Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Anti-ICE Protests and a “Should Black People Care?” Discussion

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

Van and Rachel are joined by Seema Mehta of the Los Angeles Times to address the unrest in L.A. (0:00) Intro (3:11) Cardi B and the Target boycott (8:40) Why Keith Sweat is single at 63 (18:01) Swedish gospel (24:06) Coco Gauff vs. Aryna Sabalenka (30:28) Anti-ICE protests in L.A. (48:16) Seema Mehta joins the show (1:01:02) Should Black people care? (1:26:7) 'Tha Carter VI' Review (1:34:21) Glaze of the Week Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Seema Mehta Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Ashleigh Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Higher learning is on. Is Ivan Lacey Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. We will just say this at the top. We are not in studio today because our studios are in downtown Los Angeles. Hmm.

Downtown Los Angeles is now an area deemed, an area of unlawful assembly by the LAPD. So we were not able to film in person today because of the ongoing ICE protests that are happening around the city of Los Angeles.

Yeah. I mean, where do we even start? I don't even know what to say. I mean, yeah. We're going to get into it. Yeah, I know we're going to get into it. I've been gone all weekend. So to come to be, I haven't even been here

in the midst of it, which I know is a different experience from watching it. I was gone in Chicago this weekend, but to land back in here and to know that we can't even go to our, to Spotify because of what is happening. It's just, yeah, it's a lot. So let's get into it. Or do we do quick hitters? You want to do quick hitters? We're going to do quick hitters first.

We're going to do quick hitters. Obviously, the main issue of the day is what's going on here in Los Angeles. Sure. We're going to get to some quick hitters, and then we're going to devote a lot of brainpower and the steak of the show. The steak of the show, the protein. Okay. Let's say this show today is a meal. We got some mashed potatoes.

Oh. We got some shells and cheese. Yeah. What kind of green do you like with you? What are you talking about pork eater? Is there going to be something on the menu that I eat? You know what? The menu is disgusting.

So I actually don't want to eat anything on the menu. You don't eat mashed potatoes? We know my pickiness is surrounded by textures. So that is the texture that I don't like. Yes, we know this. I don't eat mashed potatoes. It's just funny to me. It's just funny to me.

It's getting to be a hilarious thing. Is it? I just want to, yeah, I just want to hone in on the four things that you like and do. It's hysterical. Mashed potatoes. It's like saying that Sprite is too spicy. I like a baked potato.

I don't like a mashed potato. This is how I learned that it's textures with me. I love potatoes. I don't like them when they're mashed. Interesting. Gotcha.

Donnie quick. Damn, I was distracted. I was looking up that video of Uncle Phil saying pillowy mounds of mashed potatoes. Shut up, Doddy. Yeah. It's tough.

All right, quick hitters. Let's start with some more Cardi B news. It seems like we've been doing that a lot lately. This happened last week on Instagram. Pastor Jamal Bryant posted a picture of Cardi B shopping at Target. And he had a lengthy caption urging her to participate in the Target boycott. I couldn't read it. He's already laughing.

Could keep going, sorry. No, no, no. I was going to read the caption, but it was really long. You get the gist of it. He's like, you got millions of followers, join the movement against Target. Oh, that's funny. I mean, but the thing is, it's not even just that Cardi B, you know, like Cardi B's posing in the mirror.

She got her son. She's at the basket. She's like in that thing. She's like, what boycott? What boycott? What's going on? I mean, are you shocked? Has Cardi B?

Cardi B hasn't even responded to this that I'm aware of unless I haven't seen this. Well, no, I'm not shocked. But because it's, it's not, it's both. it's not a big deal, it's an interesting deal. Two things. One, I went to Norsemsrack before I went to New Orleans last week. Interesting. And I almost, I love Norsems,

track. Where is the Nordstrom's rack? Beverly Connection, right across the street from the Beverly Center. Okay. Oh, okay, okay, okay. By the Target. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm one of them type of niggas. I'm a Norisham's rack guy. I'm a sacks off this guy. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I love that you think you really do with something about that.

Okay. I get anxiety. I search for it. I get anxiety in big department stores, but keep going. Well, those are big department stores. That's the overfall. That's the old stuff. Sometimes I go and I go shop for the, I go shop for the newer stuff, but I can, I'm a low

maintenance dresser. It's like whatever. It's still expensive. Not really. But go ahead. Not really. That's off the fifth. Okay.

Anyway. But go ahead. On the way out, I passed by the Target. There's a Target right next to it right there. And almost reflexively, I wanted to go into the Target. Because it's summer. So I need my Marvel shirts. I need my Captain America shirts and my Marvel shirts and my Deadpool shirts and all of that stuff.

And it's right there at Target. And I looked at Target and something jumped out at me. They said, no, no Target. Can't do Target. If you walk past. And then I had a little moment of like, God damn. Like, I would like to go get a Deadpool shirt to be able to wear. It's going to be hot in New Orleans.

I would like, you know, walk around with something a little bit more breathable, whatever. And I got to order it off Amazon, whatever. But let me tell you what I think about this. I think that was an ad. For Target? You think she got paid for that? You know what? You're right.

Honestly, you're right. Because it's so random. There is no. There is no way that Cardi Bee doesn't know what's going on with black shoppers and Target right now. I'm so conspiracy-pilled right now that when I see shit like that, what I think is that Target, which wants to make its way back into the good graces of black shopping audiences, black shopping consumer base, whatever you want to call it, that they on tuck on the cool, that they reach out.

And they go, we'll give you a million, we'll give you two million, we'll give you three million if you post what seems like a regular picture in Target, no big deal. And it kind of just breaks down the barriers in people's minds of who's supposed to be going to Target who's not supposed to be going to Target. I don't think shit like that as an accident.

Cardi B is with it. She's up on it. She follows politics. She's in this stuff. We've seen her taking interest in this stuff. By the way, if she wants to shop and target, whatever, everybody do their own thing. I'm not excoriating her for it. She's off-code as far as the boycott is concerned.

But I'm sure there are many black people who are still shopping their target right now, even though targets on the run. The boycott has target on the run. and other places on the run. I think that that's on purpose. I think that that's an ad. I think you convinced me. Didn't take much to convince me.

It's very true. However, if she did get paid and she posted that, it's breaking the FTC. Loss. Disclosure 101. You got to disclose. If you got paid to promote an ad, you have to write hashtag partner,

hashtag ad. You have to let it. people know there are laws that are being broken with that if that is true if you are correct under the table no no you're probably so now see what i'm saying but table that breaks a law there not the nathanish about that but that's very good point i didn't even think that i just thought like that's cardie b she doesn't care she's like whatever which is also true for her to post it But I have to agree with you on this one. Normally, I'm against you on the conspiracy theories, but I believe you.

She'd be knowing. Donnie? Sweat. Let's talk about Keith Sweat. During a recent performance, Keith Sweat took a break in his set to get some stuff off his chest about why he's single at 63 years old. We get it. We get it. We get it. We get it.

I'm sick of this. I'm sick of this. I have a PSA slash rant, whatever it may be. I am sick of these boomer slash gen X men telling women how they need to be and demanding what they need from them. At the end of the day, basically what you're saying is you either want a mommy or a maid. And I'm not saying that relationships aren't give and take and that there might be certain things that you want out of relationship as women. There are certain things that we want. And some of those things may include like you like cooking or cleaning or whatever it may be or maybe a give and take.

But to say that you're single because women out here are not catering to you in the way that you demand is one. Now, you know, I'm reading Anna Tubbs book. So I'm deep into the patriarchy and these defined gender roles that have been placed on women for a long time, which all feeds into what the patriarchy is. So I'm very much so anti-man when it comes to this. But I'm sick of this mentality. It's like every week we are dealing with some old school man who is telling women how they need to be and demanding what they need from them.

When, if y'all go watch this video, look at Key Sweat. Look at Key Swet. How are you going to demand anything from us at the moment? I feel, I'm a... Never mind. Rachel, I get this. I'm sick at this. Rachel, I get this and I understand what you're saying.

