Drink Champs - Episode 217 "Quarantine Champs Ep.8" w/ Marc Lamont Hill, Mysonne, Bun B & Talib Kweli (Part 2)

Episode Date: June 26, 2020

N.O.R.E. & DJ EFN are the Drink Champs. In this episode the #QuarantineChamps continue the conversation with Marc Lamont Hill, Mysonne, Bun B & Talib Kweli.We continue our conversation as the cultural commentators speak on social justice topics like racism, police reform, and the ongoing protests against police brutality.Joined by Marc Lamont Hill, Mysonne, Bun B, and Talib Kweli, N.O.R.E. and company dives into the unjust killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Aubrey and countless of other Black people in the U.S. at the hands of law enforcement or excessive force.They also discuss the importance of Black men needing to do a better job at protecting Black women.Listen and subscribe at http://www.drinkchamps.comFollow:Drink Champshttp://www.drinkchamps.comhttp://www.instagram.com/drinkchampshttp://www.twitter.com/drinkchampshttp://www.facebook.com/drinkchampsDJ EFNhttp://www.crazyhood.comhttp://www.instagram.com/whoscrazyhttp://www.twitter.com/djefnhttp://www.facebook.com/crazyhoodprod...N.O.R.E.http://www.instagram.com/therealnoreagahttp://www.twitter.com/noreaga--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/drinkchamps/support Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. down that day. On Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage, you'll hear about these heroes and what their stories tell us about the nature of bravery. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why is a soap opera western like Yellowstone so wildly successful? The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to the American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time,

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your gut microbiome and those healthy bacteria can actually have positive effects.

Your mental health, your immunity, your risk of cancer, almost any disease under the sun. This week on Dope Labs, Titi and I dive into the world of probiotics, the hype, the science, and what your gut bacteria are really doing behind the scenes. From drinks and gummies to probiotic pillows. Yes, really, probiotic pillows. We're breaking down what's legit and what's just brilliant marketing. With expert insight from gastroenterologist Dr. Roshi Raj. Listen to Dope Labs

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And it's Drake Chess motherfucking podcast. Make some noise! He's a legendary Queens rapper. Hey, hey, it's your boy N motherfucking podcast. Make some noise! He's a legendary Queens rapper.

Hey, hey, Segre, this your boy N.O.R.E. He's a Miami hip-hop pioneer. One of his DJ EFN. Together, they drink it up with some of the biggest players. You know what I mean? In the most professional, unprofessional podcast. And your number one source for drunk facts. It's Drink Chats motherfucking podcast.

Where every day is New Year's Eve. It's time for Drink Champs. Drink up, motherfuckers. And you know, if you look at NYPD, the NYPD, somebody made it aware that because of what's happened in New York, that every police officer in New York is now work has to work, has to be available to work seven days a week, 12 hour shifts. So it's only a matter of time before they're exhausted as well.

Right. You know what I'm saying? We can swap people off, take days off, but they can't. Right. So we we just have to outlast them, you know? And at some point, they're going to have to conform because de Blasio, man, I really would have thought that a man raising black children in his house would have dealt with this a lot differently, would have

had a little bit more empathy. But he didn't, and that's how his daughter ends up getting arrested at the protest. You know what I'm saying? And then he wants to talk about how good of a child his child is. Well, why aren't you talking like that about George Swanson? Why aren't you talking like that about Breonna Taylor

and all these other victims of violence? Why don't you take a parental outlook on this situation? Right? And have a better level of understanding. But no, you want to put the hard fist down in New York, you know, be the typical New York mayor, and then your kid gets arrested. Now, all of a sudden, you're trying to profess how good your black child is. Well, guess what? We've been all trying to

collectively say this about our black children for decades, yet y'all still treated them like animals, specifically on the streets of New York. You know what I'm saying? So now that you have a more informed view of what happens to our children outside trying to do the right thing, standing on the right side of history, you should have the ability to show more compassion in this situation, right? Pull back the reins.

But no, that's what happens when mayors and cities really just give everything over to the police department. Because I'm not saying that, like I understand, a mayor needs a police department, right? Like he needs to have a good relationship

with the police department because there are things that he needs the police to do. But at the same time, like your constituents should matter as well. And you shouldn't give more power to the people that police your constituents

than the constituents themselves. Because the police can't, the police will be fine whether we vote you out or not. They don't lose their job. They're not elected officials. So if we vote your ass out, the same cops that you're taking up for, them motherfuckers will still be there

when you're gone. Right. They'll still be coming after your kid, too. Absolutely. Now that her dad isn't married anymore, they may target him. Why is it so hard for people to just say black lives

matter like why is this because they're racist bottom line if you can't say it it's because you're racist there's nothing else to say because you have to be a racist there is a level of racism that you do not want to give

up this power. You know, just like when we was talking about Dolan. He doesn't want to say it because he wants the people who are racist to know that I don't want to say it. You don't hear Trump say Black Lives Matter. He doesn't ever say that. He just would never say it because he understands his constituency is

his whole base is built on the fact that white is supreme. He says it. He said it. First of all, I'm a nationalist. You know what I'm saying? If you know the history of nationalism, it is white supremacy. You know what I'm saying? So the bottom line is they don't want to say it because they don't want to give up their power. That's why we, and you just think about this. We are really in this position because white supremacy is so strong that the police department refused to lock up four officers that everybody saw kill somebody. Yep. Just think about it. All they had to do was arrest these people from the beginning.

