And as they will remind you in this interview, they were family before filmmakers and subject. The aunties is their love letter, not just to Donna and Paulette, but to every Black person who has ever longed for a piece of earth to call their own. Today we’re speaking with all four of them, Donna and Paulette, and Charlyn and Jeannine to weave together the history, the work, and the magic behind the documentary, The Aunties. So settle in. This is a story of devotion to land, to love, and to freedom. [pause] So first of all, I was just really inspired by the whole documentary. So, I just moved to Ohio. Me and my partner have been talking about farmlands and tiny houses and all this other stuff. We’ve been looking up you know Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, my next guest that I have um, who wrote a wrote a book about Harriet Tubmen. So it just feel it just feels so special to be able to speak to both The Aunties and the filmmakers of this this kind of like beautiful short documentary that really. I don’t know, it’s just, it just had so much imagination and so much futurism in it. In a time where you could turn on the TV and see so much nihilism and so much about the past and present, it, it just jolted me open. There is this scene that uh has The Aunties on the farmland and they’re in all white and they have the glasses on and the cowrie shells and it looks like a Sun Ra fantasy, like an Afrofuturist fantasy. And I just, I don’t, I again, I’m just over over over the moon about speaking to you all. So I guess my first first question is how did these two, how did you both meet? How did or how did these two groups meet? So just so the listeners know, I’m talking to The Aunties, which are Donna and Paulette. And then I’m taking to, this is actually really good. And then, I’m talk to the filmmakers, which are Charlyn and Jeannine. Okay, okay, just making just making sure, because I’m from the South and I was in New York, so I can mispronounce something crazy. I can miss pronounce apple, if you let me. So how did, these individual twosomes become a foursome and create this great documentary?

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: Go ahead. 

 

Paulette Greene: Well, do you want to go with the twosome first, so Donna and Paulette, or do you want to with the twosome connected to the–

 

Myles E. Johnson: So I’m gonna ask the filmmakers first, because I wanna know I want to know how you all met, and then I’m interested in the journey of what made you see the aunties and say this needs to be documented. 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: We met through creative community here in Philadelphia. And then we met again through community work, um and in particular, through um agriculture. And then, we met the aunties, and then Jeannine and I got together. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Oh wow, so this is. 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay, tell me. 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: So we–

 

Myles E. Johnson: You know I’m nosy. 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: It’s fine. It’s tea. Um. Yeah, Jeannine and I met doing urban agriculture work here in Philadelphia. She had a–

 

Jeannine Kayembe-Oro: –Urban farm in North Philly called Life Do Grow and Charlyn was working at the book store. 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: Mm-hmm. I was doing um programming, educational work for a free um bookstore that was started by uh elders in North Philadelphia, including a former panther. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Wow. 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: And we started doing programming together. And then my work in Urban Ag, um I ended up as a part of a group that came down to Maryland. Um, and met with the aunties about, um, a concept around Afro-ecology and Jeannine also met that group separately and while sort of connecting, you know more, she and I started to see each other and staying connected with the aunties, um I think is a part of how we stayed together, how the dating became more than that. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That’s so, that’s so beautiful. That’s so beautiful. My mom’s in the life. She’s a, she just turned um, she’s turning 65 um this year. And I just grew up with her. She came out at about 15 to me and just like, I don’t, just Black Black woman, Black uh non-binary Black, whatever the language we want to use for it, stories specifically based with people who, you know, born with vaginas when they were born, just warm my heart so much. You know, when I think about Black women and um being able to find not just like political activation, but also like romance and love, because sometimes Black women’s work could be so just tied to labor. Um. So I love the idea that like romance is in the center of both of these stories. So, for the aunties, I again, I implore everybody listening to watch the documentary. It’s not a time-taxing documentary, it’s under 10 minutes. But um I do want to ask you all how do y’all met? I know it was in 1974, but I want to ask you all the same question about how you two met as well.

