In This Episode
From ICE terrorizing Chicago to Apple deleting ICE-tracking apps under Trump pressure, the saga continues. The Root boasts new Black ownership, Ezra Klein and Ta-Nehisi Coates debate Charlie Kirk’s legacy, Georgia’s Supreme Court sides with Black landowners, and Bari Weiss brings “free speech” to CBS News.
News
Bari Weiss named editor-in-chief of CBS News as Paramount acquires The Free Press
Africa Launches Its Own Internet System, Breaking Free from Western Control
Georgia Supreme Court backs Black landowners in zoning fight
Apple Takes Down ICE Tracking Apps in Response to Trump Pressure Campaign
Follow @PodSavethePeople on Instagram.
TRANSCRIPT
DeRay Mckesson: Hey, this is DeRay, and welcome to Pod Save the People. In this episode, it’s me, Myles and Sharhonda, back to talk about the news with regard to race, justice, and equity. Make sure you follow us on Instagram at @PodSaveThePeople, and remember to be kind to yourself and everybody else because it is wild out here. Here we go.
[AD BREAK]
DeRay Mckesson: Another day where ICE is wreaking havoc in this country. Here we are. This is DeRay at @deray on Twitter.
Myles E. Johnson: This is Myles E. Johnson at @PharaohRapture on Instagram.
Sharhonda Bossier: And I’m Sharhonda Bossier at @BossierSha on Instagram and at @BossierS on Spill.
DeRay Mckesson: Well, well, we have a lot going on this week, which is what I can say for every single week that has happened under this administration. But let us start with um The Root being acquired by Ashley, a Black woman who has been in the scene as a political commentator and a woman working in politics for a long time. If you remember, it was not Black owned almost for the last, almost decade. And now it is Black owned again. And I remember The Root 100 being like such a real thing and so many careers being started on the Root and then it disappeared, but shout out to Ashley for buying it back.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of conversation about the importance of Black-owned media again. Um. I mean, I am curious to see the direction that it takes, and I wish it a path toward long-term sustainability, but I think in an increasingly fractured media market and where we’ve seen a lot of kind of preeminent Black journalists and voices kind of launch their own thing, it’ll be interesting to see how The Root finds its lane, I think especially because just on the other side of the peak of its popularity, it started to feel a lot like a lot of other Black cultural outlets. And I mean, and by that, I mean just kind of like focused on things that felt very click baity and not that felt really focused on journalism. Uh. And so I’m hoping that we uh are able to have something in the Root or in this iteration of the Root. Um, that is important and critical news from a Black perspective. Um, and not that pop culture doesn’t matter. It certainly does. Right. Um, but I’m eager to see something that feels a little bit more like a journalism project and a little less like, um, a blog.
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, I think I’m like both. Like I think that there needs to be some type of tapestry because I think you have to get people’s attention and I also think how you, to me, essentially rebuild trust with Black people is by caring about more than just um policy and electorial stuff. So I’m not familiar with Ashley, right? Like I don’t want to prejudge her. My fear, and again, this is just my fear, I’m not familiar with her. My fear is that there is some type of um democratic donor or democratic like um uh consultant base. That essentially maybe gave her the money or forced her to give her the money to for this. And now when the Root is recreating itself, it’s going to kind of fall for the same type of censorship um that uh we’ve been critiquing on this podcast every other week uh when we talk about the influencers and [?] and stuff. So I liked what she said about um journalism. Really understanding video, but I hope that she also understands that we are in a dire need of cultural criticism. We are in dire need of diverse, um, Black voices. I hope that she also understands that owning something doesn’t mean that all voices must mirror your own, so there is a plethora of different voices being heard, because I do think that is really important. That is something that’s not happening with individual sub-stacks or individual YouTubes, is diversity of voices and tapestries of voices, because new stories are told when new voices are um are heard. So that’s what I hope is that it just doesn’t become a way for Democrats to have something to talk to Black people on.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, becoming a potential megaphone for the party I had not thought about actually Myles. So it’s a good push.
DeRay Mckesson: Now into megaphones, there was a very big conversation that was a megaphone in the past week and that was between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ezra Klein. If you can remember, Ezra wrote a piece about Charlie Kirk that you know shockingly did not include anything Charlie Kirk had ever said and very much made it seem like uh you know like Charlie just held strong beliefs and and was an activist in a way. And then Ta-Nehisi wrote a beautiful response to Ezra that you know, half of the piece was just things that Charlie Kirk has said. And, and Ta-Nehisi rightly called out, how could you talk about someone’s legacy, who said so many things, and repeat none of them?
Sharhonda Bossier: Mm-hmm.
DeRay Mckesson: I wanted to know if you all had a chance to see either clips or the whole interview between Ezra and Ta-Nehisi. And if so, what did you think?