It wouldn't have been no riots. It wouldn't have been no marches. It would have been nothing. They would have seen it. People were like, damn, that's the best I've ever heard. They arrested the officers. And they would have said, that's good. You know, at least you're doing something. And they kept on. They dragged this shit on for over a week.

And we had to hit the streets every day. They burnt down the whole police station. They refused to give in because white supremacy is such a disease that they will destroy the country before they give up that power. Yep. Yeah,

I'm sorry, I was calling my engineer because my phone was about to die, but I wanted to talk about Black Lives Matter for a second. Black Lives Matter, the whole system is geared to make sure that black Lives don't matter, which is why those three women started that organization. And I think what they did was revolutionary. I put it on the same level as what King and them was doing in the 60s, because

to take that phrase, Black Lives Matter, it's like Malcolm said, make it plain. Just make it simple and plain. Black Lives Matter. Now, if you look at the Black Lives Matter. It's like Malcolm said, make it plain. Just make it simple and plain. Black Lives Matter. Now, if you look at the Black Lives Matter website, in the last two years, Black Lives Matter was more an organization that was active. They started with Trayvon Martin, then they got really active around Mike Brown. And then they sort of used the platform, those three sisters used the platform that they built with Black Lives Matter to go move into other work. Alicia Garza from Black Lives Matter now is working with an organization called

Black Future Labs, and they put out a 27-page Black Agenda. I think the website is blacktothefuture.org. I encourage everybody to go read their Black Agenda because it's a Black Agenda that's thoroughly researched. It takes census information and polling information into consideration. They're saying our Black Agenda is based on what we researched to see what black

America is asking for. It's radical, it's revolutionary, and I completely support it. Patrice Colores from Black Lives Matter, probably the most visible member of it, she's now working more with Movement for Black Lives. And Movement for Black Lives is the organization that you see pushing to defund the police, and they now partner with Essence. But what I want to say is that on the Black Lives Matter website, there's stuff about COVID, there's general stuff, but they haven't been, the organization Black Lives Matter has not at all been at the forefront of the uprisings and the marches to support George Floyd. But what started to happen is the work they did was so phenomenal. That phrase was so ubiquitous

and so dope that anybody who uses that phrase, people just want to use that phrase whether they support the principles of Black Lives Matter or not. When you go on the Black Lives Matter website, there's a whole bunch of stuff that people who use that hashtag

and that phrase probably don't even agree with. There's a whole bunch of political stuff and stuff about intersectionality some people are like no i don't fuck with that intersectionality some black people like no don't call me a person of color no i don't think that queer rights and queer issues should be be part of our struggle and all of that is on the black lives matter page so when you see people say sean king is a black lives Matter activist, he's not. Regardless how you feel about Sean King, he's never been a member of Black Lives Matter. Regardless how you feel about D. Ray McKesson, he's never been a member of Black Lives Matter.

Anytime you see someone holding up a sign, anyone putting a hashtag, they are called a Black Lives Matter activist. And I feel like that's been part of the problem, is that's those sisters work. They were almost too successful for their own good. Black Lives Matter as an organization, as a hashtag was such a good idea that everybody wants to buy into it. But not everybody's doing the work to call themselves a black matter activist. People are using it now as a term to antagonize the power structure. Right. Without really even understanding who created it, what it truly stands for, and the thought process behind it, the policies

that they're pushing behind it. People say it now just to piss old white people off. Like, it's almost becoming something that trolls... Like Armageddon. It's almost becoming Armageddon. Right, right. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get that comparison. You know what I'm saying? It's basically now being co-opted

for people to troll people into showing their racism. It's crazy. That shows you how white supremacist a country we live in, that people are antagonized by saying that black people just matter. You know what I'm saying? We ain't saying it's better.

We just saying they just matter. It matters. Let it matter. Why won't you let it matter saying it's better. We ain't saying nothing. We just saying it just matters. It matters. Let it matter. Why won't it matter? It's crazy. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves.

This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black

sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll

be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian, Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Ranella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here and I'll say it seems like the ice age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked

all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher, Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette, MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. You ever thought we would be here in this country, like, you know, after Martin, after Malcolm, we thought we was going to move forward.

It almost felt like we moved back. And not only did we feel like we moved back, but here's the crazy thing, you know, with a lot of these great protests and these great, you know, when we come out and we march and we get together, and you see these great pictures, right now it's crazy.

It was like COVID was almost planned to not see our leaders. Like, you know, because it was like, you know, like your face is not being shown. You know what I mean? Like, did that feel weird to anybody else here or that's just me?

No, I mean, you know, this COVID shit is a whole other conversation. And I think you're right on multiple levels. But one thing is for me, COVID was the first problem, right? So the idea that black people

getting killed by the state is the point. But that sense of vulnerability and insecurity that you feel from the state doesn't just begin when police shoot you. Just like in Ferguson, it wasn't just when police shot you in Ferguson or Baltimore or Texas. It was Flint, Michigan with the water. Similarly, we don't feel protected by the state right now. In the same way, Donald Trump didn't cause COVID, but he's responsible for there being so many deaths. And who was dying from COVID? People who were poor. We say essential workers are people who have to do medical work, EMTs, police officers. But if I'm poor and can't afford to

work from home or do a Zoom and I got to work at Target or Walmart so rich people can stock up for the week, I'm now on the front lines as an essential worker as well, except I'm only making minimum wage. And so I'm vulnerable because the state couldn't protect me. They gave me, they gave Wall Street and other people trillions. They gave me a $1,200 check that I might get by the end of the summer to last the whole time. And so the state's failure to protect me subjects me to premature death. That same premature death is what happens to George Floyd. So the COVID shit is the backdrop to all of this. COVID is just a metaphor for all the ways that the state either kills us or doesn't stop us from dying from premature death. And then on top of that,

your point is the rebellion, the resistance to it, the mask we put on to protect our lives. And then we go out on the streets to fight this other shit. And we got the mask on, which is, again, a metaphor for the way that we got to defend ourselves from the state, from state surveillance, from state violence, from state harassment. It's a crazy situation. And the craziest shit of all is that, for example, I got a 92 year old father, right? And I want to see him.