 

Paulette Greene: Well, we met, um I’m from New York City, and Donna, she’s from Columbus, Ohio, and um fortunately she was stationed in New York city, and um I belonged to a group of um all kinds of people. We call our group some of this and some of that, so, you know, meaning that all the people who enjoy living in all sorts of walks of life, we all come together, and we periodically have we have social functions, and we are lifelong friends, and we still do things together. Donna happened to be a part of some of the summers, some of this, and actually we called it some of dis and some of dat, um to make it, to really emphasize the the closeness of the of the people. And I happened to meet her because um I had a a New Year’s Day party called–

 

Donna Dear: The Drop-In. 

 

Paulette Greene: The Drop-in on New Years day, and Donna dropped in and she never dropped out since 1974. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: [laugh] I love, I love love– 

 

Paulette Greene: And I’m still cooking. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I love that. 

 

Paulette Greene: And that’s one part of it. And I know the other part, maybe she wants to talk about our coming together after moving to Maryland. We had been all around the world and did all kinds of things that were actually very fulfilling. And um we decided when Donna retired, that we were going to come to Maryland to live. And um, we purchased a farm next door to our family farm. And um the rest, Donna, you can go ahead and talk about how we met our nieces. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Well, before before you go into that, could I also know about what y’all were doing in Maryland before that? 

 

Paulette Greene: Well we were–

 

Myles E. Johnson: What? 

 

Paulette Greene: –visiting family. 

 

Donna Dear: Her family. 

 

Paulette Greene: Because we lived in Alabama and we lived in Tokyo. So–

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. 

 

Paulette Greene: We just so, after Donna retired, we decided to, um she wanted to retire here. Certainly not in Ohio, she said, even though she loves her family, but she wanted to be in Maryland. And um– 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Well how how does one get to Tokyo what? 

 

Donna Dear: Well, I’m in the military. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Got it. Okay, got it. 

 

Donna Dear: I was there for 27 years. 

 

Paulette Greene: Not in the service. 

 

Donna Dear: In the military, but I got stationed in Japan and um. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Got it. 

 

Donna Dear: But before that every time we would come to Maryland, I would tell Paulette, when I retire, I want to live in Maryland, in this section, this area, because it did remind me of home where I grew up. I grew up in a Black community. It was in the country. And um I lived on the farm. And this is how we got here. I told her I wanted to live on this street next door to her great-grandparents. And this is what I was going to be period. And it just so happened, I call it divine intervention, the farm next door, next door to her grandparents. 

 

Paulette Greene: Great-grandparents. 

 

Donna Dear: Great grandparents. Um. Was right there. 

 

Paulette Greene: It came up for sale. 

 

Donna Dear: It came up for sale and we bought it. I retired in ’92, the farm came up for sale in ’94, and we bought it before he could get the steak in the ground. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I love that. That is beautiful. Again, um it’s hard not to listen to you all speak and not get um, I guess it’s a little bit narcissistic, just because my boyfriend, my partner right now is from Ohio. That’s how I ended up in Ohio. I’m from New York. He’s from Ohio, we’re in Ohio right now trying to figure out what to do next. So like, it is wild. 

 

Donna Dear: No, come to Maryland. Come to Maryland next, come to Maryland. 

 

Paulette Greene: Yeah come to Maryland. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I’m over here, I’m over here like you got you got a little plot, we got a little tiny home. [laugh] Um. Uh. But I guess my next question is, I’m just curious about, so so I was born in New York, but I grew up um a large part of my life between 10 and 20 in rural suburban Georgia. And I know that when it comes to rural places, that can be um scary for um Black people, specifically Black people. just just for all Black people. I’m wondering how it was to navigate um working like that kind of decision was was that even a part of your thinking that that that this may not be a welcoming place for Black people as far as the farming industry as far as where you all live or is that just not a thing in where you are in Maryland is it? 

 

Donna Dear: I never thought about it. 