When I make you a man, I will naturally want to cater to you. But stop telling me how I need to be for you. But this is my only thing that I don't understand. I get it. I get it. I don't really have a problem with what Keith's. Sweat is saying. Just like I don't have a problem with you

last week saying that a guy can't ride the mechanical pool. You're twisted my words, but okay. I'm not. I'm just saying. It's like, so because Keith's sweat is old and he comes

from a time where gender roles and relationships were more traditional, these things are eroding now, and he's like, I'm single because I can't find that type of woman that type of woman might not be as plentiful as she used to be, which means he's going to stay single

or either he's going to change the matrix by which he chooses a mate, or he'll be single. Just like there are a lot of women who want a traditional man and they can't find him anymore, and so they're single. So my thing to everyone is, either you find in a person, something that you can attach to and be with and have a connection with based upon that actual person or you choose a set of arbitrary standards that are difficult to find.

And I see that on both sides. I see that on both sides. That's fine. I'm not even disagreeing with that. The way Keith Sweat is talking to women, it's like putting women down to each their own, right? But I don't need you standing on stage at a concert criticizing women because they won't be your mommy or your maid. And I, and like I said, I understand that there might be certain things that you want. I guess what I just wish is if there's a give and a take

naturally, I feel like, or at least the way that I am, those things will just naturally happen. You'd be surprised you get some of the things that you want if there was a little less demanding and a little bit more give and take. Yeah, so this is what I'll say to that. Number one, I think that what he's saying does harken back to a time. I saw a meme. And the meme was, it took a lot of, it took a lot of misinformation to make a woman believe

that this wasn't good for her. And it was a picture of a woman. It was an AI-generated image of a woman. she was in the kitchen and there was a black man behind her kissing her on the cheek and then there were two kids next to them and you know she was by a stove or whatever but they were in the kitchen and it was like this image was great for everyone

and it took a lot of misinformation to make a woman believe that this was bad. When I saw the image I was like we never really asked those women how they felt about their lives and it turned out when they were able to talk about how they felt about their lives, they didn't like those images as much as we thought that they did, and their daughters certainly didn't, right? And so things changed.

I would also tell you that the men in those photos didn't like those lives as much as we thought that they did, that they were under a lot of stress to provide financially. they were under a lot of stress to be the people that society thought that they should be. That hasn't changed that much for men. A man who doesn't have a lot of money or doesn't make a lot of money

or can't provide or protect it still looked at the same way. What's really changed is our expectation of women in these relationships. While I think that's fair, I also think it's something that we have to be honest and discussing. So if you,

are a man and you are in a relationship and you feel like your job is to provide emotionally to be a true protector. An emotional protector, a financial provider and all of that stuff. There are a group of guys out there that go, okay,

what happens when I do that? If my role is still static in that tradition and a lot of people want that, what happened when I do that? The answer that they're getting back is, well, I do whatever I want. That is not. Sometimes.

No, no, no. By the way, I'm not even saying that this is like happening across the board. I'm saying to those guys that look at it like that to guys that say, hey, we can't split the rent. I got to take care of everything. They think that in a relationship that the give and take means that the other parts of their life will be taking care of. And if they won't, which is why once again, why you choose people, not based on the expectation. of what they will do for you, but in the way

that you guys can connect and build a life together. But you can't go from you can't ride the mechanical bill one week, so he can't ask you to come to next week. That's not what I'm just saying. That's not what I said, though.

Because if you want a man, if you want a man that's like six foot tall and don't ride the mechanical bull and only drinks vodka and all of that stuff and got all of this, money and do all of this, that kind of guy is going to ask you for some stuff.

That's not, yeah, fine, that's fine. That's not the type of guy that I, that I necessarily want. But I'm just sick of this. I'm just, I'm just sick of these men getting on the mic and saying this kind of stuff. I feel like I'm, I feel like I'm being attacked. Remember, this was my range. My initial range was, actually was 45 to 55. I tried 60s.

You tried guys in their 60s? Come on, we know this. Oh yeah, we do. That one wasn't that bad though. No, it actually really wasn't. It actually wasn't at all. He was not like this at all. Zionist, but...

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Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphaya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfair radio.com. You want to talk about the Swedish gospel choir? Vasa gospel choir, they're from Sweden. They performed at the Music and Arts Global Festival. I can't wait to hear what you think about this. Yeah, let's take a listen to the Swedes.

All white, Swedish. All white, not one black in sight. This doesn't bother me. It really doesn't. If anything, this makes me happy to be black. Because so many people, I'm saying why. So many people want to do what we do. So many people want to be like us, imitate things that are

particular to us in our culture. We aren't over here trying to do what they do. They want to be like us. This is why I love being black. So many people want to emulate the things that we do that are particular to black culture. That's what I mean by that. When I was on The Bachelor, I was in Finland. And I had been kicked off the show.

And when you're kicked off the show, you get to, they don't send you home if you're the third person because they don't want the blogs that follow along to capture you at the airport, because they've already been saying, like, oh, Rachel made it to this far, this far, this far. And so they want the top three to go home at the same time so they can't figure out, try to throw them off of who the lead picks. So I was just out in Finland for a week exploring Finland

because I had been kicked off the show and I'm with the producer. We go into this random place. There are these kids singing Motown music. And I thought it was like maybe like six kids. They had a teacher. They were, I don't know, it may even more than that. They were clearly a part of a school and they were performing. It was like we stumbled into their performance.

And the only songs that they were doing were Motown. It was the coolest thing. Not only was it American culture, it was black culture. And it just, it's so powerful that so many people want to be a part of it, emulate it, sing it. They weren't singing rock and roll. I mean, you know, that's black. Black issue too. They were singing Motown music. And I just thought that that was such a cool thing to sit there. Only Black. I was the only black in the whole bar, of course, in Finland. But it just shows how our music just transcends cultures, countries, continents. And I thought it was cool. And when I saw this, it reminded me of this too.

So look, obviously you guys know I don't fuck with shit like this. I can't act like they didn't sound good. It bothers you. I can't act like, it didn't bother me, but there are no black people in Sweden. So Sweden, I'm looking at it right now, is 86% Swedish, 6% other European, 2.7% other Asian, 1.9% Finnish, 1.2%

I can't figure out what that one is. is 1.2% Iraqi and then 2.0% other. So it's such a homogenous culture that if you like niggas that much

to where you go hoop and holler and sing gospel, let's some in. Let's them in. These types of countries that have these super duper homogenous cultures and then all of a sudden they moonwalking. I just don't like it. Like let's some

let some niggas in. You have a, let some niggas in, like have a, like have some. In Sweden. In Sweden. You already still. We would like to.

I'm look. What I'm saying is like, I just don't, it's fine cultures for everyone. It is, they sound good. I was not like it. It's not my type of thing.

That's my key sweat thing. I'm just the old niggil. Let some niggas in. There ain't no niggas over there. No niggas in Sweden. You think, you think if there was one that wanted to get in, they would allow?

Yeah. They will. Donnie, look up the immigration policies of Sweden. Okay? Like, look it up. Look up to do an AI fucking chat GPT search of the immigration policies of Sweden. How easy. It says the process of moving to Sweden is simple as long as you have all the right documents.

If you are an EU citizen, there's very little you will have to do. For example, EU nationals moving from within the EU to Sweden do not need to declare that goods at the Swedish border. I'd have to look deeper into this. I'll say this, though. If you go hoop and hollow like that and do all of that stuff, your population got at least be 5% black, African, whatever. Something.

We got to be getting something from Sweden. All right? I don't like. I don't like it. It feels a little cosplay to me. It wasn't the wrong. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Imitation isn't a form of flatter idiot? It depends. I think investment is a form of flatter. Imitation is a form of imitation. All right. Oh, I knew you would be into this one. Cocoa Golf. Congratulations to her.

She won't a fresh open. Congratulations. Congratulations. Yeah, big deal. She beat Arna. Arena. Sabalinka. Arena.

Are we sure it's not Aryan? I promise you it's arena. She beat Aryan Sybilinka. Why you keep fighting me? this, it's arena. I'm making a joke. Oh, didn't get it. Was it funny?

