Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Breaking Down Reparations and Restorative Justice With Isaac Bryan! Plus, Threatening the Voting Act and Stephen A.’s Crockett Comments. | Higher Learning | The Ringer

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

Rachel and Van start the show by remembering the late legend D’Angelo and the issue concerning the health of black men in America. Then, they are joined by Isaac Bryan, member of the California State Assembly, to talk about assaults on reparations and restorative justice and his relationship with Governor Gavin Newsom. Later, they take a peek into the latest Stephen A. Smith drama and the reactions to his comments on Representative Jasmine Crockett. 00:00 - Welcome! 03:23 - Thoughts about the Gavin Newsom interview 14:42 - Remembering D’Angelo 36:51 - The Supreme Court and the Voting Rights Act 50:46 - Young Republicans' secret Telegram chat leaked 57:56 - Isaac Bryan joins us! 1:28:24 - Stephen A. and his comments on Rep. Jasmine Crockett 1:46:27 - Thanks for watching! Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Isaac Bryan Producers: Donnie Beacham and Ashleigh Smith Video Supervision: Chris Thomas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yeah, yo, thought warriors. What is up? How are there. He is on. It's Ivan Luton Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. We have Isaac Brian joining us on the podcast today. He is an assemblyman from here in California.

And he responded on Twitter to the news that Gavin Newsom, someone who was recently on the show, if you guys didn't see it, vetoed some. Some reparations bills. Yeah. Signed some, vetoed some. And I saw him respond. to that on the old Twitter sphere. I invited him. He decided to come back. We had a great

conversation. Yeah, he was great. About Gavin about the bills that were vetoed, about the overall climate of reparations and restorative, reparative justice. We've had this conversation before. A lot. But not with

someone involved in the politics. Right. So it's good. Someone who's been in the fight and authored some of the All right. He's a scholar turned a sibling man. A scholar. It's a long overdue conversation. I tried to what? You tried to come at Dr. Darity. Dirty. Sandy Darity. When I saw it, I said, oh, Dr. Darity, this is so relevant because we've referenced him so much on the podcast, rightfully so. We know how much you revere him. You refer everyone to read his book. I've even bought it. I have not read it yet, but I bought it. And or one of them. And, yeah. So he's a consultant. in all of this. So very relevant conversation.

Man tried to, you're going to see a different side of man. He really, I don't know if I've ever seen you like this. I mean, it was as if I talked about, it isn't as if somebody talked about me. That's how you are.

You were very defensive. Before I even got the question out. Just because I read from here to equality every single year. Every single year, the book is from here to equality, reparations for black Americans in the 21st century.

I really, it could, be, it could be the most important book that I've ever read. And you assumed that I was going one way. And I just had a question because I saw it and I said, let me get his thoughts on this. Because I knew he would answer his response. So Dr. Darity wrote this book, but he also had a co-author, A. Kirsten Mullen, that I'd never bring up. A woman?

A woman. Two people, a woman. I'm pretty sure it was a woman. I'm pretty sure it's a woman. Yeah, it's a woman. That he never brings up. Never bring up. Never bring up.

I've got to be better, you know, I've got to be better about, but I've been following Dr. Derry for so long. I bought the book and the book, you guys, I'll direct you to it once again because, yes, it is about reparations. That is true. And there are other books, okay? It is about reparations. That is true.

It's very true that it's about reparations. But it's also about the entire gamut of disenfranchisement, economic, oppression, actual physical oppression, just the entire history of the situation of black Americans in this country, looking at it through an economic, cultural lens, and it is incredibly eye-opening. The book goes, and it's detailed, it's scholarship. God damn, read it. All right. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

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Yeah, a lot of people were like, where is the podcast? Where are you guys? I mean, let's be honest. After one of our biggest podcasts ever, not to have an episode, it's kind of fucking ridiculous, but whatever people had to have. Here at Spotify, had the day off. We wanted to respect. Well, ain't no way.

But, yeah, people needed to be respected. I wanted to respect and honor Indigenous People's Day. I would respect and honor to Indigenous people. But, you know. We got to get these podcasts. I respect and honor them. Anyways, we had a great podcast. We're back again with another great podcast today.

What did I think about the interview? I keep getting so many questions. People, it ranges. I'm sure the questions I'm getting aren't the questions you're getting, but a lot of like... What questions you're getting? Well, did he look the same in person? What did he smell like?

What? I'm getting a lot of these questions. Was, is he as charming in person? They're calling him fits from scandal. What is this? Don't do it. What are you about to say? Hold on for a second.