 

Paulette Greene: I never thought about it in Maryland. However, prior to moving to Maryland and while we were in Japan, we owned a home in Alabama. And so I guess we spent almost 15 years in Alabama, and we certainly did grow food there because we had um didn’t have as much land as we have here, but I guess all total we might had a little less than 10 acres. But um so we did grow food and of course also being community active and um getting yourself out there because Alabama is very political and the Black folk in Alabama are very outward in how they deal with the issues that they find are important to them and their survival and I of course you know was a part of all of that. Um. So um we being from New York City myself born in the Bronx I never paid it any attention. I was never concerned about my well-being. I was just concerned about the positivism that I had to show in living. And I did fine in Alabama. I think I represented my area at the Democratic National Convention and it was held in New York City. So you know it was really something for me to represent Alabama going to the convention in New York. But it kind of worked out except that I I couldn’t invite them to my party my New York. They didn’t understand why I couldn’t invite the Alabama delegation to my party and I was representing Alabama. I said, oh my goodness, this is about to stick–

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: There was some of this and some of that there. [banter]

 

Paulette Greene: Oh my gosh. But anyway, Mayor [?] understood. He was the mayor of Birmingham. He understood. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay, I’m going to throw this one back to the filmmakers for a little, I’m just going to play tennis is how I’m gonna do it. Um. So as filmmakers, you led many tours to Mount Pleasant Acres Farm. Um. How has spending time on this land changed your perspectives on food sovereignty and farming?

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: Well, I think that the first thing I would say is um as nieces, we’ve led many tours. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Mmm. 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: I don’t think that it wasn’t as filmmakers at first. Um. We’ve been in relationship with Aunt Donna and Aunt Paulette for uh going on 10 years. Um. And so, you know, we’ve we were you know they’re they were our elders first. We were their students. Um. There were a lot of different relationships that we’ve had with them before filmmaker and subject of a film. Um. So that’s first. Um. And I think that. Everyone that we’ve brought and all of the experiences that we’ve had with them um have helped us to deepen the work that we were already doing here in Philadelphia because both of us have been in land and food justice work, environmental justice work um here in Philly for decades. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I don’t mean to interrupt you, but just for for both myself, because I’m nosy, and then also just for the listeners, because I think that it can be a little polar, not polarizing, but just what what where can I get started? What are the options when you want to be involved with community? Can you just maybe loosely define what your community work looked like, just more in layman terms? Um just to just to offer people options of things to think about when they’re thinking about working in communities specifically at times like this. 

 

Jeannine Kayembe-Oro: I started an urban farm at 19 and, you know, did I understand what food sovereignty was in that moment? No, because I was there to make sure that the art, that art also intersected with the food and with the space. Um. Knowing we were in the middle of North Philly, across the street from public housing, like my goal was to bring hip-hop into the space, bring um you know, social media into the space, bring graffiti into the space, murals. Um. There was plays, there was so many different things that I came from an artistic like lens that I brought to agriculture and I brought to like community organizing um that made the space a very unique and dynamic and diverse. We would have Temple College students that would come do work days or we would have um you know or we would have a bunch of artists come and graffiti the walls and you know paint pictures and things like that. So when it comes to community work, of course it’s so expansive. And I think that um what I feel like connected for me, and this had been a lot of the work that I was doing as I was like understanding agriculture and like building up this urban farm was that because I worked on a bunch of different rural farms in Louisiana, that there does need to be a relationship between rural food systems as well as urban food systems. And some people have um you know created their own systems that work and some you know of course, are still in process and progress. But I do think that those two things need to be in relationship with each other, which then that really does solidify for me. how important it is for us to continue to come down to the aunties, love them, see them, hang out with them and build that relationship too. Cause it isn’t just transactional. Like when we’re Black people doing this work, it is um spiritual work. It is um internal work and growth that has to happen when we are learning how to be in relationship with whether it be elders or young people or even our own peers, like we be going through it with the other cousins trying to figure out how we’re gonna do projects and you know work together to make our own um to make our own sovereignty system, period, not just food, because it does come with, okay, well, what does learning look like? What does living look like, what does you know medicine look like and things like that? Um. So yeah, the community work was really expansive because we both come from an artistic background. So artistic and organizing as well from multiple you know different um industries. So we were able to bring that to a space um and create something that was really impactful for a long time. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: So, you started at 19, which is not a lot of time, and I heard the that you had experience working with the Louisiana Farms, excuse me right? Um. Outside of that, did you have any other experience? I guess the real question I’m trying to get to, let me put it plain, is was this something that you had a passion about, you pursued, or something that were coached into? I guess I’m trying to see how– 

 

Jeannine Kayembe-Oro: I was a slam poet, traveling around the country with [?]–

 

Myles E. Johnson: Y’all have a Philadelphia story, every single other sentence that comes out y’all’s mouth is the most Philly thing that I’ve heard ever. Like I’m like, yes, I used to work at Philadelphia Printworks, which was like a independent. 