Myles E. Johnson: No, I definitely saw it, I watched the entire thing. So I’ve seen other things of Ezra Klein. I didn’t really understand why other people were shocked about how Ezra Klein responded because I feel like I’ve seen other times Ezra Klein has responded. Like I vaguely remember the um the abundance scenario where he was kind of just kind of being like a mascot for corporatism. I just seen him do stuff where I’m like, this feels kind of in his in his ballpark to kind of spin this like that. What I will say about the conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates is, first, it pains me to say this, but it’s just the truth. There are just very few people who are living who I like respect and have warm feelings for. That has been a kind of grief that I’ve been experiencing just as Toni Morrison and just Assata Shakur. So many people are leaving this earth. It’s just like, I don’t respect that many people. And I and I really respect and have warm feelings about Ta-Nehisi Coates, I’ve always have, and even seeing him grow in public and him going from this kind of these more neoliberal stances to these more convictic stances, it just has just been really warm to see. And I think I don’t have anything new to say around how he responded to Ezra. I think he responded really great, but I would say that it pains me that somebody who is so smart, somebody who is, um so thoughtful, has so much to give. How he’s how he’s still talking to the people of the New York Times, how he’s still talking to this white boy, how he’s still talking to the Atlantic. I think that I would love a moment where Ta-Nehisi Coates was talking to somebody who was not of his class position, who was not of his um, that wasn’t white, that’s not Joy Reid. I [?] know you want to[?] even on white people. I think that he has such an um vast intellect and and and and he just is a bridge of a voice that it just makes me sad that so much of his brilliance was wasted on essentially this white man who’s coming to terms that he’s living in white supremacy. He’s waking up to a nightmare that Ta-Nehisi Coates’ grandpa’s grandpa has been walking in for so long and it feels like that kind of conversation feels regressive to where Black power conversations could be, you know? So that’s what I felt. I felt like, ooh, what a waste of um energy and time, if I’m being honest.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, I was surprised by how many Black people on the internet were like, and I didn’t even know Ezra, given his platform. Right. And I think it just speaks to like how siloed our our media um is right now. But also I think in some instances people were saying that as like a way of saying, I’m so Black I didn’t even know who this white guy was. Um. I actually my first two years of undergrad, Ezra and I were in a lot of classes together so have followed Ezra’s career for a really long time. Before he transferred to UCLA he was a banana slug um and we were both politics majors. Um. So I’ve known him and known his work and and seen that evolution for a while. I think I was also struck by the way people online were talking about it because it like people were trying to keep score. And there was like a who won and it was very clear to me in that moment that that is not how Ta-Nehisi was approaching the conversation. Like they have a friendship, they have a deep respect for one another. And what was clear to me also was that Ta-Nehisi was pained by what he saw and what he heard from Ezra, right? Like that was just so clear. And one of the reasons I’ve encouraged people to watch it is not so much about the what of the conversation, but a lot about the how of the conversation, because I do think there is still a tenderness there and there’s a desire on Ta-Nehisi’s part to like, yes, sit in his hurt and be honest about that, but also to continue to do the work to move Ezra. Now we can have, or the Ezras in his life. We can a conversation about whether or not that’s his work, his responsibility, whether most of us want to take that on. But I thought it was really powerful to see the two of them sit across from each other. I also thought it really powerful for Ta-Nehisi to say, we had this conversation in private before we had it in public, right? So like, before I published that piece, I told you to your face what I thought of you. Like, I didn’t do this public hit job, throw a rock and hide my hand. To your point, Myles, of like Ta-Nehisi really leaning into and standing on his conviction. So if people haven’t watched it, I think it’s worth the entire hour and I think it’s worth watching the video because I think there’s so much in their body language. You can also see Ezra’s epiphanies. You know, you can see him go, ah, ah, ah. I don’t know if he moved, but I think he’s having the experience that I’ve seen a lot of white men in particular in this moment who consider themselves on the left having, which is, holy shit, politics is not just a sport. It has real life consequence. And unfortunately, that real life consequences in this movement is violence and death, right? But I think for so many of us, we have felt a violence of politics for a long time that a lot these people have been insulated from. And I think that that is what a lot of folks who are trying to figure out how to say nice things about Charlie are reacting to. It’s the recognition of their own vulnerability in this moment and the recognition that politics has a real life impact.
DeRay Mckesson: You know, Ta-Nehisi always has such great lines, right? Where he’s like, was was silence not an option? [Squeal sound] You’re like, I love it. Um. Also, you know it’s interesting to watch Ezra not only be not struck by Ta-Nehisi’s arguments about the power of history.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: But just sort of dismiss them as like a distraction in some ways. And I thought that was you know what a luxury. And also and I like Ezra. I knew Ezra in a you know before he was at the New York Times. He was always kind about the protests and and the work that I was doing. There’s a set of um columnists that I don’t really know what the expertise is. I’m like, well, I you know, my, I’m like, well, what did you do? Like, even the, like the Nobel Prize people, I’m like, okay, I guess you are a–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: –Nobel Prize winning economist. So even if I don’t like you, I’m like I get that you did something in economics or whatever that, but I’m then I’m like, well these guys just sort of worked long. You like sort of were around and I don’t know if it was like an interesting perspective, but I just sort wonder how um they get there. Where you know Black people have to be savants to you know be columnists at these places. So I’m always struck by that. But I am abundance, I really struggle with as well, so there’s that. But I like Ta-Nehisi. What I, the thing I appreciate about Ta-Nehisi is growth, um is how he situates himself as a writer, and a witness, and like doesn’t pretend to be other things, even when I’m like, mm, I want you to like da da-da-da. He’s like, I’m a writer and [?]. And like I do think that [?] I don’t know if I felt like that was as clear when I met him originally during the protests. I felt like he was, you know, because he gets compared to Baldwin so much. And Baldwin, you now, whether you like this part of Baldwin or not, but Baldwin was in the White House. Baldwin was a writer, but he was in the room too, fighting the president and the da-da-da. Like, he sort of understood his work as a witness, but he was involved in the history making. And that was something he was conscious about. And I was, I used to be frustrated with Ta-Nehisi because I’m like, you have this big voice. The police beating us up and you appear, you know, sort of like gallivanting in all these rooms and da-da-da, but not making sort of political statements in a way that we thought his voice could be used for. And as I’ve seen Ta-Nehisi grow, I like appreciate the clarity of his own role to himself. I like respect it and appreciate it. And that came out in that one, cause you know Ezra is like, well, no, this is about winning and politics and da da da and Ta-Nehisi is like this, this is murder. Yeah, this genocide. This is clear. Like there’s like a moral clarity that he has that I really appreciate, and it’s not muddled by this faux sense of having to play a game of power.
Sharhonda Bossier: I also think that Ezra tried in a couple of instances to do what we see people do to those of us on the left all the time, and that is hang around our necks the quote unquote worst things that like the party has done or said, you know, or like the failures of the party in terms of like strategy, voter turnout, outreach, et cetera. And to your point, DeRay, Coates was like, that’s not my job. Like like I, yeah, she messed that up. She botched that, but like that’s what that got to do with me? Like I’m over here doing my thing in my capacity in my lane and I’m clear on what my role is. Holler at her about the part that she messed up. You know?