I've been able to see him in three months, right? We met with the hospice team. So, you know, they were like, we don't know how much longer he has. I can't see him. But if I go out on how much longer he has. I can't see him. But if I go on the streets and protest and then I can go see him, now I'm putting his life at risk. Right. So I got and so black people all around the country, all around America are deciding right now between staying at home and not protesting the state killing us or going outside and risk dying from COVID. Exactly.

I mean, that's what it means to be black in America. You either die fast or you die slow. But you die. But you die prematurely. And that's the shit that I'm talking about. So that COVID shit is, for me, I'm glad you brought that up, is so important to this conversation. And you die alone in either situation.

You die alone. Like that's, that's the cold, ugly part of it. Right. And that's, you know, somebody said the other day that with COVID going on and the,

the unemployment level and everybody kind of being restricted to home, basically all of these things come together to make George Floyd's death undeniable, right? Like, everybody's all at home at the same time, hit with the same imagery with nothing to distract them from it, right? Like, all the things that, you know, where usually, you know, you come in

7, 8 o'clock, you're tired, you know what I'm saying, all of this shit, and you're not really paying attention to a lot of these things. But now you're home, you're all day, there's nothing to do but watch TV. And so you're flooded with this imagery, right? And so there's nowhere to turn from it, right? You're forced to look at it and deal with it.

And I think that's been one of the, partially a silver lining to all of this shit that we're dealing with right now, is the fact that everybody all over the world are dealing with this in real time. COVID is a situation... Oh, man. Bono gets cut off when he makes a great...

When he starts going crazy, he gets cut off. Bono, where you at? Everybody made some real good points about the COVID situation, man. It exacerbated what's going on with Black America, man. And George Floyd, I say it's like a perfect storm. Everything that happened

here is a perfect storm. And COVID, it started with COVID-19 putting us in our house, making us have to deal with trauma, deal with fear, you know, deal with reality, seeing these things, and like you said, like he said, everybody had to visually see this every day. And, you know, deal with reality, seeing these things. And like you said, like he said,

everybody had to visually see this every day. And, you know, and then it was the anxiety of being inside. So some people decided, you know, I'm going to go outside because I'm just tired of being inside. And the only way I can get outside to really do something is go protest. So you got the protest people

that are there to protest. You got the people that are just tired of being in their house that are just going to go outside and protest. You got the people that say they of being in their house that's just going to go outside and protest. You got the people that say they're looting, so I'm going to go outside and loot. You got so many different dimensions, and it created a perfect storm.

So it don't matter who's there for what. It's just thousands and hundreds of thousands, millions of people every day, constantly. And it's leading the voice to the people who actually are there protesting, who actually been on the front lines doing it. So being on the front line doing this for the last nine, 10 years,

I've realized that it takes that. That's what it takes. It takes a perfect storm. It takes so many different people to have intersectional reasons why you're here. We don't have to, like I tell people all the time, it's not about uniformity, it's about unity. Unity and uniformity, the same thing. We don't have to like i tell people all the time it's not about uniformity it's about unity unity and uniformity the same thing like we don't have to have agree on everything we just also got to

agree that something needs to change you think this is a change i think this is a change all right let's let's figure out how we're going to change it and that's where it is right now i think everybody who they don't care about race religious denomination we all realize shit is fucked up yeah we and we got to get this shit changed you know we all realize shit is fucked up here. We've got to get this shit changed. We've all got to see this change. I think I'm in different conversations or different Zoom calls in different rooms where it's really people creating

shit that I believe is going to make real change because now they realize that we got them on the ropes. The big, the boogeyman, America was this boogeyman. Like, you know, the police, like people like, people mad at me, like, yo, they're rioting.

And you know, and you need to tell people to be peaceful. And I'm like, what the fuck I'm going to tell somebody to be peaceful? We out here chanting every day, no justice, no peace. And we didn't get no justice. So why would I tell people to be peaceful?

It don't make sense. It don't coincide with the struggle we've been having. You understand what I'm saying? So at the end of the day, when you look at this situation, you see, dang, people out there doing this every day. People are constantly out there every day. Why are they doing it? It's because the shit is fucked up for so many different people, man.

America has failed. So there was this boogeyman, like I was saying. The police, we were taught to be scared. You know, my grandmother said, yo, don't America has failed. So there was this boogeyman, like I was saying. The police, we were taught to be scared. You know, my grandmother said, don't talk too loud. The white man gonna hear you. Or the police. These kids don't have that fear. I'm not putting that fear in them.

Slavery and all that shit is so far removed from them. It's just something they hear about. We had little glimpses. We had grandfathers who actually went through slavery, who sat us down, who you looked at them and they showed you scars and they told you they was in the wars and you could see the pain in their face.

So you internalize that. My kids are not going to internalize that. They're going to hear the stories, but they're going to see their father, a free black man who lives, who's willing to die for his country, I mean, for his revolution, for his people, who's willing to stand on the front lines. And they're going to live their lives like that.