 

Jeannine Kayembe-Oro: Yeah we [?]. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: OK, so yeah, so anytime I will go to visit Philly. 

 

Jeannine Kayembe-Oro: First drop with the, we was at the first, I still got the one of the first you know. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay, so y’all you know, you know you know obviously y’all y’all would know but.

 

Jeannine Kayembe-Oro: Not at all. And it was interesting because I went, and I always tell this story, I went to a um, again, slam poet world. I went and to go see um and talk with Saul Williams. He had a show in Philly and I was like, yo, Uncle Saul, I’ve been doing poetry. You already know I love this, but like farming has tooken over my world and I miss poetry. And he was like, you don’t think they’re the same thing? And that’s when I was like– 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay, Saul Williams. 

 

Jeannine Kayembe-Oro: Okay, Saul. [?], so as a poet, I got to see and reframe my work as like, okay, this is art. This is an expression of who I am. And I got to, you know, understand that more the more I connected with my ancestors, the more I connected with my elders, the more I connected with land that um that called to me. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, thank you for thank you for that answer. And I think that that answer also just lets people know that wherever you are, there’s opportunities to do things. You don’t have to be an expert or be the most learned person um to be able to do something as somebody who was a city city city person, um who’s always loved the country but has always been afraid or felt inadequate or felt like I couldn’t do those things because I wasn’t trained in those things. These stories helped me, and I’m sure so many other people realize that just because you don’t necessarily have those talents and tools that you were born with, you can still cultivate those things, it’s not um too late to do um to do that. So I’m going to bounce this to the aunties, but I also want um I want everybody to respond, but I want the aunties to respond to respond first. So I am a deeply just spiritual person when it comes to like ancestral work and when it comes to ancestral guidance. And it would just appear to me when you hear the story of the farm and Harriet Tubman’s lineage that you all are living this kind of ancestral fairy tale. Does it feel like that? Or am I just looking out, like looking in and just romanticizing it? Does it feel like you’re being carried by something more powerful and divine than than than than yourself when you look at the life you’re living? 

 

Paulette Greene: Absolutely, and I can say that uh having having had relationships with this area all of my life, even though I might’ve been born in New York, um I’ve always spent a lot of time here in Maryland and to be right next door to uh to the space that we have now and not really realizing that this whole area, because it’s a 2000 plus acre piece of property that we have, that we live on a part of. Um. I have I’ve always shared this space with my ancestors who are now my ancestors because I started my life with my great-grandparents and through my great grandparents, of course, I knew lots of people who are now ancestors ancestors I was blessed to have been exposed to them growing up. And I’ve always been exposed to growing food and preparing food whether it was produce or whether it was learning how to to prepare uh hogs or whether it was learning how to uh you know cook rabbits and squirrels and things like that. So I’ve always been exposed to the foods and the lifestyle, not the rich and famous so much, but to my ancestors who who lived the land. And after getting associated with the history here and knowing that Harriet Tubman and her family traversed these lands, um it makes it even more more intense because um we have a tree on this property that the students from Morgan State University who came here some years ago labeled this tree the witness tree and um people come here and they want to go back into the woods to see this tree and it evokes a lot of ancestral feelings and spirits when you go and see this huge tree that’s like 25 feet in diameter that it just it just makes you feel that you’re right there spiritually with with all of those even even my ancestors that I was blessed to have known and I knew all of my great-grandparents ten children. I knew all of them from my grandmother who was the oldest to the youngest, you know and I grew up with them, so I think I grew up with the history and uh but just knowing knowing that all the time Harriet Tubman’s family was out here and this is where she took them out of Maryland from. And at the time I must say that this um that this was not an agriculture area at that time. Um. At that time it was um it was timber and uh this was the place where Harriet’s father helped the man who who bought this place, Dr Thompson. He helped him uh to harvest his timber so that the gentleman who bought it, I guess he’s a gentleman, Dr. Thompson, he had amassed a lot of gambling debts and so he was able to um to get the monies through selling boats. He made boats from all this timber, and he was able to out of the gambling mess that he had gotten himself into. But as time progressed, I guesses, and also timber was being sent to Baltimore to make furniture, so there was a lot of timber cutting going on here. And so at some point by the time I came along, it was pure agriculture. But the history of it is a bit different, but for the last, I guess, 200 150 years, it has been nothing but agriculture and fine agriculture because of the land that we have here, the soil. Did you want to say something, Donna? 