There you. I can deal with that. She beat her in windy conditions. Golf came back, Cocoa Golf. It's a set down. She defeated. She won the French Open. And Sabalinka had some things to say about the loss that rubbed some people, particularly the sisters, the wrong way. This is Sabalink on the loss.

And the conditions were terrible, and she simply was better in this conditions than me. And I think it was the worst final I ever played. Do you think there was a momentum shift in the first set because you started the match really well? You led 4-01. What happened at 4-1? Do you think that Coco got better or the conditions got tougher? Yeah, I think it was more windy and got more windy. And also I think I was over-emotional. and I think today I didn't really handle myself quite well, mentally, I would say. So basically that's it. I was just making unforceras.

Like, I don't know, I have to check the statistics. I think she won the match, not because she played incredible, just because I made all of those mistakes from, like if you look from the outside, kind of like from an easy ball. By the way, update to the Sweden thing. Apparently, Sweden says fuck immigrants. Sweden's government has adopted an increasingly restrictive

and critics say hostile stance when it comes to immigration reversing years of liberal policy in the area. So don't sing the goddamn gospel. Oh, they can't praise God. Let some people in there and get, God wouldn't be like that about immigration.

Let some people come in there and get some of that health care and all of that stuff that you guys got over there. Over there. I think I would have been. If they were calling it gospel, just to say, if they had, like, if they had put their own word on it, then you probably, I probably have a totally different opinion. Like, imagine if they were like, it's not gospel music, they called it like, I don't know. Sweet.

Swedish praise. Yeah. I would be hot. You know what I mean? At least they're still calling the gospel. Okay. I'm assuming that you had an issue with this. We have Cocoa Goss's response as well.

I didn't. And I'm going to tell you why, to use your words. Arena is a bad, always has bad sportsmanship when she loses. It's like if you follow any of the, if you follow the tiniest bit of tennis, you know that she is a sore loser. She does this all the time. And she very well could have some, there could be some racial undertones with this. but in watching her and watching and watching her play over the years she's always loses when she or when she loses I should say she doesn't always lose she number one when she loses she never takes it well

on the court she slams her racket she talks negatively about the people that you know beat her this is what she does so I wasn't shocked to hear her say this now I will say she has since put up a post you know, talking about her being a sore loser and complimenting Cocoa Golf and her play and giving her props for winning. She had 70 unforced errors in the match. Yeah. She didn't play that well.

She did not play well. She had 70 unforced errors in the match. We can concentrate on Cocoa Golf and the fact that she won the French Open, which is a fantastic thing for her. She's on her way up. But we can also say that in this situation,

her opponent didn't play that well. And she got up there and she said, hey, I don't feel like she necessarily played fantastically. I played terribly. Wasn't a diss in any way, shape, or form. But an argument could be made is the reason you played so bad is because Coco was so good. You know, she had you off your game.

She got in your head and she must give your mentality. It's a mental game. Error. Unforced error means an error not forced. You know this about tennis. I got it. I got it. But mentally,

Coco could have gotten her head. I'm just saying it, I understand why people, but it, and the people who are like, oh, it's black versus white. I don't agree with that.

But, you know, she lost. She lost. Lost. Number one. Tell you something. And it was also that she gave ups to another player

and was like, oh, if Coco had played this player, she wouldn't have won. And it's like, that's, That's whack. That she did say that about ego. She was like if she had played her, she wouldn't have won.

But my thing is, when I heard it, I go, oh, okay, well, yeah, when I look at the match, which I had no clue even happened. I only know that the French Open Final happened because Cocoa Golf won, no clue. I've been so out on tennis for so long. There was a point where I was so in on tennis. It's a lot. I used to be able to tennis, Agassi, fucking Sampras, Michael Chang. James Blake Andy Roderck

I used to know all of these guys you know and then now Steffie Graff Monica Sellis remember what happened to her Jennifer Capriotti I knew all of these names and now I kind of don't know

the people that play You go through phases Remember when you were the number one Voice and Wrestling Like you go in and out of these things So I'm still a wrestling fan But I'm not the number one voice in here Who is?

Who should pass Who'd you give the the crown tube? If it's not me, I don't care. So I don't know. I don't know who it is. I know who it is now. Probably Cass, Shoemaker, one of those two. But if I don't know who at Wale, maybe. This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Everyone knows Winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways. Catchup goes rogue ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be

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Let's talk about what's happening here in L.A. All right. On Friday, ICE agents conducted raids at a Home Depot and some downtown L.A. warehouses that sparked confrontations with protesters. I've got some audio from a witness of the escalation. Let's hear what he saw. We were at a stoplight on the other side of Paramount, right?

Over there in a laundra. Went out of nowhere in the stop. Immigration agents, eyes, all that came. You know, they came dressed up in all their military gear, and they stopped traffic. When they stopped traffic, we started noticing. And I told my girl, that's immigration right there. What they started doing was they went in.

in front of a business, a negotiation, and they started raiding, they started bringing people out in vans. Once they started doing that, that's when everybody knew, you know, what was going on. And everybody was there in the traffic jam, everybody, right? You're stuck in your car, in your vehicle. When they saw us looking at them doing all that, that's when they started throwing tear gas. Everybody was still in their vehicles. As soon, as one of the tiered guns. You said there was, who was behind you?

behind us there was a woman and her and her young daughter she was around 13 I kept in touch with them and as we speak she's in the hospital because the tear gas bomb hit her right in the face they were right behind us taking taking notice that we're not there to protest we were stuck at the light right but we're witnessing everything happening right in front of our eyes the tear gas explodes they come out crying out of their vehicle and they can't breathe they're literally on the ground I have the video, I have the footage, right? And so what do you and your girlfriend do at that point? We get off and we see everybody else getting off to record.

Peacefully, we do not throw anything at them. We're not yelling at them. We're just recording what's going on because people deserve to know the truth. This is why you guys are here. This is because, you know, these things need to be documented. So these immigration protests, I'm sure you guys have seen them in downtown L.A. some of the most active ones were in Paramount,

which is a city that I know well because during the pandemic, it's where one of the drive-ins is. So you go to the drive-in down there in Paramount, driving theater. It's about 15 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. But, you know, you saw them in other places. You saw some happening in Compton,

obviously downtown. And as things got increasingly more severe, the protests, you saw both a federal, state, and local response. The local response was the mobilization of the LAPD in full riot gear to get control of different areas of the protests, one particularly being downtown Los Angeles where protesters stood and impeded traffic on the 101 freeway. Then you saw Trump mobilize the National Guard, federalized the National Guard, to federalize the National Guard using

Article 10, Title 10 powers. It's Title 10 powers to federalize. Title 10 powers to federalize the National Guard. And, you know, huge amounts of controversy surrounding that. And now you see the National Guard out there and what the president says is to support capacity to LAPD. These protests are ongoing. They continue downtown and in other areas.

and you're seeing images such as Waymo cars that, you know, the driverless cars down there being set on fire, bombed out, and people sitting on top of them and all kinds of things. But there are so many different aspects to what's happening right now. There is the most important aspect to me, which is the ability of communities

that don't want ICE, raiding them, to communicate, that through protest. Then there is a pissing contest between President Trump and Gavin Newsom. Then there is the authoritarian power grab from Donald Trump, which probably looks at all of this unrest as something very positive for what he wants to do. Oh, no, definitely positive. So, I mean, start there, you know, start with the authoritarian part of it. I mean, it is absolutely what Donald Trump is doing, which is why it was just within 24

hours, he was already talking about releasing the National Guard, overstepping, because usually when this happens, you know, the National Guard is something both the state and the federal government can deploy. But if the federal government does it, which you don't, which you rarely see happen, where they go over the authority of the state, they do that in extreme measures. This is not an extreme measure. In no way, in no way, did President Trump try to work with Gavin Newsom in regards to whether or not the National Guard should be deployed? He took no time.

This is what he wanted to do. Even when he was, he said this before. These are the things that he wanted to do. He wanted to use military. We went to use the military force when it came to protesting. And we're seeing him do that. And even if you watch Fox News, like, I was watching Fox News before I got on the plane this morning, and I was seeing how they were talking about it.