Myles E. Johnson: And it kind of shows like how we’re kind of just like trained, if you’re on the left or if you have like left politics, that we’re all trained to be mascots for the Democratic Party. And I like that Ta-Nehisi was like, no, or be a mascot for or leftist movements. I love that he said what he said about Palestinians. I thought that was so real of him saying, no I had to say this to the activated Black people who wanted a first Black woman that this Black woman has an atrocious stance on Palestine. And I had to tell Palestinians that I’m gonna vote for this woman because that is also a part of how I see politics. And I thought that was such an honest way of talking about it and that was just so refreshing. The um last thing that I don’t want this topic to move before I say it is that to me, I’m gonna get a little strained, but like I was thinking a little bit about trans identity and I was think about identity crisis during it and how Ezra said many times in the interview, I don’t know what I’m here for anymore. I don’t know who I am anymore and how he’s questioning it. I think that Ezra is having a white man crisis that all white men are having. Thankfully, he’s not shooting up a school, but he’s um but but I think he was actively working that out, almost turned Ta-Nehisi Coates sometimes into this mammy figure of working out his white man anxiety and stuff like that. Because what he really wants to say, or what to me, out inside of the political, intellectual, academic language, what he was really trying to communicate is, don’t y’all know that let somebody be a little diet bigot, and when they get in office, we got y’all. We got y’all. You know, don’t you know that? And then what Ta-Nehisi Coate has to say is, y’all don’t got us. It’s proven that y’all don’t be getting us because y’all we let y’all in and even when you’re Black, you don’t be getting us because that’s what my essay on Barack Obama was about. And also that I have a different set of morals and legacy and tradition that I’m going by. So I don’t just have you to answer to. I also serve an ancestor, a legacy, a God. And I thought that was so, I just thought it was just beautiful. [music break]
DeRay Mckesson: Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned, there’s more to come.
[AD BREAK]
DeRay Mckesson: I wanted to take us, before we go to our individual news, the raid that happened in Chicago. Before I give commentary on it, I’ll just explain what happened. It was early Tuesday uh this past week in Chicago, the 7,500 block of South Shore Drive. Um the Homeland Security said a set of agencies arrested at least 37 people in the operation, which they claimed was frequented by members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. About 300 federal agents, some landing on the roof from helicopters, descended upon the building, according to News Nation, because News Nation the right wing publication was invited along to document the operation. There were families, children, there were people who didn’t have clothes on, dragged out of the building. There are a set of kids who are still being detained right now and trying to be reunited with their parents, drones, helicopters, like whole nine yards they did on this block in Chicago. And one of the reasons why I wanted to bring it up is that as you can imagine, were there immigrants? Who knows? Because it doesn’t seem like that happened. But there were a lot of Black people in the South Side of Chicago who got dragged out of their home in the middle of the night because of the sort of lie about it being a stronghold for the Venezuelan gangs. So, you know, I have commentary on this, but I will go last since I am introducing this for topic. But I saw this and I was like, oh, this is wild.
Sharhonda Bossier: I mean, I think for a long time we have been saying like Black people, they’re coming for us too. And yesterday I got a bunch of text messages, including from my youngest sibling. And there was something about this incident that like shook a lot of the Black people in my orbit to their core, right? I also think that um, you know, Trump has been talking about Chicago as a place where he’s wanted to deploy federal troops you know for a while. The mayor has stood up, the governor has stood up, and so this feels like a way kind of around some of the like, it’s the Black people gangs thing, right? Where just like, oh, we’ll just talk about it being this Venezuelan gang that we’ve made everybody terrified of um as a way of doing that. He’s also been very clear, and as he said in his address to you know um military leaders this week that he plans to use cities as training grounds for war. And this is a prime example of that, right? When you have people rappelling from helicopters onto the roofs of buildings, like, what are we doing? You know um, so all of that is like, he’s already told us what’s going to happen. It’s happening. Um. And I don’t know. I just, I don’t know what else to say. It’s terrifying, you know?
Myles E. Johnson: Move bombing in Philadelphia. When he would talk about going to war on people, it made me think of that as well. So I think the only useful thing that I probably have to say about this is that I hope that people, specifically Black people, probably only Black people of different class experiences, um understand the play, right? So the idea is we aggravate the Black poor, and then that aggravation will get the Black middle-class, college-educated class, the same people who who, yeah, get those kinds of people in the streets so we can uh there can be more conflicts, so there could be more things to cover up you know, Epstein or anything else that’s going on. And I– I would be lying if I said I had like an exact solution, but I think the thing that I like really pray after these moments is that we don’t um silo. I think one of the most disappointing things is hearing so many people say, um something came to my city, a BLM came to my City, an activist came to my city, an organization came to my city, and once that thing went cold, they left. And we know that now we have a clear example of how the Republican Party takes advantage of of of of no parallel institutions or structures being created in those cities once gone, and uses it to aggravate and hopefully what it feels like is, oh, now your college-educated brothers and sisters are going to come, and now we can put them in jail. Now we can make controversies out of them. Now we can make spectacles out of them, because it’s really about that. It’s really about how much can we uh exploit and harm these poor Black folks in front of you until you want to get in the street, and then we can do what we really want to do. And I and I hope that we see that the bifurcation of class being um weaponized against us. Does that makes sense? That’s what I want to say. Like the that the silo that I always talk about in class is like kind of being used against us, but I don’t think it’s about getting those Black people in jail, I think it’s about exploiting them on media and getting other Black people with more privilege to be activated so that they can go to jail and they can be controversies and so they can continue to cover up Trump’s atrocities.
DeRay Mckesson: Myles, I didn’t necessarily read it that way, but I can see it. There are two things that struck me. One was, you know, obviously I’m an activist and do police, prisons and jails, but the language and the fear-mongering about gangs is just–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: –politically brilliant. It is, you now, we have mythologized gangs so much that you just say the word and people just let you do whatever. It like doesn’t, like reason goes out the window, logic, like. All the normal questions people would ask, and everybody’s participated in that. Hollywood, like this gang thing. So it’s the South Side of Chicago, and it don’t matter if there’s really a gang member or not, because all of a sudden you just say gangs and and people lose it. So I think that that is really interesting to me. And I like what you offered around the, like, you know you don’t actually have to care about these people because you’re trying to use these people as bait so that you know other people do things. I also think that you know, there were so many Black people I know during the election who were like immigration, like sort of dismissed ICE as a Black issue, not thinking that ICE was just going to replace the regular police and do whatever they wanted and just call everybody a Venezuelan gang member. And it doesn’t matter if you’re Black or anything, because if they say you’re a Venezuelan gang member, two things have happened right now. One is that they blown them up in the ocean. So they’ve already created the precedent for they could just kill you and say you’re a gang member and literally nobody’s asking a single question and they have screwed the DOJ so nobody’s like investigating or whatever. They just are like, those are drug dealers and you’re like, well, that’s sort of crazy. And then they are repelling from helicopters into your bedroom in the middle of the night. And what’s happening? Your mayor and your city council are just sitting there looking like, what can they do? Like unless they are willing to fight ICE, it sort of is this crazy position. But but people participated in that logic in during the election time. They were sort of like, this ain’t about us. I got my papers. I’m from here, da-da. And you know this is the way white supremacy works. You are a citizen until I say you’re not. That is that is the way white supremacy moves. And people just forget it. They think this is a permanent thing. And you’re like, no, the only permanent people are white people in a world of white supremacy. And they are even expendable. I’m telling you, when I saw Sandy Hook and the way them white people acted a fool around Sandy Hook, like it didn’t happen. That was my turning point. I’m like, if you will let all of those kids get killed and still defend guns, this is white by choice. This is like, it’s white is top and then we pick and choose which white people we like, but everybody else is just a mirage for the moment.