 

Donna Dear: I just know it’s good for the world. It’s working for us and then working for the people, our nieces and nephews. We’ve all just gathered together and just formed the force that we just keep moving forward. 

 

Paulette Greene: But what I like about us being here and all of the nieces and nephews and their friends, you know, you think that um a lot of people from the city would not have a positive feeling about about growing food, you know. Because, I mean, some of my friends in New York said, well, you know, it’s very nice, Miss Greene, that you have that beautiful place down there. But I don’t mind doing the fast market and getting my food. Because if I have to scratch and dig, that’s not what I want to do. But when they come down here, they want to know what I can and what’s in my fields, but they don’t want to plant it themselves. But it’s nice to know that there are so many people, particularly young people, who are into into wanting to produce their own foods. They want to see what they are eating and they want to have a hand in what they’re doing. And it’s more intense at the level in the cities that this is happening and that are coming to areas like this than it is for the people who live here. Because somehow somehow the people who live here see this as an arduous experience. They don’t see it as necessarily the creativeness and the survival of healthy foods, and we grow organically. And they don’t necessarily see that because they just see the fact that uh it’s easier. They’re doing here what you would think that the people in the city would do. And that’s going into the stores and getting things that may be compromised in the growing process. But they love coming down here from wherever they come from. And we had students here from NYU in New York. They came from all over the world. They were international students. And they were just flabbergasted you know by what we’re doing here. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: It’s absolutely beautiful, and to your point, I think living in New York City, my second time being in New york city, in Brooklyn as an adult, really woke me up to what I was put in my body and kind of radicalized me around wanting to have autonomy over what I eat and um what I grow and wanting to be able to do that. And I think that, and and um this kind of could lead me to the next question. I think that as you know we hear things about tariffs and food getting more expensive and uh uh pesticides being used and all the horrible things we hear about um food, I think more people are going to be more interested in agriculture. I think that initially in the, I would say, I was born in ’91, so you could tell me if I don’t know what I’m talking about. But from what, from me being well-read, what I can understand is that there was a stigma around work that was too associated with chattel slavery. So during Great Migration, a lot of those things were put down and I think that there’s been enough time distance that people don’t necessarily associate, um I’m talking specifically about Black people, don’t don’t necessarily associate um certain types of work or certain modes of living with chattel slavery. I think now um it just reminds me of like almost like the story of Eden for whatever reason, like maybe not noticing you were in paradise or you have, you know, uh uh that you were you’re in a type of paradise until you’re out of it. How spiritually-led, ancestry-led does this um this relationship feel and this film feel? And I really love the push on saying that you all were nieces and family before entering the capitalistic idea of making a film and putting in the market. I love that recontextualization of your relationship because, A, it’s the truth. It’s what happened. But then also, I think that a lot of times um I think it’s just important to to reiterate. So I just wanted to say it again because I think that is so important to um declare specifically when we’re working with other Black people to not get trapped to say, you know, whether we work or make money, we’re family first, and that’s um foundational. So I just wanted to give you know words to that. That kind of stirred me. I was like, yeah. 