And the way they are talking about it, even I posted on my social media, and I don't know why these people still continue to follow me, as if they're going to see something different. People are saying, it's rioting. They're talking about the burning of the Waymo's. They're talking about, the waving of the flags, the Mexican flags, as if there's something wrong with that. And that's not, if you pay attention to how this, the start of the protesting and how this is

progressing and why it started or why they decided to protest, most of it has been peaceful. It didn't become chaotic till they deployed the National Guard, which is what Trump wanted. He wanted chaos. So then he can say, hey, guys, look at all the things. that are happening in Los Angeles when Mayor Bass, Gavin Newsom, were begging him not to do that because it wasn't necessary

and they believe that local police could handle what was happening with the protests because majority of them were peaceful. So this is all a part of Trump's master plan. This is what he wants. He wants chaos because he could say, see, I told you so. Just to let everybody know that's not here,

Los Angeles is not on fire. Correct. What's happening right now is very significant. is significant because there are communities here that when ice raids are happening are going to be affected by those ice raids very directly. And we should say that there was a narrative coming out of the Trump administration

that what ICE was doing and going to do was going to go directly after criminals. Criminals and people who were a danger to society. Right. That was not working for them. There's been a policy shift and not so much a policy shift, but a tone. A discretion. They're using discretion at their own discretion of how they want to use these policies.

Well, no. What I'm saying is there was one thing that they said and it wasn't getting the job done. Stephen Miller reportedly had a blow up at ICE officials and Homeland Security officials or whomever saying that you're not deported enough people. You're not getting enough people. And what that means is that you can no longer try to focus on people who you think have broken the law or criminals. And I'll tell you why you can't focus on them. Because the vast majority of people who are here undocumented are not criminals.

So if you think that you're going to deport 10 million criminals from the United States, you're not going to be able to do that by going out to undocumented people. You're not going to be able to get a significant number of criminals deported, people that you know have committed violent crime or any other type of crime by going after the undocumented community. You're not going to be able to do that. So what had to happen was in places like Los Angeles or, you know, Paramount in these surrounding cities, which are exactly Los Angeles proper, you had to go to Home Depot's. You had to go to schools. You have to go to other places where you are going to be able to just get people

that might have removal orders on them or might be here illegally and then just do what you always wanted to do which display a show of force to America to convince people that you are tough on immigration. And this was the wrong community to do that with or the right community depending on what it is.

that you want it. Because what Donald Trump will do now, what he will say now, is that the federal government needs to have increased powers, either using the Insurrection Act or whatever the powers that he has, to control what's happening here in Los Angeles.

And he'll say that because he'll say, hey, this could be Chicago, this could be Miami, this could be New York, this could be wherever. And so you can make an argument that the image of somebody standing on top of a Waymo, a burned out Waymo with a Mexican flag, waving it, is not constructive. Well, and that's-

I understand it. Yeah. I get it. I understand what that means. Pride in who and what I am. That's what the flag represents. Right. Standing on top of a corporate robot, basically.

I look at the image and I think that it's powerful. But I will say that the image is powerful, both to me and powerful propaganda for the pro-Trump anti-immigration crowd as well. Correct, which is why I wanted to bring up what I was seeing on Fox News, because that's exactly what they're turning it. That image of someone standing on top of a burning car with a Mexican flag speaks to the dangers that the Trump administration and that type of propaganda they put out. out there. See, this is exactly why we're trying to move them out because this is who they are when it's exactly the opposite. And the reason I said discretionary to your point is, yes, they were supposed to be going after undocumented immigrants who had committed a crime or who were a danger to public safety in some way. But instead, I seems to now be moving in a more discretionary manner

and they're not following certain policies and procedures. And what they're doing, not a peer, it not appears. They are, in some instances, violating constitutional protections because they are arbitrarily rating. And I would like to use the word hunting after these people, because that's what it also feels like. So when you see some of these stories that are coming out, if you're turning it away from Fox News, you might be watching, either reading an article or watching something on social media, and you're seeing these stories of people, you're hearing of how they are rating slash hunting after immigrants. They're going to places of employments.

They're going to schools. They're going to malls. They're going to graduations. It's all these places where they are just raiding after people. And what it seems like, they'll handle it when the dust settles, they'll figure it out later. It just seems as if they're going after people, like we said, in more of a discretionary manner, as opposed to those people who are actually a danger to society. and people are getting caught in the crossfires

who aren't necessarily even undocumented in these instances. Right, that was the purpose of the clip to just kind of underscore the type of danger that communities at large are going to be under with these types of operations happening. And prior to the election of Donald Trump, that was one of the main things

that you heard a lot of people talking about, what you heard them talking about was to have ice or at that point we thought that the police working in league with ICE, going into places and having to identify who these people are and then forcibly remove them from wherever they were, was going to subject a lot of Americans to a lot of violence, particularly in places where black and brown communities have already have tenuous relationships with the police.

Now, what's interesting is you said constitutional protections. I had a conversation with an immigration lawyer. I talked to a couple of immigration lawyers yesterday. Not much that ICE is doing is technically illegal. Now, there was a policy that the Biden administration had where they wouldn't go into churches, they wouldn't go into schools, they wouldn't go into places of employment even for these types of raids. But that was based on policy.

Not much of this stuff as far as where you can go, from the people that I talk to and where you can extract people from was based in law. There's not a place that you're really protected by law from ICE if you are undocumented and have come into the country illegally. So it was a matter of policy about us not doing it, but Trump removed all of that as soon as he got into office. The only thing I would say, and I'm not an immigration attorney, so I'm not even going to argue against that.

The only thing I would say is the constitutional right that stands out the most to me is due process. So that doesn't necessarily affect the rating, but there does have to be some notice of what it is that you're being taken for. And you don't really see, maybe that's just the clips that I'm seeing. But also that obviously is the case in some instances where you have legal citizens here or lawful citizens here that are getting caught in the crossfires who are being detained or taken into these detentions and if they were afforded their due process

that wouldn't have happened to them. So I do think that some of that is happening here. So not in the, to your point, not in the way necessarily, but due process is at issue in some of these cases. So I talked to a guy I don't want to name him yet because I want

to have him on the podcast. I'm not sure he didn't actually consent to me naming him. Although he did let me record the conversation. Let me tell you what happened. I recorded the conversation on the Notes app. I recorded the conversation on the Notes app. And then the Notes app fucking transcribe the entire conversation.

What the fuck technology, babe, right? I didn't even know you could do that. The Notes app, I recorded on the Notes app, and then the Notes app goes, would you like us to transcribe this? And I was like, well, yes, I would, Notes app. One, I didn't even know you could record in notes, but okay. Yeah, and they recorded the whole thing. I'm looking at it right now.

So my main question for him was, because I've seen ICE go to courts where people are having immigration hearings. Yeah. And what you would think would be that if you were like litigating your immigration status, that in some way, the fact that you were in the process of doing something would be able to, stop somebody from detaining you or moving you to a place. That is not true. There are so many different facets to this. Man, the gentleman was telling me about the fact that because this is a federal issue,

that it's gotten to the point to where the Trump administration will move people around. Like, if you have an immigration, if you have an immigration situation that's going on in Massachusetts, They will move you to a different state. They will move you to New Mexico. They can move your situation to New Mexico where they might be different state and local laws on what could happen, right? They might move you from this judge to this judge

where it's harder to get a bond. They are making this process as hard as they possibly can with people that are already in it to make these people self-deport. He told me specifically about people that are so afraid to go to work. They're so afraid that they are going to be picked up and that they're not going to know where they're going to be,

like whether or not going to work means you're going to be picked up and detained and then move to Utah or New Mexico or someplace like that that some people are just going, I'll go back, which is a part of the strategy here. which is a part of the strategy here. Now, we have a guest. We're going to bring the guests in right now. It's very important that we get some actual smart people here for you.