Sharhonda Bossier: I also think that it’s because of some of the images that the media has shown that Black Americans don’t understand how many of the people immigrating here from Latin America look just like us. Same hair texture. It’s not until they open their mouths right that sometimes you know. And I think that is also intentional. Right, um and as we saw you know Haitians, for instance, trying to cross the border, um you know, at the US-Mexico border crossing, right? We saw people being whipped right um by immigration officers on horseback, right? And like I just I also just want us to make sure that we’re not talking about immigration as a in a way that doesn’t talk about how Black people also are trying to immigrate here and also doesn’t honor the legacy of Blackness that exists in a lot of the countries we’re talking about right now, and doesn’t recognize that a lot those people look just like us. Um. Because I also think that that is an intentional way that immigration has been used as a wedge issue.
Myles E. Johnson: And just with that like racial um critique, uh J.D. Vance on October 2nd, which is like around this time we’re recording, so October 3rd, if um y’all don’t know, but um October 2md, J.D. Vance um quote tweets Ta-Nehisi Coates and Joy Reid and says, Joy Reid has had such a good life in this country. It’s been overwhelmingly kind and gracious to her. She’s far wealthier than most, yet she oozes with contempt. My honest, non-trolling advice to Joy Reid is that you’d be a much happier person if you showed a little gratitude. This has 3.5 million views.
Sharhonda Bossier: Wow.
Myles E. Johnson: Also, of Elon Musk, I guess Musk works, Elon but Elon Elon Musk also is on an anti-Netflix campaign because Netflix has a trans character. But if you look at the clip, the clip doesn’t just have um uh trans characters in it. It has Black trans characters in it. And um the fairy is a Black trans woman. And then the other character, as you can see, is a, I read it as like a flamboyant gay man or whatever, but a Black flamboyant gay man. So so again, like a lot of these things that we’re seeing are racialized and they’re doing different types of trigger points. So that’s not to say I don’t want, and hopefully it didn’t come off this way to confuse that um we shouldn’t be mad, we shouldn’t think of ways to resist.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
Myles E. Johnson: And stuff like that. But also knowing the strategy is for us to have a specific response so they can have a specific response so they can continue this media monster that they’re feeding.
DeRay Mckesson: You know what’s interesting about that is that I just saw, um this is so random because I don’t watch the Kardashians, so the fact that I even know this is funny.
Myles E. Johnson: You don’t be shaking your salad!
DeRay Mckesson: I don’t even know what that is a reference to, but–
Myles E. Johnson: Oh.
DeRay Mckesson: I saw a um I saw a clip. I don’t know, maybe it was, I was watching something on Netflix, I saw a promo for the show coming back and it was this whole thing about Caitlyn being on the show. Like it’s either Kylie or Kendall, right? It’s one of them, I can’t tell them apart, but it’s one them being like, ah like, mom doesn’t want our dad to come to the house, right. It’s like this whole thing about like, why can’t our father come to the house. So that’s what she’s saying. But then Caitlyn sort of walks into the frame and but it is really interesting. You talk about the way that trans identity gets racialized on the right. And you’re like, Caitlyn is just bebopping around, like, you know, totally fine in this whole debate and throwing trans people under the bus. But it is um it is allowed and white supremacy makes these exceptions in a way that is notable.
Myles E. Johnson: I’m sorry, that was really interesting DeRay. [laugh] You can’t but like even like to your like to your point, there’s even inside of trans identity that is seen as like this uh liberal brainwashing. Right? But even inside a trans identity, there is a fascism inside of it because uh Caitlyn is what we will call the transmedicalist. Caitlyn is extremely conservative. And she is able to be utilized to being like, yeah, they are crazy. You know, so you can, it almost gives permission to a type of um backlash because you have these people inside of that identity that we just claim is radical just because you’re trans, but inside of it, you can also be used for a type of cultural fascism that I just find interesting.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, she a wild girl. [laugh] We could do a whole episode on that.
Myles E. Johnson: Everything I have to say is so just kitchen table transphobic and how I would talk with my like trans girlfriends. So I’m not even gonna do it because I don’t have nothing. Mmm mm. [laugh]
DeRay Mckesson: Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned, there’s more to come.
[AD BREAK]
DeRay Mckesson: Okay, so my news is actually about Bari Weiss taking a b– she’s about to become the editor in chief of CBS News, whatever that means. A new title made up for her. CBS is going to buy um the free press, which is her sub stack. And I’m interested in it not not only because you know, Bari is interesting because she started the free press with a ton of investors that nobody knows who funded her. It is a huge with 700,000 readers. It is as big of a circulation as some of the biggest newspapers in the country and bigger than many of the newspapers in the country. If you remember, she was hand-picked by Elon to review the Twitter files when he did that whole Twitter thing where he first got there, looking through people’s emails and stuff like that. Um. So I’m interested in that, but what I but what this signified to me is the sheer total capture of the sort of information landscape. It just is, especially the legacy media, it’s like they just own it. And now with the purchase of TikTok, you know they do just own the media land, like the all of the tools that people had used and thought of, it’s like they don’t own the New York Times yet, but yeah if you remember the LA Times said that they’re gonna let um venture capitalists buy into it, that is just the that’s just avenue to let the right buy it. Is we are getting to the total capture of the media in a way that is really frightening. Now I have I have unbelievable hope for the way people use the internet in subversive ways. And I can imagine, you know, AIPAC, talking about AIPAC now is banned on TikTok after the right bought it, but I can imagine that people are just gonna figure out a new word for AIPAC and then it’ll be something like, you know, people are really fun and interesting about how they’re subversive on the internet. But I think this is a real, this is a real, it’s a real problem. And I think that we have watched it, and I’m like, oh, this is bad. And organizer me, the the and this might be Pollyanna to some, but I believe it, you know this is a reminder to me that what you can’t control is people in real life. You can’t, and you know this why you raiding people’s houses and make people afraid and all this stuff, because you know if people start to organize not using the internet to do it, or like not having the internet be the place where the organizing work happens. But maybe a place where it’s just facilitated, then you have a lot less power. I think that is real. I you know I think it is hard to do in this moment for a million reasons, mostly because we’ve romanticized the past organizing and we ain’t got a lot of real organizers today, but I do think that the offline relationships will be the thing that like save us if there is a saving to happen because we are watching the total capture of the media happen in real time.