 

Donna Dear: It’s very interesting that you would say that about family. Because we had some people here from Malawi and [?]. They came here and they talked about the way they grow. They have to not use seeds twice or make seeds and retain them. They’re working with Monsanto. And in their country, in Malawi, Monsanto do those um GMOs. So you can only use seeds once and um we uh just gathered with them and embrace what they’re doing and went forward with that in our way, the way we work with our nieces and nephews and talk about how we grow and how it works for us. And they took some of those ideas back with them. 

 

Paulette Greene: And the idea though of having what I call the augmented family, even when I was raised up in New York, if you were not my nuclear family or my extended family, you were my augmented family. And that’s why it’s so easy. And I think even though we might come from slightly different cultures, you know, my folks are from one part of the United States and Jeannine and Charlyn’s family may be from someplace else in the world, but we all come back to our Black ancestry. and you know we all look at each other as nieces as our nieces and they look at us as their aunts and that in some in some cultures is the way that we are viewed if you’re not a biological then you’re still an auntie or an uncle and aunties and uncles are very germane to raising Black children particularly. We learn a lot from our what I call the augmented family and the augmented family when I was growing up was just as relevant to your positive directing as your mother was or as your father was. And uh I mean, I had a wonderful lifestyle in Harlem as well. And, uh you know, the blocks took care of the blocks. And that’s the way it went. You’re gonna say something  [?]?

 

Donna Dear: And the country took care of the country. 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: I think I can bring that back into the question about spirituality as well and I wanted to tie that too to something that you were asking about in terms of the perception of um living like an agrarian life and being in a rural environment or producing food. Um. For me, similar to yourself, like I have been um seeking, chasing spirit. I’m a seeker. I am a seeker and a seeer um for my entire life. I was raised uh my people are from Trinidad and Guyana. They’re from the Caribbean. Um. And so raised up very spiritual, valuing the earth and um agriculture. But something that happened when my family came to the U.S. is that I think that, well, let me say. It happened, but I in my early 20s, I began to understand, my late teens and early 20’s, I began to understand that being Americanized and Westernized is to be bought into capitalism and being a consumer in a way that I think is what you’re talking about when you say about people being pulled away from the land and away from being producers, and in particular Black folks um having having their own cultural and value based um foundations shifted by society. And so when you say about like, um you know, folks coming away from being producers, it makes me think about what I was seeking spiritually and I was seeking freedom. I’ve always been a freedom seeker. I’ve always wanted more. There was always something missing to me. And in the relationship with Aunt Donna and Aunt Paulette, Aunt Paulette always talks about the fact that Harriet did not bring people to freedom. She brought them out of enslavement. And what was to be– 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Powerful part of the documentary. I love, I got chills. 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I was like, yes. 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: And after and so after being brought out of enslavement, what is possible for you is you now have this opportunity to define life for yourself. So when I’ve been seeking freedom, when so many of us that are creatives, artists, spiritual seekers are seeking freedom. I think that what we’re again seeking is actually this way out of the enslavement of capitalism, of being having your entire life dictated by what you can afford to buy. So like in my early 20s, when I started having children, we have a almost 20 year old, um I made the decision to have him at home. And my  subsequent our subsequent children were also born at home and outside of the system. Because again, seeking the freedom, but now we understand was actually seeking to come out of the enslavement, the entrapment of like public systems that are not designed, that are actually systemically designed to to keep us right in a perpetual cycle. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And that are burning right now. 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: This is exactly it. This is exactly it. So when you ask about the spiritual connection, I do feel like I’m living a fairy tale. I do feel like I am living a prophecy that was that had to come to pass because of what I’ve been seeking for so long and because what I know God like is my God-given right to access. And I feel like that’s what we connect to and that’s the that’s the deepest learning that I keep getting from being in relationship with the aunties is, you, Aunt Paulette says it all the time, you have to make your reparations. What was taken from you by that system of chattel slavery.