We have Seema Mehta, who is a veteran political writer for the Los Angeles Times covering national and state politics. She's covered the L.A. immigration protests and reporting on the raids leading up to them. So we're going to get a better understanding of this entire thing. We're going to bring her in right now. Donnie, bring her in. For somebody that's not living in Los Angeles right now, who is watching all of this stuff on the news and just has the broad question

of what is actually going on? What would your answer to them be? It is, there are protests in downtown Los Angeles that started out peacefully. Then as we often see in these situations, you have agitators who can sometimes come in at the end to use this as an opportunity to sort of sow chaos. Also, I mean, there was obviously,

obviously the deployment of the National Guard, the federalization. of the National Guard, you know, the governor of the mayor, other Democratic officials argued that that was designed to provoke this to make, to sort of create a chaotic incendiary situation. And it got increasingly incendiary over the last few days. When it started off, it really did start off like this proof, you know, largely peaceful protest, but, you know, a couple bad actors here and there. But it got crazier as the weekend went on. But it is very limited to small section downtown LA. It's like, you know, L.A. is such a sprawling city. And, you know,

you're not seeing the most of the city. You've really seen it. in the life. And as we're we're podcasting right now, this will come out on Tuesday, but it's, it's Monday. What are we, where are we right now with the protests, with the response, with the National Guard, where they are? I know that there have been some threats of deploying the Marines. Where are we right now? I mean, it's, you know, it's early in the day. So we, we know that there are protests taking place today in downtown Los Angeles. And it's, it's really an unfolding situation. You know, Sunday was like the past three days, Sunday was the one that got sort of the craziest. And the question is, does that repeat itself?

And we don't know. Is there any central organization or groups that you can see that are protesting? Or is this truly a movement of different people that decide to come out and voice their concerns? I think it's a combination of all the above. You know, you have people who just organically were protesting what was taking place in downtown Los Angeles. But then you also have today, I mean, SCIU is holding a large protest because the leader of SCIU, California, David Hortez, I was arrested on a camera for Friday for Saturday. But he is, he remains of federal detention. So they are organizing a large protest.

We know that some politicians, elected officials are going to be down there. So it's a combination of organic protests and organizations. How has this impacted the raids? Have the raids stopped because of these protests and the national. Guard coming out and politics being involved, or are they still ongoing? I mean, that's also a question that we don't. There's so many rumors flying around and there's also so much fear. I mean, there's rumors about a school in L.A., you know, in L.A., you know, of ICE agents being there.

But then it turned out not to be true. There's also other rumors of additional workplace rates today and other parts of the city and in a nearby city. So we don't know exactly what is going on, but, you know, there's also a lot of fear. I mean, there's in the community. There's, you know, people who might not send her kids to school or might not go to their workplaces because of the Arab of the race. So it's still unfolding. But I think we've heard from the administration is that this is not going to stop.

Normally when there is this type of unrest, what you see is actually state, city, and local governments kind of on the same page. Federal governments on the same page. like, hey, something really bad is happening. We need help. Can you send troops here? Can you help us out in this particular way? You saw this in the LA riots, which I think, you know, in 92, there was like a billion dollars worth of damage,

over 60 people killed. And you had a Republican governor and a Democratic mayor both asked the federal government for help in that instance. The politics here are different because you have Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom, who in no way want to be associated with anything that Donald Trump will do or might do on this issue. How is that complicating actually getting to the root of what's happening in Los Angeles and solving the problem and keeping people safe? Well, and that's exactly right. I mean, you know, we see the National Guard out here frequently.

You know, in the wildfires earlier this year, the National Guard was out here helping people when we have earthquakes. As you mentioned, the 1992 Uprising Rights protests. But this is very unusual in that the president, you know, federalized the California and deployed the California National Guard without the state's consent or request, which we, I don't think we've seen in this country since the early 60s. So that is definitely complicated things. We do know that LAPD is now coordinating with the National Guard, but that wasn't happening initially.

So there was some tension there. If you talk to Los Angeles leaders, they argue that, you know, they didn't need the National Guard to do this. Like, they had it. Like, you know, the LAPD could have handled it, L.A. County Sheriff's Department, et cetera. So that is definitely one of the main, one of the many challenges that are taking place right now. And it's also, you know, I suspect that you heard that Governor Newsom and other state officials have said that, you know, that the state is going to sue the administration over how they've done this. Well, what capacity in this is the National Guard working with the LAPD? in? Well, I mean, yesterday what we saw was like the National Guard outside of the detention

facility in downtown Los Angeles. And then LAPD basically got called in, there were large protests taking place outside of there. LAPD got called in to sort of help move protesters away. And then that's when it started to get increasingly dicey. I mean, it got tense. You know, you saw baton swinging. You saw tear gas. You saw, you know, less than lethal weapons, you know, projectiles, that kind of thing, you know, put throwing in the crowd. You saw people getting taken down to the ground and getting arrested. So it's, sorry, that was my catch. Slamming into my table. So it's created a very, very tense situation in downtown Los Angeles. And we just don't know what's going to unfold over the next couple days. What are some of the legal issues that are raised?

You wrote an article about this, but what are some of the legal issues that are raised by President Trump sending the National Guard to L.A.? I mean, I spoke with some legal scholars, constitutional scholars over the weekend, And they argue that, you know, the president has, has brought authority to do this, but also that it's a sort of unprecedented use of executive power. And that they argue, you know, they argue that it's chilling and, you know, that it was really alarming. So, but I think the governor in the state are arguing that this is, you know, that it's unconstitutional. And so that's why, you know, say this is going to end up in the courts. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Um, so, you know, being that this is unfolded, and it's become a national story.

Have you gotten any sort of sense of what the political infrastructure of Los Angeles wants to happen here? Because on the one hand, on the one hand, they certainly want, I would think, a robust response to the ice raids because Los Angeles has long been

Southern California, really, a place that relies on the contributions of immigrants here. So they certainly want to send out the message that these ice raids aren't welcome in their community. However,

they also don't want a power grab from the federal government, from the Trump administration, to be able to dictate how they can deal with things in their city and their state. Do you get a sense of what they want to happen? I think there's a couple different messages.

I mean, in terms of the raids, if, you know, what President Trump, you know, was saying throughout the campaign and, you know, recently it was like, this would be focused on our, or immigration policy would be focused on people who have been convicted of crimes, people who have done really bad things.

This has gone much further than that. So what we're hearing from local leaders is, okay, yeah, if you want to, like, you know, focus on people who have been convicted of crimes, that's one thing, but focusing on just, you know, everyday people who are contributing in society is not okay. The other thing we're hearing from them is in terms of the protests, also a separate,

you know, two separate messages, which is, you know, people have a First Amendment right to protest and they're, they welcome that, but people don't have a right to, to be violent to, you know, to try to assault, you know, officers.

So it's, it's, both of those messages are sort of, are complicated and that they're nuanced, that, you know, certain things are, things aren't. Hmm.

Right. Sorry. Now, my, my dog's doing something. What are, We talked about this a little bit before you got on in the sense that, you know, we're in L.A. We're getting different reporting or seeing things in a different way than people are on a national level. What are maybe some of the misconceptions out there that, you know, that you could speak to of what is really going on as opposed to maybe what's being put out there on other media outlets? I mean, if you look at the imagery, especially some of the video from yesterday, it kind of looks like, you know, the city is like undersea.

But it's really limited to a very small part of Los Angeles. Like this is not 1992. This is not why, you know, Los Angeles are very sprawling city. This is not widespread, you know, this isn't even like the protests we saw after George Floyd. So the video, but also, I mean, this feeds into certain media's narrative about Los Angeles and about democratic cities, et cetera.

So I think the videos are being used. If you're watching it in another state, if you're watching it in, you know, in a red state, particularly it's, it looks worse than it is. I mean, I'm not just trying at all, you know, the vandalism and the violence that we've seen, but it is very limited in scope.

Have you gotten a chance to talk to any of the actual protesters themselves? My colleagues have been out in the field targeting the protesters. Okay. What are they saying? I mean, they're just, you know, they're just unhappy about how this is unfolding in the city, and both in terms of, you know, this focusing on, you know, on regular citizens, It's not just like, you know, people, not what the president has previous said about, you know, criminals, that this is focusing on, you know, random hardworking people, you know, at workplaces.