And that's why these kids are out there. I was in Minnesota when they burnt down the police. And they was throwing, the kids is, they throwing, they shooting rubber bullets. And these kids is creating their own Molotov cocktails, throwing them shit back. Like, fuck that. The tear gas is in their eyes.

They're going, they're wiping it out, pouring milk in, and they coming right back. They wasn wiping it out, pouring milk in, and they're coming right back. They wasn't running home because we would have ran home before. As soon as they threw the tear gas, it was over for us. All right, we're going to come back another day. Nah, they was out there for 24 hours straight. The police had to

run out the police station. I watched them. They were throwing Molotov cocktails. The police shooting. They were on the roof. Next thing you know, the police got overwhelmed. They got overwhelmed and they burnt down a police station. This shit was, this is something that's never, and this resilience that these kids have, these fearlessness that these

kids have, is the exact ingredient that we need to really make change. Yeah, I want to add on, first of all, that the kid who, they just arrested the kid who burnt down a police station. It was a white kid. I'm not sure if he's an anti-fascist Or he's just, you know I don't really know

But yeah, he definitely did that My daughter, I had to watch my daughter On Instagram out there with the people And that was scary for me Because it's like, it's my daughter But then it's like, yo, she's just doing What I would have done I was with

Dave Chappelle. He was talking, I watched him talk to his son. He said, he said, here's my son. He said, my son got tear gassed the other day in Ohio. So I'm very proud of him. You know what I'm saying? So it speaks to what you're speaking about. We come from the generation where our parents try to protect us

because they've seen the horrors of what's going on. And we're like, nah, fuck that. Get out there and do your thing. But I also wanted to add on to the point you said about striking now while iron's hot. You know, when they had the Civil War, they had a general who said, look, if you come and fight for the Union Army,

you get 40 acres and a mule. And obviously they never gave us that. And obviously they reversed that. But the reason why the general said that because he realized that he needed to compromise with the black people at that time. And now we're in one of those type of civil war moments. I would never say race war, because I think that it's only white supremacists that push

the idea of race war. That's not something that we've ever pushed. Like the meme says, they're lucky that we only want equality and not revenge. But I did write down some points, because I've been talking with, same as write down some points because I've been talking with same as you, my son. I've been talking with different organizations having these different calls. And for me personally, these are these are just without getting into the specifics. These are the policy changes that I feel like the things that we all can work for. Because like you said, my son, it's about unity, not uniformity.

And to figure out what we can all agree to push together, even if everybody on this particular call doesn't agree with these points. These are the things I wrote down that I would like to see coming out of this moment as sort of a black agenda. Workers' rights, us making sure that we support unions and support the rights of workers because it's people who are poor people of color

who disproportionately get fucked up by us not making sure that the workers are taken care of. I think we should raise the federal minimum wage. The federal minimum wage hasn't been raised since 2009. I think we need a congressional committee on reparations. I think now is the time. There's been a reparations bill, the HR 40 bill that's been floating around for years. But because we have no congressional committee and the people no—and the people in the community are not pushing the politicians, it just sits there and it lingers. Now is the time to have the conversation. If you look at Joe Biden's platform, he mentions reparations on his platform.

He wanted the only Democratic senators that's not—out of the ones who ran for president who did not— Who are not on his so-called black agenda? Yeah, in his black agenda. He says that he said he describes The HR 40 bill he says I will Support this bill but he doesn't name The bill so what he's trying to do he's trying to

Say like I'll be down for reparations If y'all are but he's not really Putting his weight on that thing But I think we can move The Democrats on that issue And just real quick before I interrupt you Remember HR 40 is not a bill for reparations. It's a bill to study it.

That's right. So he won't even acknowledge that he's willing to study it. He ain't even asking that much. Well, that's the thing. He's doing it, but he's being slick with it. If you go to his page, it says I'm down to support a bill that would support the study of reparations. That bill already exists.

And it ain't going nowhere. So that's why I'm saying the Congressional Commission, and I say that with a grain of salt, because my history tells me that even with a Congressional Commission, it's still a long shot. But it's a step past where it's at now.

Defund the police. I feel like the people, the Movement for Black Lives, everybody's done the work to explain why we need to defund the police. I feel like the people, the movement for Black Lives, everybody's done the work to explain why we need to defund the police. There's an American Housing and he talked about how COVID affects black people disproportionately. I think now more than ever we can make the case for Medicare for all. And I think we should abolish the electoral college. I feel like with the electoral college and money in politics, we can't get political parties. We can't have third parties. We can't have the real, real, real political power we need. And lastly, I think we should work on together charging the United States with genocide. People have tried it before. Paul Robeson have tried it. There's a group of young teenagers

out of Chicago that tried it. But I feel like if we have the UN, again, the UN is not a legislative body. We won't get no money out of that. It'll just be sort of a finger wagon. But if we get that finger wagon on paper, it then helps our case. We go to the federal government. If we're working within that system to try to get reparations, it absolutely will help our case for reparations. And I think we need to

build, like my man Jay Morrison always says, we need to build a nationality. We don't have a flag. We don't have our own nationality. And that's why it's harder for us to get reparations, because they're like, who are we going to give it to? You know, we have to we have to identify. So because black American, you know, black is not a car is not a nationality. It's not nothing under one banner. So we have to come together and get somewhere to sponsor us as this is who we are. This is our flag. This is what we are. And this is what we need for us to get reparation.