 

Myles E. Johnson: Can you repeat that? That is– 

 

Paulette Greene: That’s what I say. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: We have to–

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: She always says it. She always says it. So I feel it does feel like a–

 

Jeannine Kayembe-Oro: You have to make your own reparations. 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: It does feel like a fairy tale when you’re making your own reparations, when you are taking from, when you’re extracting from a system that seeks to extract from you and you’re flipping that. When you’re creating your own reality, it’s all imagination. All we do is dream. All we do is challenge each other’s ideas of something that they’ve seen before. Well, just because you haven’t seen it, does it mean it doesn’t exist? Come on, we got to come on, keep working. So we’re always in our twosome here. We’re always challenging each other with our children. We’re always challenging each other. Aunties are always challenging each other and their networks. And then we get together and it’s potent because we trust each other because we see each other as world makers. And it’s honestly it’s nice where they’re at. I like being with them. They like being with us, we make it nice. 

 

Jeannine Kayembe-Oro: We eat good, [?]. 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: It’s cute, you know? 

 

Paulette Greene: And we travel together and we fight together. We all like to eat together and cook together and all those kinds of good things. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That’s so beautiful, literally, I’m– 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: They’re our best friends, for real. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And I love it. 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: They’re some of our best friends. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I love that it’s intergenerational. I also, I love that um. 

 

Paulette Greene: And a lot of our friends, you know, we have a lot of friends that look at us because neither of us have children. And they said, my goodness, when they see us traveling with our nieces, they said you just you really got it going on. And of course, the same thing happens to them when they’re with their aunties. And, you know, but our friends say, my goodness, they say, I’ve got one of my girlfriends says I’ve got six children. I’m trying to tell you I love them very much she said, but I tell you one thing, yours is a little different your relationship’s really different. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That–

 

Paulette Greene: I said, oh, well, I guess it was good that we didn’t do what we didn’ do, huh, Donna? 

 

Donna Dear: As Tyler Perry says, Hallelujah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: It’s making space. It was making space, I think that like emptiness is speaking of illusion is emptiness is an illusion. So I think that anytime that we um I can see that you know maybe not having individual like children gave you the capacity to have all of these nieces and nephews. 

 

Paulette Greene: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And I just want to reiterate because I just I think it’s just really, really powerful to me, this story, because it is political, but it is also deeply spiritual and mystic to me that Harriet Tubman, that piece that string along in the idea, you know whatever whatever your belief is, but I think that the idea that this project offers is that Harriet Tubman is still somewhere conscious right next to us, still telling us through our lives, through our thoughts, through our minds, how we might get to freedom in 2025. So she’s not just in the 1800s or the 1900s. She’s not just in chattel slavery. She’s in this very moment now, telling you her futurist ideas about what freedom looks like. And I think that you um, all four of you are um made manifest that and make it hard not to um consider that. It reminds me of Toni Morrison, when she names how the ancestor is such a huge part of um her novels and how the ancestor is something that kind of haunts the Black person in these um neoliberal cityscapes because you know that’s the what you need to be listening to and I think that you all’s journey in you all lives are testimony of what happens when you do listen to the ancestor because the ancestors is not just plugged into you know divinity but plugged into intelligence and political strategy and has foresight. So I think you all are just like living just prophecies. I can’t tell you how like happy this, how happy this makes me. Um. Okay, so– 

 

Paulette Greene: I just want to say one thing, if I can, not to cut you off. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yes. 

 

Paulette Greene: Harriet Tubman, and we have to reiterate this, Harriet Tubmen was taking us out of slavery. And slavery is both physical and mental. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Mm-hmm .

 

Paulette Greene: Okay. We’ve always been free. We’ve always been free, but we have been enslaved. And we’re enslaved in in in systems. We’re systemically enslaved. And so you don’t have to think about yourself being free, but you must think about yourself being out of slavery. You must dismantle all of these mechanisms. that have entrapped you, whether it be capitalism, whether it be law enforcement, whether it be education, whether it be anything that can entrap you in this country. But you must remember that Harriet Tubman fought to get Black people out of slavery. And that in turn can lead to the creation of reparations, okay, would lead us to the creation of our own reparations. I grow on this farm, I grow food, I grow fine food, but you have to understand what it is that, that it is, that what it that you’re doing and why you want to do it and how you’re going to do it and you use your surroundings to, to create, to make your story your truth, to make it your truth in your life. 