And also, you know, the upset about the, you know, the implication of the federal government coming into Los Angeles and doing this. I'm wondering, I guess my question is, I'm wondering, will there be protests as long as there are ICE raids? because if that's the case, then we might be in a perpetual state of protest for a prolonged period. I would really be interested to know that. And there definitely aren't. I think people are getting more organized,

so we're definitely going to see more protests today. I think the question is, how long does it last? And also, how afraid are people going to be to protests, you know, if it gets ugly again? I mean, what we saw last night was, you know, not great. So it's, at the end of the question, there's a lot of uncertainty, there's fear. And then there's a question,

how long does this continue? And with the Trump administration, I mean, the president is very unpredictable. So we know what he's saying right now, but what is he going to be saying at the end of the week? We don't know. And then do they, you know, there's been talk about Marines being deployed here. You know, what happens if we have Marines on the streets of an American city? I mean, that would take it to a whole other level. Or if he invokes the Insurrection Act or something like that, great.

I know that we know that Governor Newsom has filed a lawsuit. against what President Trump is doing. But do we know if Mayor Bass and Governor Newsom are actually working together to do something in regards to what's happening within the city? I mean, I don't, I haven't confirmed this, but I'm sure they are. I'm 100% sure they are. You know, the governor has gone here yesterday. They've certainly been in contact.

They, you know, work together frequently. And so I'm sure that whatever is taking place is coordinated. Seema. Thank you so much for joining us on higher learning, an unfolding situation. We're going to try to stay on top of it. We might reach out to you again if we need you again, okay? Thank you so much. The question that is coming back to me.

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We also cover it through the lens of being two El Niggados. And I decided to do something interesting. What did you decide? As I was making calls, Maging, as a Bacha. I just saw something for Baja. As I was making calls

to different immigration attorneys, I also started to just poll my friends. How many friends did you pull? Ten. Okay. And it wasn't long conversations, and some of them were text messages. Ten friends, seven males, three females. All blick, the blick pintas.

And I asked him the question, do you care about immigration as an issue vis-a-vis do you care about the Mexican or Latino communities fight against ice raids and being scapegoated and criminalized by the federal government? Called 10 people. Okay. Guess the percentage of people that cared? 70. 60.

Oh, okay. I was close. Oh, no, no, no, no. 60 don't care? 60, I don't care. It was four, I care. Okay. What was the percentage of the women?

All the women didn't care. No, no, no, excuse me. All the women cared. That's what I thought. Yeah, all the women cared. Now, let me tell you something here. And this is what I discovered by doing this little experience. So one male cared.

Okay. This is, this is what I did by doing this little experiment. First of all, before we get into this, do you think that black people should care about this? Yes. Why? When I say care, I understand if people are like, when I'm in care, I don't know if I necessarily say, hey, you need to be out there in the streets and, you know, protesting in that way. But when I say care, I mean, you don't need to be doing what a lot of black people were doing when Trump got into office and we started to see some of these immigration policies roll out. We started to see some of these ice having a bigger presence, raiding different communities, rating different places.

And black people were like, it's not our problem. It's not our problem. Y'all voted for this. And we've talked about this off and on in our podcast. And I've always said, that doesn't mean that every person who's a Latino voted for these policies. We know that, yes, a percentage of them did, just like a percentage of black people did. Yes, maybe it was a higher percentage than normally had been there. But majorities did not.

And we've talked about the different communities within the Latino community. So to lump everybody in is also problematic. I don't think it's fair to use that as a reason to say, well, this is how they voted, not our problem. I think that that's dangerous and I think it's a slippery slope. When you look at how these policies are being implemented, how people are being hunted, which is what I believe is happening, the way that things are being used at the policies and these agencies are doing things at their own discretion, things they seem to be lawless, they seem to be overusing their power, overstepping their power, I should say.

I think that you need to be afraid because there's no justification in that it was just criminals. Now it's not criminals. It's really, we don't want you here. You're not like us in a sense. And so where does that stop? Okay, if you're successful in this manner, well now let's move to another group of people who aren't like us, who we also want to put displace. place or put in a unfavorable situation.

You don't know where it's going to end, particularly with this administration. So maybe when I say care, it doesn't mean that you necessarily get out and protest, even though I'm not saying that you should or you shouldn't do that. But I think that you need to pay attention to what's happening because you don't know if that's going to now happen to you as a minority in this country. I brought that up to one person. You know what their response was? that it already happened to us

it happened to us first. So there's no fear that it's going to rebound and come back and happen to us it already happened to us. So the fear that's something... So it can't get worse? So this is what I would say.

This is what I would say. This is a political issue in terms of your world politic. The people that cared were to the left of the other people. And that's important to say. Because there are two different ways of looking at this. The first way, or one way, should I say,

I always do first and second. One way is that the struggle of black justice, particularly black American justice, is one that's very directly and intimately acquainted with American white supremacy that exists right here and that is essentially a battle, not just between black people and whiteness, but a battle between black people

and any other group that would try to skip the line to get justice. So any other group that positions themselves as as important or more important in the American Justice conversation would then be a group that you had to either shout down or not support because they are in the way of black Americans dealing with the original sin of this country

which is chattel slavery and then Jim Crow and then segregation and all of that stuff right so anybody that tries to position themselves as as important to us in that conversation is essentially trying to stop that

and that we have to be laser focused on what we want, what we need, and how we're going to get it for us. Because the biggest and most egregious sin that America has ever sinned is chattel slavery. Now, even in that, there's conversation because there are millions and millions of Native people, indigenous people to this country that are going to say America has a sin that is as great, or some would say greater, in the way that our land was stolen. We were ethnically cleansed and systematically killed in order to enable manifest destiny.

So you're always going to have different competitors in the oppression Olympics. But the thinking from these black people is that what we need is so dire and so important that we cannot be concerned about anybody else except for us. Reparations is a full-time job. Criminal justice reform is a full-time job. Whatever the issue is, wealth gap, full-time job. I know that's addressed by reparations. All of these things are a full-time job.

We have to concentrate on ourselves. Then there's another way of looking at this. Another way of looking at this, another political, social-political way of looking at this, is that the fight against white supremacy is an international fight. It's an international fight. It's a multiracial, multinational fight against a worldwide concept of whiteness and white power that took over not just the United States of America,

that took over the entire world. And that slavery, chattel slavery here, is a symptom of that rather than the entire thing, which means that whenever you can land a punch against that power system, you take that opportunity. And whatever cause might be behind the landing of that punch, you take that opportunity. Because what you're really fighting is Western white male power.

And you can land so many different, punches on that if you keep your eyes open to the equal rights of everyone. If you look at the definition of what it means to be a leftist, it's a society without hierarchy, a society that challenges the idea of hierarchy and seeks equity and equality for everyone. And that being black means that you're a part of actually that movement, whether you want, want to be or not, that your fight is actually that fight, whether or not you want it to be or not, that's the fight. And that's what like a friend Hampton would tell you or what, you know, Huey and some of the other people, the real black leftist would have told you that that

fight is actually a fight that happens not just here, but happens in South Africa, but that happens in, you know, in the UK that happens with all different. types of people that's happening in the Palestine that's happening everywhere. Those two different ways of looking at that are very pronounced and say a lot about your politic. I'm not sure that I'm, I know which side of it I'm on, but it is a choice that black people are making more directly than I think that they ever have. And it's probably because social media and it's probably because of, you know, it's probably because

of the information or sometimes misinformation that we're getting. But it is an intellectual choice that black people are endeavoring to make, sometimes not with all of the information or with not as much scholarship sometimes as you want there to be. But it is a choice. It is a choice. And I think that the equal rights thing to me just puts it right. in your face. How can you fight for your, for just, how can you say equal rights and only be fighting

for your own? It doesn't make sense to me. But what I will say to the people who are on the other side of me, I think to use the word black exhaustion again, to talk about that, I think you're seeing a lot of black people who are tired, who are frustrated, who are fed up, who maybe want to point to certain groups of people or certain situations or circumstances where they feel like, well, you weren't doing this for us so we all we got type situation. And although I understand that sentiment, I go right back to the equal rights of it all. I do not understand how you can say you want equality, but you only mean equality for yourself. I feel like that's that that that contradicts itself in a way. And I think when I say you when you ask me, do you care about it? I think there

are levels to caring about it. Right. If I don't think you have to take your eye off the prize to fight for certain things that you want for your people, but it doesn't mean that you can't call out an injustice when you see it, right? It doesn't mean that you might not give the same, you know, energy and spirit that you give to your own fight, but to sit back and say that's their problem, to me, it contradicts what it is that you're doing. It almost takes away from what you're doing. Think you have to call out an injustice whenever you see it, but maybe the energy you give to it might not be the same as you give your own. And maybe some people don't agree with me when I say that,

but I think that's also how you balance it out and maybe have your peace in it all. But I just am so against people who want to sit back, who can sit back and watch people being mistreated and treated as if they are not humans in this country and be like, that's not my fight. That makes no sense to me. Hmm.