That's the problem. There's so many people that are like, how are you supposed to get reparation? That's like what Marcus Garvey was preaching, right? Yeah, exactly. That's one of the things we've got to figure out. So, all right. Obama, right? Do we feel like Obama didn't really correct police?

Do you feel like he could have did a lot more when it came to police? Because I feel like Trump is doing whatever the fuck he wants when it comes to police, right? He's standing behind them. I feel like Obama could have did pretty much the opposite and really fired somebody. Am I bugging?

I went to a meeting about this at the White House with Obama and a bunch of rappers And it was Nicki Minaj Pusha T Rick Ross was there with an ankle bracelet on It was Busta Rhymes was kicking 5% of knowledge And all that

And before I talk about that meeting I want to mention We big up Kim Kardashian for pushing Trump On prison reform and letting some people out. And Trump did absolutely do that. But I don't think that we should give him props for that, because he did it, like Bun was saying, for the optics. Donald Trump, he ran on a law and order campaign.

When those people ran out there to protest, he called them thugs and said, police, you should shoot those people if they take property. You know what I'm saying? Donald Trump, when he was campaigning, he went to the Policeman's Benevolent Association and spoke in front of them and said, when you have a suspect and you push him in the car, rough him up a little bit. Right? So this is a fascist. This is someone who says that the police should have the right to disrespect your right to not care about you. So the idea that he's releasing, I don't give him props for that.

Obama, he wanted to make his campaign about police reform. He wanted to seem like the president that released people. So history books will tell you, Obama released more prisoners than anybody. Now, Obama also, I don't agree with him on immigration. I think he has a lot,

I think his drone strikes the way, there's a lot of criticisms can be made about Obama and his administration. immigration. I think he has a lot, I think his drone strikes, there's a lot of criticisms can be made about Obama and his administration. But I think when it comes to his goal as a president was to try to be the criminal justice reform president. And I will say, I took a lot of talking points from activists, from my most radical activist friends on police reconstruction and police reform, if you want to call it that, when I went into that meeting with Obama, then I got to say the brother's smart. He crosses his I's, he dots his T's. He said things in that meeting that I thought that me

as an activist, I was going to have to bring to the table. And Obama and his team got to the table. So when it comes to the work, when it comes to the academic work of being down with criminal justice reform and being down with police reform. I believe that Obama, and to a large degree, most of the establishment Democrats, they know the language. They talk the language. But a lot of them, it's just for optics. I feel like for Obama, it's more close to his heart because he's actually a black man with the name Barack Hussein Obama. But essentially, the Republicans became the party of obstruction. So even if Obama did everything right, the Republicans made sure that they were going to say no to everything that he did. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States.

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When you just even look at prison reform, right, and you talk about how they talk about how Trump let some people out and this and that. Obama commuted more presidents, more people than the last five or six, seven, eight presidents combined. And that's only because when he was trying to pretty much let all non-violent offenders out of prison, they blocked that. So he had to do that. So these are things that people don't know. He's like, oh, Obama. No, they blocked that. So he had to do that. So these are things that people don't know. They just be like, oh, Obama. No, they blocked. He was trying to let, he was trying to, all

drug offenders, he was trying to get them all out of prison. Like, all of them. He didn't want none of them in jail. You know what I'm saying? So when you look at this prison reform that Trump has done, and people say, oh, look, he let this amount of people out of jail. No. The bill that Obama was trying to get out, they would have been

home. You know what I'm saying? So, he gave you a fraction of what Obama was getting and trying to tell you he did something. Because he had the party who was in control to make those changes. How about you, Mark? You know, I've been

an Obama critic. I think that, I mean, Trump've been an Obama critic. I think that I mean, Trump is a whole different animal. So it's almost, you can't even compare him to anything else. There are good presidents, there's bad presidents. Trump's like, not even like

that. He's like a different thing. He's like a different sport. Like a different creature, a different being. I think that Obama at the federal level as he was leaving, especially made some important moves. Cash bail in the federal system, gone. Privatized prisons, gone. Right. But the felony thing, voting as a felony. Right, right. Being a fel obviously, as president, that's all he can do. He can't. Most people in jail are on the state level.

Most people in prison are on the state level. So he can't deal with people who are doing state time, only people doing fed time. So he did what he could at that level. Do I wish he could have done more? Yes. Do I wish he had said more? Yes. There, Obama, one of the challenges for Obama for me was that he played the game as if everybody was playing by the same rules.

It's like if you're negotiating and you say, look, I want five, so I'm going to ask for 10. They're going to offer zero and we'll meet in the middle. Republicans, Obama will come and say, look, let's just say five. And Republicans are like, zero. Right.

And they'll be like, all right, 2.5. They'll be like, zero. And before you know it, this nigga, he ended up with one. Right? And that's how bills go. Republicans just play by different rules because, like Kweli said, they were a party of obstruction. Their goal wasn't to get laws passed. They were to stop everything from happening.

And so there were moments when Obama was too careful, where he tried to thread the needle, where he tried to say, well, black people feel like this and white people feel like this, and acting as if they're opposite sides of the same coin. Obama didn't speak to black pain enough obama didn't speak to black suffering enough and obama didn't put a spotlight on black misery enough but again if we compare it to trump or bush or anybody else right i mean but i mean it's like i almost don't want to compare him to that because that seems unfair you know even compared to clinton he's a step above right because clinton again not just three strikes not just welfare reform not just crime bill because that seems unfair. You know, even compared to Clinton, he's a step above, right? Because Clinton, again,

not just three strikes, not just welfare reform, not just crime bill, but also the Prison Litigation Reform Act, which is the act that made it difficult for prisoners to fight their own cases. They made it hard to be a jailhouse lawyer. They made it hard to file appeals. All these things.