Myles E. Johnson: What I want to say is what DeRay just slipped in there is the kind of essays that I wanted him to write five, four years ago, because I really because and DeRay can tell you, like I and it wasn’t just because oh I want DeRay to be in public being conflict, but I’m like, if people already don’t like you, also say your opinion, because those opinions shape culture. You have such a big voice. So don’t just, I get it, do the work, but also say those things, because that shifts how people do stuff. You know, I don’t think that we see the demise of Shawn King, how we see it so clearly now, without DeRay taking certain types of uh kind of risk years ago. And you kind of have to have that long um long vision. Man, um you know, Sharhonda has been so I’ve been so has been so gracious to like help me this week. I’ve been thinking so big dream about media. I’ve been thinking so um much about it because it’s really like, to me, it’s just one of the most important frontiers. And when I really look at the stats, what I’ve been doing um this year and looking at these stats, um and I see how much Black people consume media, how much Black people are on online, is just not something to give up. And and and we are still seeing that if you do give it up, there is a pipeline to something. There because if Black people are not gonna stop watching. So I definitely agree with the in-person organizing, but I also am just like, yo I wish that we and maybe we do, and I’m just not and I’m just not plugged in into those um circles or spaces, but there just needs to be as many diverse ways of funding our media as possible when it comes to media company ideas and media personalities and different media strategies because it’s really, really, really, really dire. Um. And as you can see, they are not playing with us, but I think that what we have, that is if I’m to get on DeRay’s optimist train, is what we have is that we are cultural mammoths. That we have ideas and people who shape culture. And I’m not just talking about minstrel culture, which is our kind of Black popular culture. And I wasn’t saying that in, I’m not just trying to defame people, just like that’s what it is. Um. We have so many other different types of cultural creators that we can utilize. And and I hope that in five years time or two years time, that we see like a media boom. And this was the time where Black people got a one accord. And we all did different things that were bigger than just our personal individualized um wants because this is not going anywhere.
Sharhonda Bossier: I just want to note, you know, kind of picking up on a thing we were talking about as we were just talking about Caitlyn Jenner and the role that she plays, right, is that um, you know, Barri is also married, is a woman married to a woman. You know what I mean? And like playing a really critical role in this and in some ways has leveraged that part of her identity as a shield against critiques of her politics, right? Which is like, I’m not a hateful person. Like, you know look at me and like my wife. Um, and so I, I actually do think that that part of her personality and, and by that part of her personality, I mean, the ways in which she uses her, her sexuality as a shield against critique, right? Cause I think that’s also a choice, um, is, is also really interesting here, right, because you have people who you know are eagerly trying to attack your right to marry the person that you love, right, and you are willing to do everything you can to help ensure that they um are shaping the public’s perception of issues that should matter to you, right? Um. As a woman who was married to a woman, it’s just really fascinating to me.
DeRay Mckesson: Myles, one of the things that you made me think of um, or both of you actually, talking about Ta-Nehisi and being like you know, what a brilliant mind having to engage a mediocre argument from a powerful white man, but the argument is weak at best, right? And then Ta-Nehisi’s mind is moving a million miles an hour. And then we talk about the media landscape and the critique of what The Root became was you know a regurgitation, not an expansion of thought, right. And then you look around.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: And I don’t know, Sharhonda, if you have somebody that you look to as a, like a thought leader in Black or frankly anywhere, but you know, I feel like both of you would say it’s not a whole lot of people that you’re like, let me read their take on this because it’ll expand the way that I think about the world. There are a lot of people that we read who help us just understand what happened. You’re like you’re a clear communicator about the thing.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: Which is different than like you helped me think deeper about it, right? What I’m struck by is when I think about the capture of the media landscape is I don’t know where we find the thinkers, but I am worried about even if we get the platforms or even if get the da-da-da, trying to find and and develop the people who have a perspective that is not just the rehashing of a certain class and elite position. I think like we gotta figure out how to cultivate that a little bit better than we’ve done. I just think that we have not done that in any honest way. Um. And I also think about like, you know, and I, you know, this is people’s certainly critique of me. They’re like, DeRay, the [?] activist. I think about what it, I think about the sheer brilliance of Black people at every location in society. And I spent a lot of time in a juvenile jail in a big American city. And I was talking to the kids the other day around this policy thing that we have at work. And it is a suggestion from an incarcerated young person that is the best answer to this policy question I’ve heard. We’ve been talking about this for a year at work, and they got it. They like had the best, they had it. They like could think of it, they understood it. And I just, I think about what happens when we relegate a set of voices to the nether regions of the world, and we just repeat the MSNBCification of Blackness. Um. And I’ll tell you, those people are never speaking to my father. They just are not.
Sharhonda Bossier: Mm hmm. I have a challenge for you, I think, as I hear how you’re talking about the voices and the perspectives. I think you know you said something about Ezra that you said was partially about Ezra, but also just about white men of his sort of ilk, right, which is like the, what’s your expertise? And I wonder how you would think about who to elevate, who to shape, who to listen to on our side that whose expertise you wouldn’t question. You know what I mean? Because in some ways, I think you might, you you understand the question I’m trying to get at here? Which is like, are we doing a thing that is a little bit self-sabotaging in this moment, which is like they will position the person and let them evolve into someone they have, they come to respect, right? And we want you to like fight it out and prove we need to respect you before we will start to listen to you. And I’m just wondering how we don’t get in our own way in that way. Doesn’t say everybody deserves a microphone or a platform. I say as a person who people are probably also wondering what the hell I’ve done that got me here, but still.