It's not the way I'm oriented. Like, I'm oriented in the sense of the way my brain is organized. It's fair, unfair, just unjust. And if injustice is happening, I care. Right. If I see something and it's unjust, I care. What I'm hearing, though, and what I'm seeing, it's an interesting conversation, is even when you go back to the use of the term black and brown.

Black and brown communities are affected by this. Black, brown, Bipak communities are affected by this. Some people are exhausted with that term. Interesting. Some people are like, I don't look at these things as black and brown. What I want is a hyper focus on black issues. I want America to look at black people, particularly because this even gets crazier because when you start drawing these lines,

and once again, if you are a political leftist, these lines don't exist, right? They don't exist. If you're a political leftist, these lines, they're not supposed to exist. I see, this is where I would push back. Okay, go for it.

Well, no, no, no. I said what I said and I mean it. But we have different journeys in this country. So I do understand the separation of black and brown. I'm not saying that we both aren't minorities. I'm not saying that we both haven't been mistreated. We're turn on the news and watch it right now what's happening within the brown community.

But black people came into this country in a different way. And I'm sorry, there's a lot. There's a line in the sense that there is black and there is brown. I believe we can fight together for equality, but I don't think you can lump it all in the same. But you see, and this is the interesting part of this. But maybe I'm a hypocrite with that, But I just...

Well, that mode of thinking... And I'm not saying I'm not saying I'm better than you or I deserve more than you. It's just we are different. Right, which is essentially what the people who I talk to, that's what they're saying. They're saying, hey, that's a brown fight. And that's what they're saying. They're saying, hey, they're saying that's a brown fight. But you notice how once I...

I was able to kind of like turn the argument and use a catchphrase, you kind of understood like what it is that they're talking about. For me, for me, let me tell you the way I look at it. I was very upset after the election and I had to go back and check myself, right? You guys have heard me on here. I was very upset after the election. I was upset after the election. I was upset after the election at some of my pro-Palestine friends.

I had a lot of arguments. And the reason why I was so mad at them is because I was trying to tell them that I'm voting for clean water. Right? I'm voting for voting rights. I'm voting for citizenship for black people in form and function.

I'm voting for that. That's what I'm voting for. I understand everything that's happening. But what I'm voting for, what I have to vote for, is whether or not the young men and women that come from where I come from, whether or not they can go to the grocery store. Because there's one side that will work with us and another side that just won't. There's one side that even has to pretend like they care for political reasons. And the other side, their entire political mantra is fuck you guys. It's fuck you guys that you guys can't run anything.

can't fly a fucking plane. You can't be the governor, the mayor. You can't, all of that stuff is DEI. And let's get rid of your history too. So we don't have to talk about what we owe you. I cannot, I can't vote for that. Right. And I can't stay home because a loss means environmental protections are gone.

That voting rights are gone. That all those things are gone. I can't do that. And what I kept hearing was, well, we can't vote for the genocide of our people. where they come from. And I'm like, I was trying to convince people that there's a best case scenario to that

and there's not. And I became disillusioned with some of that until I caught myself and got over my own emotions and decented myself a little bit. And I also was, quite frankly, very upset at some of the turnout that I saw from the Hispanic community.

And I watched some people, we're going to talk about it later, vote for against what I thought or their own interests and vote for their further subjugation and their own people being ripped out of fucking schools and being ripped out of their workplaces. And I looked at that and I was like,

well, fuck it if you don't care, why should I? Right? But I think for everyone, issues like this always come back down to what kind of world do you want to live in? I have to be focused on what's best for black people. But I also don't want to live in a world where a four-year-old has to represent themselves

at an immigration here. I don't. I don't want to live in the world where people are callously thrown to the side for political reasons and that people make immigrants an immigrant class, working Americans, the scapego

for conversations that we should be having with the hyper-wealthy. Mm-hmm, yeah. That these people are actually the ones that are taking from you and taking all of this stuff from you when it's actually the people that have compounded their wealth over the past hundred years that have rigged the system so that they can hoard as much money as they possibly can

and continue to get richer and richer and richer and richer and richer and move these businesses, wherever they have to and fuck with the tax code and whatever way that they have to and then turn around and tell you that there's not enough left over because somebody else got here

and they're taking what's supposed to be for you. Intellectually, I can't do that. I understand both sides of this. I do understand the side of this that goes, hey, I can't care about this. This has to be a non-thing. I understand that. Immigration is not a huge issue

on the list of things that, like, get me going. I do get the other side. I just don't think that it's well thought out. Hmm. It makes a lot of sense. And I don't want to live in that world either. Yeah. It's tough.

It is, it's, it's, it's, it's, but this, but these are the kind of conversations that we should be having. having as we decide like what we are politically and socially as citizens of the United States and citizens of the world. Your poll makes me very

upset. It really does. Oh, Diggas wouldn't care. And I, and the thing is it's not I'm not shocked that people don't care, but I just don't know. How are you any different, right? From I mean, you're black, right?

So yeah, you have your own injustice, and I understand you brought up the whole black and brown thing, and I can see why you want to say, I'm focused on black people. I understand your frustration and your exhaustion. But how are you any different than the white people who are in my DMs telling me they don't care? I post a husband crying over

his wife who was at an immigration hearing doing things the lawful way, they denied her and they sent her back and he's got to take care of her six kids. And I got white people saying to me, send him, oh, he wants to cry, send him back, don't care. How are you any different from that if you sit back and you say it's not my problem? I don't understand that. Now I'm not saying how you have to fight, but to not even want to call it out or to simply say, I don't care, I don't understand that. That's why your poll makes me mad.

Well. And I knew the black women care. Well, black women are, they went to the, well, the black women I know in this sense are almost all to the left of the brothers. I know. The black women I know, I've met them through active. Name them. Name them. No.

No. I'm talking about they're just saying. Like, they're all to the left. of the brothers that I know. They're activists. See, and the poll wasn't really scientific because the black women that I know are active. And the brothers that I know

are like, you know, my homies that I've talked to. And they some of the answers you got, hey, man, then people want to be white. Man, that's such a generalization. Then people want to be white. They don't want to have community with us. Ask them how they're

different from the white people sitting back and saying they were sending me quotes of Latino leaders that we're talking about there's a lot of there's a lot of people that go at this particular point there's so many chips on the table

that we have to concentrate on our own hands man I get it but to say you don't care is powerful to say I don't have the energy to get out and protest cool but to not

that you might not feel like doing that but to not call it out and to say you don't care? Woo! That's heartless. Once again. If they're listening to this, DMB.

Let's have a... I wouldn't have a conversation with you. They was waiting for you to do what you was going to do. They said, we know Rachel going to do it. I was like, we had the whole conversation. Rachel's going to do what? We had the conversation about, you know, why things like this matter and what it really means to

want to reorient world societies. particularly the Western world around, you know, ideas of equality and equity and to want to destroy hierarchy. And they're like, I don't care about none of that. I care about niggas in South Baton Rouge in Alabama and Florida that been here for a long time and have never been paid or recognized for the work that them and their answers have done. And they should care about that. And they should. All right. Speaking of black people.

Civil rights leaders would have been on my side to keep going. well it depends on which ones it depends on which ones some of your favorite civil rights leaders were art and Zionists like some of the it depends on which ones it depends not don't know saying we go talk about a little thing too much

civil rights leaders probably would have been but the black power movement I said civil rights no I'm saying the black power movement they were deaf. That was definitely, I want to say definitely. That was a movement

of leftists. More so I can talk a lot about this and talk about some historical figures that, never mind. Okay. Donnie? Yeah, Lil Wayne released his first album in five years,

but it didn't get the reception. I don't think he wanted. It was the Carter Six. I know you both have listened. to it. What were your thoughts? Did we know this was about to drop? Yeah, we did. Okay. We know.