 

Donna Dear: [?]. 

 

Paulette Greene: And that’s it. We must get out of slavery. We must understand that we were born free. I was free when my mother birthed me, but someone enslaved us. And even though I was not sold on the block necessarily, I have still been born in the entrapments of slavery, it’s a very serious issue and um and we’ve got to get through this thing and as long as I’m alive, I’m going to be pushing through it and and doing what we need to do to dismantle it and to get our children, our generations to come out of this mess. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. Thank you for that correction, because you’re absolutely right. I think because I’m still absorbing it in my head, because that’s such a reframing of how I think about chattel slavery, how I think about just everything, your kind of your notes on freedom. Um. But you’re absolutely right, it’s really about how do I make it, that is what I see you all’s lives as, as a testament of how I we see that we’re in this imperialist capitalist patriarchal system. How do I? I am free, but how do I leave this kind of um corporatized enslavement, this new advanced technology of enslavement? How do I leave this? Because the same task that was made for somebody who was born into chattel slavery is still the same tasks that I need to figure out in 2025. It’s still about being free and finding my way out of enslavement. So that that that’s what I meant, but– 

 

Paulette Greene: We got it. 

 

Jeannine Kayembe-Oro: Thank you, Auntie. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: So unfortunately, I can’t talk to you all for 2,000 hours because I want to. I want to do like a four-hour documentary on everybody. That’s what I really want to do. But um how can the listeners help support Mount Pleasant Acres Farm? Is there any way to support the um uh Mount Pleasant Acres farm and and let the listeners know what they can do to help you all out? You know. If it’s money, resources, what how can they help you? 

 

Donna Dear: Well, one way you can help us is join us on Juneteenth here at the farm. We’re having the event here. So you come from Ohio and come here with everybody, you know, that will be one that would have a great event that they would be attending here at Mount Pleasant Acres farm.

 

Myles E. Johnson: You couldn’t make me miss that, I’m telling you right now. 

 

Jeannine Kayembe-Oro: And you can find that information on the website, TheAunties.farm. So www.theaunties.farm, and you can follow their Instagram page at @TheAuntiesFilm on Instagram. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And for the listeners, all that will be linked in the episode information, so you can click on it and search and and, and you know, get to that Juneteenth party. I’m going to I’m gonna be there. There’s just nothing that can make me miss that, because that just feels like somewhere where my own personal ghosts are like, if you don’t end up there, I don’t know what to tell you. 

 

Paulette Greene: And also, [?] will introduce himself. And also oh you were talking about how can they you know financially help or you know look to see what we’re doing. We’re working on making our old house that we live in that was built in the 1860s. And we’re making it into what we’re calling a bed brunch and beyond, bed brunch and beyond and that beyond is gonna be a kicker. So, you know we we’re in the process of developing that. And of course, that’s gonna be a space open to the public as well. 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: Also I forgot to say, please watch the documentary on YouTube on Black Public Media’s Afro Pop Shorts. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yes. Thank you all for heading your cosmic journey, your your your land journey, and figuring out a way to integrate who we are as Black folks, as cosmic beings, as just citizens of of the universe, and and figuring out ways to manifest that. That is just it has inspired me more than um I can even articulate. Thank you all for just spending some time with me and letting me be nosey and dig and and understand what birthed this beautiful documentary. I’m so so so so so so grateful. 

 

Donna Dear: Thank you. Thank you so very much. 

 

Paulette Greene: Thanks for having us. Thank you. 

 

Charlyn Griffith-Oro: Yeah. Myles. 

 

Paulette Greene: So we’ll see you in June. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Well, that’s it. Thanks so much for tuning in to Pod Save the People this week. Tell your friends to check it out and make sure you rate it wherever you get your podcast, whether it’s Apple Podcasts or somewhere else. 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 Evan Sutton, executive produced by me, and special thanks to our weekly contributors, Kaya Henderson, De’Ara. Balenger, and Myles E. Johnson. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]

 

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