Wait a minute. See, I want you guys to understand something. With this unsurious group of horny birds that you know they can't keep their eye on the ball? I got some of that too, but a lot of people were asking me. They were very curious about the way he presents on television, is that how? he is in person. I think a lot of people are infatuated with who Gavin Newsom

is as a being, you know, because he's very presidential. Okay. Almost like, like, that's what I come fits from scandal. Like, he looks like a Hollywood actor. So people are like, is he that way in person? So I had a lot of those. A lot of people

wanted to know how charming he was. Stuff like that. I answered accordingly. But yeah, a lot of the response that I got on the more serious issues or the questions I got, or just the comments were, you know, I came in one way thinking about him. I appreciated that he didn't shy away from anything. Some people liked that, a lot of people liked the way that we, you know,

I don't want to say pressured him, but we just didn't let our foot off the gas on certain questions or certain follow-ups. But also said that they liked his passion, you know? And then they were like, some people were like, is he for real? Well. Is he for real? A lot of the people that I know were,

I mean, nobody was about the horniness, but I get it. It's a different group of people. I think that we start to see, we're starting to see now, his response to the APAC question, get a little traction.

And a lot of people are covering that. A lot of people were interested in questions that we didn't get to, questions that we didn't ask him. Maybe if we stayed on one or two things too long, which is typically what we do here at higher learning, we belabor a point until the point has given birth, not just to children, but to grandchildren. Certain questions deserve follow-up. And the goal is to have more of a conversation than it is to, I got to get to this question. And then this question, this question, this question.

You try to go with the flow of the conversation. But yeah, there were a lot of people who, you know, that's why the conversation with Brian is going to be interesting. because there are a lot of people who, I'm going to put this. There's ideals, and there are standards and values, and then there is a political reality that exists in America. I think there are a lot of people left of center that might not be as far to the left as me

or some of my friends that are to the left of me are that are looking for a marriage of those two things, a marriage of how they believe society should be and what they believe in, and the political work that has to be done to get there. These people might be more in league with what an Ezra Klein would say or some other people who are going to say, hey, we need to elect pro-life Democrats in other areas so that we can change the landscape of American politics,

really from the middle, so that we can then push people that we are in political union, with and change the guts of what's going on. We need to stop the bleeding and have people that we can count on or push to do that. And I think that's kind of something that a lot of people are grappling with. Like if the Democrats are, you know, hell-bent on nominating, we just talk about president. Obviously, local and state elections are incredibly important. But the Democrats are hell-bent on nominating another corporate-centric Democrat.

What's the best that they can do? I personally don't like that. what's been happening. I personally look at the landscape of Democrats and wonder why they are lagging on some of the issues that the base of their party

and the American people seem to now be either ahead of them on or moving away from them on. Like, the want and willingness to continuously give a blank check to the state

of Israel, it's just, it's not going to work. Just as a political strategy. It's not going to work. There's too much that's happened. People want to at least believe that you are willing to have a conversation

with a foreign ally about their conduct and the way they're showing up in the world. How many of their neighbors that they have gone to war with, their treatment of the Palestinian people, all of that stuff. They want to know that you're at least willing to have that conversation. And look, I'll get to something. I'll address something directly.

there are some that believed that when Gavin Newsom continuously answered interesting, interesting, interesting to me. On the APA question. On the APA question, that he was implying in some way that the question itself was anti-Semitic. Okay. So I'm going to say something here, and I'm just going to, I'm going to address it because it's important that it gets addressed so that we can continue to have this conversation. there are a lot of places and a lot of people that you could go and say you've never really been you've never really had the conversation about anti-Semitism

and how it reflects itself in American culture and culture period and then you now want to have conversations that are critical of either Israel or APEC a lot of places you could have that conversation I just got to be honest with you this podcast isn't one of them it's not we have we've investigated the issue of anti-Semitism prior to October 7th.

Even within our own community? Within our own community, we've had conversations about the rise of anti-Semitism in the black community. The very first podcast that right after October 7th, we brought in different voices. We even brought in a voice where we could come together with the black community and Jewish people. Like, we've been doing this. Okay. And let me tell you why it's important to say this. It's not important to say this.

that we give our bona fides to that people don't think that we're anti-simites. It's important to say this just so that we are able to level the same criticism of a lobbying group that we have of other lobbying groups.