So Democrats have a long history of building this stuff with Republicans. Obama pushed back against some of it, but no, he did not go hard enough, right? When he says, when Henry Louis Gates, the professor at Harvard, gets locked up in front of his house and he says the officer behaved stupidly, that's a great moment. But it's easy to speak out when it's, you know what I mean, when it's a Harvard professor. When it's Skip Gates. Right, when it's Skip Gates, it's easy. But I need you to speak out

when it's Shaquan Jenkins, right? I need you to speak out when it's somebody that don't nobody know, when it's somebody who might have weed in their system, when it's Kim Gates, it's easy. But I need you to speak out when it's Shaquan Jenkins, right? I need you to speak out when it's somebody that don't nobody know, when it's somebody who might have weed in their system, when it's somebody who might have a criminal record. They still don't deserve to die or go to jail for excessive time. Who got weed in their system? Right, right. Who don't, right? So that's my point.

So that's what I need Obama to speak out against, and he didn't. And that's my critique. That was my exact same critique, Mark. I say it all the time. Obama never had a real position to me. It was like he wanted to be liked by everybody. And that's the thing about Trump. He don't give a fuck

if we like him. Because he's here for somebody. You know what I'm saying? He's here. He knows who got him in office and he's going to make sure that they're comfortable. Even if he loses, whatever, he's like, this wall is going up. He don't care for how mad you get. He promises people this wall is going up, and he's going to keep talking about this wall.

He's going to keep talking about this shit. He's going to keep talking about how we need to beat each other's ass. He is the law and order president. He's still talking about the wall. I thought he gave the wall up. That man still, he ain't give that wall up. He's still talking about they're going to get that wall. He's still got funding.

They got a bunch of money to build the wall. They in the process of building something. But the reality of the situation, he never stopped. He's played to his base every time. And Obama didn't rile us up. It was time we was ready to ride with Obama. He just went up there and said, this, we're gonna turn this bitch out.

And that's Democrats in general, too. Obama as their leader. But that's when the Democrats fucking up. He was really, man. Now, what do we do right now? You know, the people with the last election, with the lesser evils, with the Hillary and things like that.

Is people feeling like that about Joe Biden? Joe Biden put out a black agenda. A lot of people thought it was bland. A lot of people thought it was just generic. And Trump don't have a black agenda at all. And he said, you ain't black if you don't like my agenda. Right. You ain't black if you ain't vote for him. He's like, what, y'all niggas don't like what I'm talking

about? Y'all niggas is not black. And he's trying to say Trump is so much of a racist. He's the better. That's exactly saying I'm the lesser of the better evil. What is our people? I know I spoke to Killer Mike and Killer Mike was saying a lot of our local elections is more important than these major elections. Right. Right. And as opposed to what do you guys say to everyone?

So for me, I'm someone who has publicly publicly said in the past that I don't vote. And I gave what I believed at the time to be very sound reasons. I don't believe in electoral college. I don't believe in money in politics. I'm not inspired by any of these candidates. I don't feel like a candidate that would speak to me even has a shot. So I chose to opt out of the system. But I felt comfortable in my decision

because I was also doing plenty of activist work. So I was like, okay, I'm not voting, but I also do work on this level. I personally, as I've grown as a man, changed my stance on voting, particularly when I read about how Malcolm X, Link Malcolm is my hero. When I read about how Malcolm changed his stance on voting to being like, I don't vote for Democrat or Republican. And he made very, very astute criticisms of both parties to then working with Adam Clay and Powell to get the black vote in Harlem, to galvanize the black vote and vote together as a bloc, to use the vote the same way that other communities have used the vote, whether

it's Italian community to Jewish communities. So now I shifted my thinking on it. I grew on it and I got older. But because I was once one of those people who was like, fuck voting, I never, ever, ever shame someone who says that they don't vote. I don't shame someone for being so disheartened by the system that they'd be like,

that system doesn't represent me. I still believe that a person like that has good work that they can do. I do not believe that voting, the act of voting by itself makes you an activist or makes you a revolutionary. It doesn't. I do understand the politics of how the Electoral College makes it so that me voting Democrat in New York doesn't hold the same weight as somebody voting Democrat in Ohio. So I understand all of it, but I still, what I say is like, I say, it's like, look, if you're going to play a game, play it right. If you choose not to play that game, it's like, I'm not going to show

up in the NFL and try to play by NBA rules and wonder why I'm losing. Right. So if you, if you choose to remove yourself from the system, then you better show me your activist work. Show me the work that you're doing outside of the system to bring the system down, to break the status quo. And if you're not doing that work, all you're doing is fucking complaining. Now, if you are somebody who says, you know what, I'm willing to try to work within the system to try to create change, then you've got to acknowledge the reality of the system. If you're somebody that says, I want reparations, but I'm not giving you my vote, and I'm a single issue voter, and I'm not doing anything, it's reparations now. I don't care about the study. I don't care. Reparations now, you're not getting my vote. Well, you don't understand how

the system works. It's an exchange. You're saying they should exchange with you, but you ain't offering shit to exchange them with. They don't need you for their system to work. So I think people, and this is my opinion here, I think people who say that I'm going to protest vote for, I'm going to write in, I'm going to vote Green Party, I'm going to do all this. To me, I respect it if that's a moral stance you're taking, but the math, the math shows me that if you don't vote Democrat or Republican, if you choose to vote in a system for the president, then what you're doing is you're making sure that the winner wins. Like whoever wins, that's who you helped out. That's just what the math shows me. So if you're comfortable with the fact that your protest vote or your third party vote,

even though in a fair and perfect world- Y'all, that's a debate. Look at Mark, he ready. Yeah, I see him. I see him. In a fair and perfect world, I think that voting on our conscience is what everybody should be doing. But I think that if you were going to say, you know what,