Myles E. Johnson: Sharhonda, your resume is sickening.
DeRay Mckesson: I just think, I think about, or maybe, maybe another way to say it, cause I respect that push, so thank you, is I think we should be honest about um the things that inform our perspective, maybe is what I’m saying. And if we’re, if people are more honest about that in the front end, then I can, you know, I, like how I reach the decisions I reach in organizing make total sense to me. I grew up in structures. I believe in structures, I believe in systems and rules. I think that they are better than program, like. There were a set of experiences that led me to, like, believe what I believe, um and that matters. But I just think about, I had been in the rooms with the elite Dems, and I’m like, you all literally live the same life. You, like–
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: Worked on campaigns.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: You became consultants. You sort of did musical chairs around Capitol Hill.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yup.
DeRay Mckesson: And now you have a lot of structural power.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. I just have come from like a really unique position in this conversation because I am just somebody who came from a single parent Black lesbian woman and ended up in positions that I did not imagine myself to be in when I was in high school or middle school, you know, at at all. And um I’ve been talking a lot to my friend um Morgan Jerkins. Who is an amazing writer and and and and thinker. And again, this still just this just feels uncomfortable for me to talk about because I don’t want to make it seem like I’m talking about myself. So I’m trying to talk about what’s–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah yeah yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: –happening to a generation of us, is that there was an assertive effort to silence some of us. So when we talk about these cultural criticism things. It [?] a certain effort and then when we got into certain spaces we were only asked to talk about one perspective and we were not um grown so even though I’ve been in New York Times three times and [?] Smithsonian and all all these things that you’re like oh institution institution institution there was just no care once once once we were off trend we had to fend for ourselves we talked about that with Trey johnson like um and I and I do think like why isn’t there a Black media company that says, you know what, we’re going to talk to these different types of Black people, including the elite Black people. But also we’re going to have a um we’re also going to, if they’re getting people who are in prison to do code, then why are we taking away the tradition of people in prison producing radical literature and radical articles? And I think that all of those ideas um can happen. But when you present those ideas to certain media companies, they laugh and say, in your [bleep] dreams. You know, or that’s never going to that’s never going to happen. I think that feels like the stalemate that so many people and my peers feel like is that, oh, no, we got the floor taken from under us, and then the only floor that we do have is something like The Root or The Grio that are still conservative, like in the realm of–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
Myles E. Johnson: –Black stuff, still conservative spaces. And if you’re not a conservative thinker, you might be silenced, heavily edited, or or I already said silence. Or just going to silence and not even given a chance, so. I do think it starts with the, with the for lack of better words, the root, the root of the company.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, I love that. So many things, sorry, my brain sometimes wants to latch on to so many different points, but your point particularly about like what comes out of prisons and what we um what we know and what people who are incarcerated get to produce, um you know part of what radicalized a lot of Black liberation activists around prison abolition was actually hearing directly from people who were experiencing incarceration. You know? Angela Davis went to jail before she was on trial. She was like, oh no, baby, we gotta rip all this out, you know, and it radicalized her, you know before that she had been really kind of just an academic, you know.
Myles E. Johnson: But and Sharhonda, I’m thinking too about how come we do not care about the perspectives or the critiques of people who are in the system. So if you make, what are your opinions on the internet? So like not just, I think that is the weird thing too. And I guess I’m just being frank on this, on this here podcast around DeRay and stuff like that. But what will frustrate me around how the public and how media would treat DeRay is that because he came into the space as criminal justice, he was only allowed to talk about criminal justice.
Sharhonda Bossier: Criminal Justice.
Myles E. Johnson: And Black people.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: And that is empowering, you know, when that is your right, but then also is very limiting. And when you when somebody starts doing something at um CBS, that’s not your lane. Or when–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: –somebody talks about different things, that is not your lane. So it’s not just about having people in jail, or excuse me, people in prison, talk about um being in prison. It’s also about what is your opinion on Sabrina Carpenter? I’m being for real, because not only–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: Does that keep you in part of the society, that helps us grow too. We do not know how people feel about the world that’s around them because we silence them, you know?
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. I think one of the things that I’m going to pick on DeRay too in a second, um that is always clear to me about DeRay is like how he has a brain for systems and systems change. Like that’s actually like he has to your point, Myles, like a lane and a set of issues that he’s come to be known as a public expert on. But like DeRay cares about how we can design systems to deliver better outcomes for people. Right and like any, any opportunity to talk about that, I think, is where he actually shines. And I think by him being so pigeonholed on like one or two issues, we actually miss a lot of like the good thinking he has done and I’m using him as an example for like so many other people in the, in the public sphere. You know?
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. Yes yes.
DeRay Mckesson: Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned, there’s more to come.
[AD BREAK]
Sharhonda Bossier: I want to pick up on something that we were talking a little bit about earlier, which is like the subversive ways that people have come to use the internet, even as they have experienced censorship, et cetera, et cetera. Right. And one of those ways is like people have developed apps right that allow us to like share information in ways that are encrypted, et cetera, et cetera. And one thing that people have obviously in in the sort of recent months been really worried about and trying to track is ICE activity in their local communities and neighborhoods. And so there was an app on the Apple App Store called ICE Block um that allowed people to report ICE activity and share it um with their neighbors and other community members. And the App Store has chosen to remove the app so it is no longer available in the App store. And I’m bringing it to the podcast because yes, obviously people should be aware that Apple makes these kinds of choices, right. And decisions, especially because it seems that they have caved to pressure from the Trump administration and law enforcement, but also because I feel like a theme that’s been emerging over the last few weeks of our conversation has been about the importance of in-person organizing. And I think this is another sort of signal that, um, we have always had ways of sharing information. We have always had ways of staying in community and conversation with each other. And if you know we’re watching the total capture of the media, to use DeRay’s phrase, and if we are watching these tech companies fold to this pressure from this administration, we need to design and revive ways of staying in-community and sharing information with each-other that don’t rely on these companies. And so I’m hoping to like, yes, hear your reflections on this story and Apple’s decision, but also to continue our ongoing conversation about like, what does it look like now to engage in person, share information in person build community in person and organize and mobilize people in person.