Way back on a red pill, I was having a conversation with the gentleman, I'm not going to bring up his name because I don't need you guys giving him a lot of grief, but he was a gun guy. I've had a conversation

with a couple of gun guys on the red pill. I am a gun guy. I own guns. But I'm what they were calling the gun community, I think a fud. Mosh told me about this. So Mosh Trey was describing

what a fud is to me. And I realized I'm probably a fud. So a fud is based, I guess it's based on Elmer Fudd. And it's guys that have guns, but they only want one kind of gun and they think that other guns maybe shouldn't be around.

So they're fuds. They're Elmer Fuds. I was like, when he was describing that to me, I was like, I'm kind of a fud. But it wasn't Maj I was having this conversation, even though he was on the red pill, it was a different gun guy I was having this conversation with.

We were having a conversation about a segment that he did and the segment was sponsored by Browning. You can go back to the Red Pill and you can see this. And I say to him, well, you're sponsored by Browning. So it's not as if you're going to go on that segment that is sponsored by Browning. Sponsored by a gun company, right?

Brownie, if you guys know, make shotguns. We used to hunt with Browning, shotguns, and all that stuff and be critical to them. You're not going to be critical. of them if they are paying you, right? Throughout that period of my career, in this period of my career, we've had very open conversations about the NRA and what the gun lobby does to the conversation about guns in America. We've had conversations about the defense industrial complex and what defense companies giving so much money to our politicians, what that does to our conversations

around military spending, like how materially the life of an American, is different being that we have to spend so much money building bombs and drones and all of that stuff. We've had all of those conversations. And when you have those conversations, certainly there might be people that call you anti-military. Certainly they might be people that call you anti-gun. But it does not put you in the traction of people that call you an anti-Semite. It doesn't. It's different.

It's different because of the scourge of anti-Semitism. what it's meant over the history of the world. You're talking about pogroms and places and all of this and the Holocaust and all of these terrible, terrible things. And when somebody seeks to put you in line with that, and they make you that just because you say, if in fact you admit that an ally of the United States right now is acting in an inhumane, genocidal way,

should you be willing to reevaluate and reassess your relationship, with that ally. And if there is a group that stands in the way of you reassessing of politicians having a conversation, a full-throat a conversation about reassessing that, shouldn't that be something that we should look at? Shouldn't that be something that we should say, well, if we can't have the conversation in good faith because our politicians are beholden to something, whatever that might be, isn't that something that we at least have to have a conversation?

Somebody points it you and go, well, you hate me and you hate my people and you hate the legacy of who we are. I don't know what to do with that. I mean, I'm being serious. And I'm willing to have the conversation right here on this podcast about the relationship of Zionism, of anti-Zionism, and anti-Semitism. I have no problem. Anybody that wants to come talk to me about that, talk to us about that, no problem with it.

But I'm going to reject that charge. And I'm going to say that our energy here is consistent in what we believe for people and what we believe for cultures of people and what we believe for people that don't live here or look like us or share the same experience as us. And that's never going to change. So that's it. Very sad news. DeAngelo has passed away at age 51.

You know, I never met DeAngelo. Me neither. Why is this bothering me so much? Because it's one of those people that you feel like you tie to a certain time in your life and maybe to a coming of age time in your life, at least for me, that's what I do.

And so when I think of someone, particularly in music, that I think of that way, I look at them, I don't want to say like as a family member, but I just feel like I grew up with them and I know that they were like the soundtrack to a certain time in my life. And so I was very big into Neo Soul Music. I felt like that's when I really tried to, like, was kind of discovering who I was. So that music really played a part in that self-discovery. And that's DeAngelo's music. Now, granted, the first album, when it came out in 95, I was only 10, but as Voodoo came out in the 2000s, I mean, or 2000, that's my teens.

So I'm becoming well-versed in DeAngelo's music. And even the last album that was, you know, in response to what was happening in our country and it being political and revered in that way, it's just DeAngelo was somebody I felt like I knew through their music. And I felt like I learned a lot about myself through their music. His family said in the statement, The shining star of our family has dimmed his light for us in this life after prolonged and courageous battle with cancer, we are heartbroken to announce that Michael DeAngelo Archer, known to his fans around the world as DeAngelo,

has been called home departing his life today. We are saddened that he can only leave dear memories with his family, but we are eternally grateful for the legacy of extraordinarily moving music he leaves behind. We all ask that you respect our family. privacy during this difficult time, but invite you to all join us in mourning his passing while also celebrating the gift of song that he has left in this world. I thought about this with DeAngelo. The music was so life-affirming. Music that's about love and life and circumstance,

it does feel different when we lose people that gave us that kind of thing, that gave us genuine inspiration connectivity that literally stirred up the human emotions in us that music is supposed to do. It feels when