I'm going to play by their rules in this situation, then you have to acknowledge the math in a presidential election. I don't think those rules apply to more local elections. That's true. You can win a Green Party mayor seat. Right, right, right. I think as somebody who's voted Green

the last four elections, last four presidential elections, you know, and look, I think as somebody who's voted green The last four elections Last four presidential elections You know, and look, I get hell on Twitter Every day from that Yeah, but you also fly to Palestine to do the work You know what I'm saying? I ain't got no shame about it I know I'm doing the best I can

But you know, I think It's about strategically voting, right? Right now you could say the country's on fire And the best thing we could do to put it out is to get Donald Trump out. I think that's a legitimate argument. And somebody will say voting green makes that harder to happen. I could understand that, too. And those were the stakes in 2016. I understood that, too.

So what I did in 2016 was I voted green because, you're right, the math doesn't work that green could win. But if we got 5% of the vote, what we would then get is federal funding for the next election so that now we could be competitive. Because Democrats get tens of millions of dollars and Republicans get tens of millions of dollars just for existing. And we don't. So if we get 5% of the vote, we get the same money they get. And now we can really fight. So the goal was to get 5%. So how do I get the 5% without giving up the country to Trump? So what a lot of us did was vote trading. So, for example, like you mentioned, New York.

If I call my homie in New York and say, look, I need you to vote green because Hillary going to win. I'm in Pennsylvania. So I'll vote for Hillary in Pennsylvania. But you got to vote green in New York. Right. Call somebody in Texas. Trump going to win Texas no matter what. Trump going to win Mississippi no matter what. So you vote, you know, vote your conscience in safe states, vote strategically in contested states. That's a way where you can split the middle, right? You can get the votes that you need to win the election and keep Trump out, and you can protect the third-party vote. And that's what I was trying to do.

The problem is when I say, look, I'm voting for Jill Stein, you know, and I don't acknowledge the strategy behind it as much, then what people do is for the next four years, they vote shame you and act like you're the reason that people lost, which fucks me up for other reasons because like in my state, Pennsylvania, Trump won by 46,000

votes. There was 236,000 black people who didn't vote at all. Talk to me. There's black people who didn't vote at all. So to me, there's two people you should be mad at. The people that voted for Trump and the people who didn't vote. See, now I'm glad I'm having this conversation because, you know, my criticism

for people who would do follow your strategy has always been, what you're saying sounds good, but if you're only saying that three months out of a presidential election, if you're only critical of the system when it's time to vote for president because it's all on the news, then I don't want to hear what you're talking about. I think we need money out of politics. I think we need to abolish the electoral college, and I think we need to

abolish a two-party system. I'm down to follow the lead. I don't know the research, and I'm not putting myself in that space. I'm not out here doing that work. I'm not out here doing the work to abolish the electoral college. I never even... Me saying it to y'all as something I feel like we could push now is the first time I've even thought critically

of how it could possibly be done. But I appreciate real activists like you, Mark, people who do the work outside of the election cycle. If you're not working, if you're not working within the four years to abolish the Electoral College,

to get people to raise a candidate that might run green or run a third party, to raise a candidate from the activist community. And like, that's really what it is, is to work this done before and after Election Day

that I feel like is what makes me respect somebody if they're going to vote with their conscience. I hear that. I feel the same way. I feel the same way. I'm ending it. Everyone just say something last. Thank y'all all for being here, man. Thank you, man. Whenever you

call, I'm there. Go ahead, my bad. What he said was very important, man. Whenever you call, I'm there. Fix it up. Go ahead, my bad. What he said was very important. A lot of these organizations have been compromised because they take money from the corporations. We can't fight the people that's funding us. That's what

Until Freedom doesn't want to be. That's what we built ourselves on. On being that institution that is funded by us. So our voices can always be pure, so we can say the shit that we need to say, that we can

call out whoever, we can fight against whoever. So that's why we don't take corporation money. We don't never want, we want our people to fund us. So we don't call it donations, we call our people to fund us, you know? So we don't call it, we don't call it donations. We call it investments. You know, we, we, we, we want you to invest in your own freedom.

If you believe in what we believe in, if you believe that we're fighting the man that you want, if you want to connect with us, you know, invest in that. We have to invest in our own because that's the only way to keep our voices, you know, to keep our voices pure and be able to say what the fuck we want to say. You know, Tamika was able to make that speech because we're not funded by anybody. Because, you know, when she was at Women's March with certain shit she couldn't say because there was different people, you know, corporations and things that were behind it. So we understood

that. We made those mistakes before. Those are the mistakes that we don't want to do again. We got to fund our own movements. We can't ask anybody else to do it. We can't think that it's going to happen without funding our movements because the reality of the situation is that people on the opposite side of Trump is being funded by billionaires. You know, and they have an agenda and they're funding it and they're

making sure that it's concentrated. So we have to do the same thing. So that's what we're doing at Until Freedom, man. We ask everybody to invest, invest in us and support us, man. EFN has got something. Don't worry about that.