DeRay Mckesson: I’m shocked by the app thing just because I think it is, it’s just the beginning. Like if you can say that this is terrorism, then we can start an organizing app and that’s terrorism. And da da like, the ICE agents is just easy. But if, just like if everybody becomes a gang member, if you just got to say Venezuelan gang and then everything becomes legal, you’re like, well, where does that end? So that freaks me out. The thing that makes me, you know, I do think I am the resident optimist on the pod is I think people are hungrier, frankly, to do something today than they even were in 2014. I think the protests are funny because I was in the street the whole time. I think like people wanted to come out on the street, they did it, it was important to them, da da da. I don’t think people like signed up for the long haul and I don’t think any of us anticipated Trump. I think now people are like, okay, we did the protest thing, you know we built new communities, we met new people, and frankly, I think if I had to think of, I mean, obviously I think [?]’s work structurally is really important, but collectively, everybody just got smarter. Like people who didn’t know anything about a trans person now it’s sort of like run of the mill that you know something. Like people who thought the police were heroes are like, hmm, I don’t know, this is a little weird. Like we just got smarter and I find people who are like looking for a political home for lack of a better phrase now, more than ever. And I think on the flip side, we have like negative five organizers. And I say that in the sense of like people who actually can like sustain relationships with people who can like, you know, one of the reasons why I’m not mad at the party sometimes is I do think the party, the Democrats have accurately reflected the consistent voter base of the party. I think that is true. Now I don’t think that they have accurately reflected that base of all the people in the tent. I think they have missed the people in the tent, but if they are focused on who votes consistently, I think, they have nailed those people for a very long time. And I think that part of the organizing work is to move those people too. We got like, we got to expand the tent and bring new people in, but I defund is just the best example to me of like the organizers were talking past the majority of our people. And when you talk past our people, [?] you know we got to figure out how to move people closer to like where we need them to be. And I think it is possible. I think they can move. I think about my own father and people in my life who I’ve like moved further along. And that to me is when I meet organizers who can do that versus the people who I think we have a lot more of who are annoyed with the fact that you do not already believe. And now y’all know old Black people, don’t come to nobody grandma’s house being like, I can’t believe you don’t think of it like, get your ass out the house. Like they not trying to hear that. So, but I do think that people are there Sharhonda and um as long as we can make the containers I think they’ll come.
Myles E. Johnson: I just hadn’t seen a lot of that, you know, like, even just being around as many trans people and as many transactivists and trans influence, trans, trans, trans, while I was in New York, and queer people, not just trans, but queer people. I saw so many times people understand where their family was, essentially, you know? I am left of my family, like and there’s a different way. And I just saw that like literacy there, and it just makes me, can I be honest? I don’t think that how queer, trans, or white leftist activists treated each other is the same way how Black people treat each other. And I think that the actual voting records prove that. Even though there are things that we should be scared about when it comes to Black people voting, I think that we’ve actually communicated a lot. And I think that we’ve actually um have done really well. I think it is white people who are out of their depth. I think that white people never thought they were going to be facing this type of evil, and um and they just don’t really know what to do, and they don’t have any stra– like they don’t have any real strategies. That’s what that’s what I found. But I haven’t really found Black folks who don’t know how to translate that. The other thing too, is the Republican Party was getting washed. The Republican Party, was getting washed during Obama, and they activated a part of their party that they would normally not activate. Because they were existing in polite society. So what I wanna say is just like remembering that the number games that they’re playing are not the same number games that we are playing. Like they intentionally activated people because they said, oh my goodness, the McCain’s, all these kind of traditional Republicans are not working, so we need something else. And Trump was willingly activating hate and that has given them a head start. And I think that that has a lot to do with what we’re seeing, and I don’t know, it just feels like a lot of um smoke and mirrors around like what our democratic population really is like and what it really looks like. I think I was thinking about Ezra Klein and seeing him talk to Sarah McBride as well and him say things where I’m like, well, that’s not really what’s going on. That’s what’s going on the internet, but that’s not really what, to me, that doesn’t really feel faithful to like what I’ve seen, experienced, and just even what the voting records and stuff say. The last thing that I want to say about that last topic is also about um Africa and their own individual internet and how they launch their internet systems and stuff. And I do think as, as, um as dystopian and nightmarish as this world is, it has made me have to think more utopian in my head. So to battle DeRay as the biggest optimist or the only optimist of this podcast, I would say that I am definitely an optimist. I think my optimist just has to be on the platform of what’s really going on, because it can’t be, it has to it just has to be launched from that. And I’m like, okay, we don’t just need a app. We don’t need a campaign zero app. We need, our goal, even if it’s for 50 years, is need to have campaign zero internet. We need to be thinking about how do we create internet? So in 50 years from now, we have internet that is, that the ethos of this internet, it cannot be touched by a police system or something like that. Like that is how big and utopian we have to think because that’s how dystopian and nightmarish they’re thinking right now. And Africa is an example of that because they had just launched their own internet that cannot be intercepted by Western companies and actors. But anywho, my news comes out of Georgia. It comes from my people. If you do not know, I am Gullah Geechee. That is how come I cannot pronounce nothing, y’all, because if you heard how my people speak. And if you heard how my mom speaks. And you heard how all my people speak, it just sounds like Brooklyn meets Southern meets Gullah Geechee. And I’m doing the best I can with what I got. Um. But this is really great news. And I think also the fact that this is happening underneath the Trump administration shows that there are still wins to be happening um politically, even if we’re in a hot struggle right now. And we’re always in a struggle. It’s just cold or hot. So I’m going to read a little bit from this. Um. It’s from AP News. It states, the State Supreme Court unanimously reversed a lower court ruling that had stopped a referendum to consider repealing a revised zoning ordinance passed by McIntosh County officials two years ago. Residents of Sapelo Island opposed the zoning amendment that doubled the size of homes allowed in a tiny enclave called Hogg Hummock. Homeowners feared the change would result in one of the nation’s most historically and culturally unique Black communities facing unaffordable tax increases. Residents and their supporters last year submitted a petition with more than 2,300 signatures from registered voters seeking a referendum in the coastal county, which lies 60 miles south of Savannah. McIntosh County commissioners sued to stop the referendum and a lower court ruled that one would be illegal. The decision halted a vote on the zoning change with less than a week to go before election day. Hundreds of people have already