Van? Man. You weren't happy about it. I listened to all the reaction on the Carter Six, and I went into the Carter Six waiting to say that all y'all motherfuckers are dissing way in for clicks.

There's a song on the Carter Six called Peanuts to an Elephant and this is one of the worst records I've ever heard before in my life this is one of the worst records I've ever heard in my life

I just got to be real is one of the worst records ever and when I went on Twitter to complain about peanuts to an elephant and it being one of the worst records I've heard, not just one of the worst Wayne records,

that beat, that beat sucks, man. That beat sucks. It sucks so bad that not even Wayne, a God-level MC can save it. That beat sucks. And the funniest thing happened to me. So I go on Twitter, I'm like, man, peanuts to an elephant is crazy, fucked up, and terrible, right?

And then somebody said, go check the credits. who produced Peanuts to an Ellen. I want you to go look in real time. See? See? That's the same shit.

I want you to go see? See? Okay, I listen to that song. Is it giving Hamilton? Is it giving in the heights? So I go look and I see Liminwell Miranda produced that bitch. I'm like, yo, what the fuck are we doing, Doc?

Like, what's happening, man? Like, what are we doing? And this is not a diss to Liminwell Miranda, who is crazy talented, the Hamilton, the in the heights, the whole nine. It's not a diss to him, but he ain't got no beats, man. He ain't got no beats, man.

He don't had no beats. You could have named 10 people, and I would not have picked that. Or if I did, I would have been joking. That's exactly what happened to me. Look, is, is, is, I don't listen to the whole thing. There were a couple of songs on here that I was like, okay.

But I think he's past his prime, right? I didn't, I didn't know this was coming out. So it was like, when I saw it, I was like, oh, wow. So there were a couple of songs that I was like, okay, it's not, the whole album's not terrible, but it doesn't hit the same like it used to. And I just think it's just past him at this point. It's not, he not passed his prime, no, I don't agree. Well, then what happened?

This is, there's two things that are going on here. Number one, this is not as bad as what people said it was. I didn't think so either. It's not as bad as what people said it was. It is bad, right? But it's not as bad as what people said it was. There's songs on here that I like, right? I liked Welcome to the Carter.

I liked written history. I liked written history. I'm gonna like anything big access. Bell's was cool to me. Bell's got a crazy, crazy, crazy lyric on there that's whack. But Bells is like some of these songs, the written history is dope. Some of these joints are cool, right?

Alone in the studio with my gun sucks. That record, get that record though. Fuck out of here. MGK and Kodak Black. That record sucks, all right? This one with Big As to Plug, the hip-hop one, I'm like anything he's on. These records are not

crazy. The one with Bono fucking sucks. But like, that's what I would expect. And that's no disdibano, but it's not a collaboration I'm into. I like Loki's thing? Loki's theme.

I didn't hear that one. I fuck with Loki's theme. I like Loki's theme. Island Holiday, he actually he fucking samples Weezer. which is interesting is not totally whack

but it don't work, you know? Is flex- the thing is... Oh, is that the one with the Jay Z-E-line? Which one? Which one? Flex-up. What does he say? Something about the Super Bowl.

About how Jay said he sees him. But that's something about the same thing Stevie said to him. I can't remember. Okay. Anyways, I liked it. If that was the one, whatever one, I liked it.

Cotton candy, you know, I love. I love two chains, cotton candy. I wasn't really feeling that one. But what I will say is this, though, Wayne is still rapping. Wayne is still rapping. He's still rapping.

Every other decision on this album, I'm like, yo, what the fuck is happening? Wayne is still rapping. If you were to say that Wayne could not rap no more, that is what I would say that Wayne had lost a step. But he's still rapping. He's still rapping. He doesn't mean he can't be past his prime.

I didn't say he's, I said it. There are songs I like on here. And I don't hear the whole album. There's songs I like on here. But I can say he's past his prime and he can still be rapping. So he's past his prime maybe like creatively. Yeah. Picking beads and whoever is executive producing this.

Which is why I think there's so many collaborations on here, you know, which some of them I'm like, meh. But I think. This feature list is nuts. That's why I think he was trying me. When I say nuts, I mean, in a bad way, it's like, what the fuck are we doing?

Jelly Roll, Bono. Which one is, oh yeah, jelly roll is on the sometimes sharks don't, and then he got, sometimes Jesus ain't at the altar and all of that stuff. I couldn't believe it, man. Man, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. The way I know in the Capitol

only key to survive is kill if the elements more word of you, the vitals real for real. And niggas know I go hard to the fullest get involved. I got to playing dodgeball with bullets. Yeah, I got the sawed off fully in the Sean John hoodie. Get fuck, you play pussy. That's fucking Little Wayne. That's Little Wayne, man.

42. Slow down because I might be in a head. If I said, man, all's in your ball. Hot, boy, call me now. Matt, or Ellie, and you can celebrate and pop the don't pee. That's me that rock the hum beat. me and El Travis. That's Little Wayne, man.

That's Wayne. Fast. He's past. Glaze of the week, glaze of the week, you're on somebody's meat. It's the glaze of the week. Glaze of the week,

Glaze of the week, you're sucking dick. All right, before we get out of here, Glaze of the week, goes to Joey Minario, who is most likely an online,

Maga is of some sort. Maga darling. Maga darling. He's free to have his political opinions for whatever he wants, but he's a dick rat. And I'll tell you how. It says right here, he's talking about Donald Trump.

Donald Trump stumbled walking up the stairs to Air Force while with this thick ass. That's what happened. Donald Trump was moving all that ass up them stairs, thick ass. A nigga thick. Trump the Stalin. That's who he is.

He was walking up there, this thick ass. He had a little switch. Did y'all see that? Like, Donnie, played a video. Watch Donald Trump walking up Air Force. What? Look at a little switch. No, he does not.

He's throwing that ass. What? That nigga throwing that ass. Look at him. He throwing that ass. And what happened was his thick ass, he stumbled. And then Joey Minerro said, people said, Joey, Manorino.

Manorino. Joey Matarino. Reno said, people will say this is a stumble. It's not. This is what happens when you have massive testicles and you sometimes ship over. How many people like this? How many people like this? Bro, you on a nigga dick, bro. I'm sorry, bro.

How many times? You want a nigga dick, bro. 5.7,000. Okay, so there's a lot of glazers. You guys got to understand what happens, man. Trump got a different glaze army. Trump got people calling him daddy. Trump got people talking about how big his balls are. Trump got a different glazed army.

It's different the type of glaze. Look, the Democrats glaze. Don't get me wrong. Politics is a big glazed session. It's glazing. You got to glaze people. It's hierarchy. You got a glaze.

I get it. It's part of it. That's why I'm not in a political party anymore because I don't believe in just glazing people and not really looking at the fucking issues or the final points. I don't believe in that it. anymore. It's for the past. It was glazing. Oh, whoever you say, oh, the greatest person

of all, I don't believe in that anymore. But God damn it, his balls? His balls. They love everything about him. They love it all. They love it all. His balls? Like, his balls? That's glazing, bro. I'm sorry. Joey, Manorino.

This might be the worst one. This might be one. His balls, though. Where the fathers? Where the fathers? They're Talk about our fathers. Where's Joe's dad? Where are the fathers? His balls? That's crazy, man.

By the way, I get it. People happen. His balls, though? That's nuts. That's nuts. That's nuts. That's nuts. That's nuts, Joey.

Lays a week. All right, we're out of here. We will continuously keep you updated on what's going on here in Los Angeles. We're also probably going to talk about Simone Biles and Riley Gaines on. Thursday, then get a chance to get to it today. We had pressing issues that we had to discuss, like Keith Sweat.

But we will talk about it on Thursday. Take 10 caps off, but do not stop learning on Van Leeuwen. I'm Rachel Wynne. Bye, guys.