So Talib, on you. Well, first of all, thank you, Nori, to watch your growth as a person, as an artist. It's always been inspirational to me as well. And you're one of my favorite people out here. You're using your platform for good. And we appreciate you for that. And you represent the best of us. You know what I'm saying? I

appreciate you for that. You know, I think what my son is doing is very important because as an artist, I've learned from doing this type of work that as artists we are the sun moon and stars of our universe everything revolves around us everything that we as successful artists, people who are blessed to be able to do it for a living in order for us to get to this point

in a lot of ways people in our life just gotta trust us and listen to us and follow our lead for our artistic vision but with activist work it's not about that. And what I've learned being a good ally to activists is that it's my job as an artist with a platform to uplift the people who are already doing the work. So when you have an artist like my son who has his experience as just a man in New York City, as a black man in New York City,

and then his experience as an artist, and he brings it to the table for an organization like Until Freedom. I feel like that's the right work to do. When I see him uplift Tameka and uplift Until Freedom, that's what gets me excited. I like to shout out Black Visions in Minneapolis

and Reclaim the Block in Minneapolis and Movement for Black Lives because I see a lot of people from different organizations that I rock with personally coalescing under the Movement for Black Lives agenda. And I'm happy that we can do this.

And I also think that the next time we do this, I'm glad we had Russell, but we definitely have to have a woman's voice as well the next time we do this, I'm glad we had Russell, but we definitely have to have a woman's voice as well the next time we sit down and have this conversation. Yes, yes. And let's end it with you, bro. You was with me this whole time, bro. Man, thank you, Mark. Thank you, bro. You helped me

out this whole time. I figured, you know, my man EFN, and we're going to get political. I said, Graham, what a great host I could have right here. It's a blessing to be here with you, man. I'm glad you're doing it because you ain't got to do this. You know what I mean? But again, like Kweli said,

man, your growth and your commitment to us matters. You know what I mean? And salute to my son, the work he's doing. We all need to support him, donate to him, push him. We need to support Kweli. Donate, invest. Invest, exactly. That's the right language. Don't donate, invest. Invest, exactly. That's the right language. No, you're right. Invest in us. And that's all I got to say.

Let's keep investing in us, man. We got a short-term vision and a long-term vision. The short-term vision is to put these fires out. The short-term vision is to get these officers arrested. The short-term vision is to get Trump out of the White House. But the long-term vision has to be just as

important. We can't fight for warmer and fuzzier prisons. We got to fight for a world without them. We can't fight for police officers that shoot jump shots with us. We got to fight for a world without policing. We have to have a world that is reimagined. We have to use what we call a radical imagination. So I encourage everybody to struggle in the short term, to use voting not as a silver bullet or as a fetish, but to use voting as a tactic among an overall strategy of victory for oppressed people. And that means we've got to organize. We've got to read. We've got to invest in each other. We've got to believe in each other. We've got to not throw each other away. We got to hold each other accountable. You know, we got to be willing to listen and follow the lead of women and trans folk and queer folk. I mean, all this has to be part of the conversation because if we don't do that, then we're not going to be free. So I'm going to end with just three words, man. And Robin Kelly, the great historian, uses these three words a lot. Love, study, struggle. We got to do all three. We got to

let the shit out of each other. We got to study. We can't just be out here talking. We got to learn and we got to struggle. You might struggle on other. We got to study. We can't just be out here talking. We got to learn and we got to struggle. You might struggle on the front lines. You might struggle on the picket line. You might struggle in your rhymes. You might struggle with your platform. You might struggle through your donations. You might struggle through your vote. But we got to struggle. And if we love study and struggle, we're going to be all right.

All right. Well, thank y'all very much, man. All y'all, man. Really appreciate this. One of the Dream Chats' most favorite, most serious episode ever, man. I take pride in doing that, man. I didn't drink the whole episode, not because I didn't want to have fun. I did.

Yeah, yeah. Not because I didn't want to have fun, but I wanted to let people know that I could actually do this as well. No doubt. No doubt. That's the champion part of the Drink Champs. You feel me? You feel me? So thank y'all. But we're all going to do this in person again. No doubt. That's the champion part of the Drink Champs. You feel me?

You feel me? So thank y'all. But we all going to do this in person again. In person. When it comes together. Yeah. Shout out EFN. Definitely.

I love all y'all. Love y'all. Love y'all too. Love you too. Boom. Peace. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Drink Champs. Hosted by yours truly, DJ EFN and NORE.

Please make sure to follow us on all our socials. That's at Drink Champs, hosted by yours truly, DJ EFN and NORE. Please make sure to follow us on all our socials. That's at Drink Champs across all platforms, at TheRealNoriega on IG, at Noriega on Twitter. Mine is at Who's Crazy on IG, at DJ EFN on Twitter. And most importantly, stay up to date with the latest releases,

news, and merch by going to DrinkChamps.com. showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. On Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage, you'll hear about these heroes and what their stories tell us about the nature of bravery. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated,

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why is a soap opera western like Yellowstone so wildly successful? The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to the American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Your gut microbiome and those healthy bacteria can actually have positive effects. Your mental health, your immunity, your risk of cancer, almost any disease under the sun. This week on Dope Labs, Titi and I dive into the world of probiotics, the hype, the science, and what your gut bacteria are really doing behind the scenes. From drinks and gummies to probiotic pillows. Yes, really, probiotic pillows. We're breaking down what's legit

and what's just brilliant marketing. With expert insight from gastroenterologist, Dr. Roshi Raj. Listen to Dope Labs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.