cast their early ballots in the referendum. Um. Of course, that’s just good news. But the other thing, just in case you don’t know about Gullah Geechee culture, is that the reason why the Gullah Islands exist in um in Savannah is because it was one of the places that Western colonization didn’t touch. So that’s how come the people in the Gullah Geechee culture speak differently. That’s how come we have um different cultures, or excuse me, we have different expressions of our culture and Geechee culture that preserves African and what’s specifically West African culture. And the people there are just as monumental of making sure that culture preserves as a building or whatever museums that they might have there that preserves it. So not having those people being priced out of their land is so significant. And it also shows that collectively Black people can make things happen and people of the Gullah Geechee community can make things happen. And I think that the last thing I’ll say is that I also think that the Gullah Geechee community is um blueprint for how I think we should be thinking about the Black community nationally. I think that it is so interesting to see this community and be in this community if you ever get a chance to go to um the Geechee Islands, to see a community that feels totally and utterly untouched by Western colonization when you go to um certain places or when you hear certain people speak. And I think that when you if you’re a Black person right now, and it may not feel significant to but I promise you it is if you’re a Black person right now and I say [?] and you can smell it. If I’m a Black person right now that can say Queenie and you and you know what I’m talking about. If you’re a Black person who I say [?] and have a vision of what that is, preserving the energy those artifacts um that culture is so so so necessary And it usually only happens when we preserve it outside of um Western colonial confines. So I wanted to bring that because we need some good news. And as the competing optimist on this podcast, I’m going to bring good news weekly. [laughter]
DeRay Mckesson: Come on competing optimists. I learned on this one, I didn’t um shout out to a structural win. And shout out that they fought and won. You know like I’m a big, if you don’t fight, you can’t win. And I believe that in organizing like you got to put it on the board so that you can win. I do think about like the preservation of the cultural stuff. We’re going to talk about this more as we get closer to February. But February 2026 will be 100 years of celebrating Black history in this country. There was 50 years of Negro History Week. This will be the 50th year of Black History Month. And I hope that February begins this conversation about the preservation of like legacy, that the first wave of Black history month was Black Heroes, and that made sense, Carter G. Woodson. And now I think about like what does it mean to make sure that there’s never a generation of kids that don’t know the Gullah Geechee’s, right? And I think about the political significance of us capturing our own history. Which is why Trump is literally like, remove those pictures of slavery.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
DeRay Mckesson: Take this shit out of the books, like he is., white people get it. They understand that this stuff activates people, and they understand what happens when there are generations of kids who don’t learn it. And they start to question whether, like, this is real. Did the was there ever a community of people that white people did not da-da-da, da-da. Like, you know, part of it is erasing uh just the resistance and the lives that people lived, and I’m hopeful that as we continue to finish this year and start the next one that we are really thoughtful about it. I went to the funeral of a kid um I mentored in Baltimore. He passed away at 32. He overdosed on fentanyl. And I was at his funeral and it was very Black. It was like a, it was blackity Black. And the singer who was singing, I’m like, ooh, my niece and nephew don’t know these songs.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: I’m like, they don’t even know these, and these songs are–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: –top-tier funeral songs. You know I’m, like, this is what you sing at a funeral. We know all the words. I haven’t heard this song in so long. And I, it is, you know, I’m standing–
Sharhonda Bossier: The recall.
DeRay Mckesson: –got my hand up.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, I’m like I don’t need the hymnal. I got it, you now?
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
DeRay Mckesson: And I think about, like you probably saw that interview with, like the New Age guy who runs one of the churches who was like, nobody wants that shouting and screaming. And I’m at that funeral, I needed that hooping and hollering. That was part of the way you–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
DeRay Mckesson: -processed your emotions. And I do think about, like I, this is, it made me think about the many ways we need to preserve Black culture because this moment of celebrity and internet is like swallowing up our children. Like what my–
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
DeRay Mckesson: What my niece and nephew think is Black, I’m like, y’all are, y’all live in Delaware.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yes.
DeRay Mckesson: And y’all got a right mind on you, but you don’t know the things that all of you, we know how to use a hymnal. You know, we know how to we know the two-step.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: We know the usher walk. We know where to sit and where not to sit. And I’m like, they don’t that.
Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, I was talking to a Black woman friend of mine this week and she we were talking about she goes to church she was inviting me and I was like I’m gonna tell you right now if your praise and worship team is six people and an acoustic guitar, I’m not coming. Okay, so if you invite me to church I need a choir okay at least in coordinating outfits wearing the same color you ain’t got to have robes but I need something other than an acoustic guitar. But you know Myles to your story the part of the article that you shared that stuck out with me is this piece where it says, roughly 30 to 50 Black residents live in Hogg Hummock, a community of dirt roads and modest homes founded by their enslaved ancestors who worked the cotton plantation of Thomas Spalding. And it’s also just a reminder of how close that history is, right? So to your point about these people having preserved their traditions, their language, their practices, it’s like you can also just say yes, four generations ago, we worked that land as sharecroppers. Three generations before that, we worked that land as enslaved people, right? And so the broader conversations about what we are owed are not that hard to figure out. Like literally most of us have not gone that far. And even if we physically moved away, you know my last name is the last name of a slave holder who had plantations in Western Louisiana. Like there’s an entire parish named after somebody with my last name. You know what I mean? And that is like, I can trace that, you know? And I just, when we talk about history, when we talk what we’re owed and we talk about this country’s willingness to reckon with or not reckon with its real history, you know, I think about history as prologue, right? Um. And just how proximate we really are to so much of it. So, excited to see this win and excited to be reminded that there are people who understand what they’re owed and are still laying claim to it.
DeRay Mckesson: Well, that’s it, thanks so much for tuning in to Pod Save the People this week, and don’t forget to follow us at Pod Save the People and Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. And if you enjoyed this episode of Pod Save the People, consider dropping us a review on your favorite podcast app. And we will see you next week. Pod Save the People is a production of Crooked Media. It’s produced by AJ Moultrié and mixed by Charlotte Landes, executive produced by me, and special thanks to our weekly contributors, Myles E. Johnson and Sharhonda Bossier. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]
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