DiAngelo made the type of music that you want him, you want to see him do good. And that's, I know that feels odd, but there are people that give to you such joy and such artistic bliss that you're like, you know, I hope they're having a good,

Wednesday. Hope they're having a good Thursday. I hope things are going, like right now, I hope things are going good for Jill Scott? I do. Like right now. But is there an opposite to that? Are there other people you're like, don't really care how you're doing today? I don't want to get into the negativity. Not that you wish bad on people, but you just don't care. But right now, do you know how good it would be to just be walking down the street and see Jill Scott standing in the sun and having a good time? Erica Badu, you know how great it would be for me to see Erica Badu standing and laughing on the sidewalk?

That would be great. I'm serious. I tell you are. It's like there's all kinds of people, boys to men. Drew Hill. Drew Hill. One time I saw Nate Morris came into the gym and Nate used to come into the gym in Hollywood

and he played ball. And I'm like, look at Nate. Nate's doing great. That's great. They made song for Mama. and uh, uh, ooh, ah, that was my joint when I was in like, you know, Motown Philly. So you, people give you such good emotion. They give you such a good feeling. I just hope they're doing good. Jasmine Sullivan, hope she's great.

And I think it's interesting you say that because as much as DiAngelo's music gave to us, he silently struggled with the fame and some of the attention, uh, that came with, particularly the voodoo album. And so, like, being regarded in a way that took away from just the music. And sexualized him in a certain way. And so it's just interesting to hear you say that because you're right.

His music did give us so much and made us feel a certain way. Yet, baby, we didn't make him feel... Don't look at me like that. We didn't make him feel that same way. Can I tell you all, DeAngelo's story? That's funny. So, Ryan Davenport.

a friend of mine. Shout out to Ryan. I got to tell him. I feel like I know what you're going to say. What I'm about to say? It's something about the video. It is. It's something about him.

And I always thought this because Ryan has braids. Well, no, it was not, they weren't comparing Ryan to DeAngelo. But this is a funny DeAngelo story that I remember. So I think it's sophomore year at Louisiana Tech. Yeah, it was sophomore year. Me, Ryan, and my friend Justin, this is at Carruthers' Dorn,

at Louisiana Tech. Carruthers was the private dorm at Tech. So you had private dorm. No roommate. I was in Carruthers. Both years I was at Tech, right? First year, man,

it was getting popping in the dorm. That's all I'm saying. Private dorm, you did... Move along with the story. So, uh, me, Ryan and Justin have,

I think it was like 721, 722, and 723. It literally was like, we had three rooms adjoining, and it was a fun time. we are having fun. One day I'm in my room and Ryan's girlfriend I can't remember what her name was at this particular time.

It was Teneal and Treasure. Either Teneal was his girlfriend and Treasure was her sister or Treasure was his girlfriend and Teneal was her sister, whatever. Ryan's girlfriend knocked on my door. And I was like, what's up? And she goes, yo, can I come in and watch TV? I'm like, what? I'm like, yeah. You know, I'm in there getting ready to go. she comes on, she sits down on the bed, and she puts it on BET. And the DiAngelo video is on. The How Does It Feel Video is on?

And she's watching the video, I'm watching her. I'm like, what the hell is going on? Right. And she gets up and she goes, whew, and she goes, okay, I'll see you later. And then she leaves. And she leaves and she walks down the hallway. It's on the elevator. She goes.

I go to Ryan's room. Of course. And I'm like, yo, what's going on? And he goes, I told her she couldn't watch that in here. I'm like, what? I was like, yeah, I told it, man. She's watching another man, all the whatever, whatever. She wanted to get all crazy.

He got her moving in all kinds of different ways and all of that. You can't watch that in here. You got to go somewhere else. And I was like, I let her watch it in my room. She watched it. What? I'm like, yeah, she sat on the bed and she watched. I think she was quite moved.

Got mad at me. Okay, Ryan, that's ridiculous. But I like her. You like? I appreciate the commitment. I'm pretty sure her name was Teneal. Well, I appreciate the commitment. Shout out to them wherever they are.

I appreciate the commitment of, oh, okay, that's how you feel. That's not going to stop me. I'm going to go right next door and I'm going to do exactly what I want to do. I like it. I like the energy. You're not going to tell me what to do because. Obviously, honestly, sorry, Ryan, it's a ridiculous ask request. And she said, that's fine.

I'll go, I'll get it from another place. And that place was me. And I actually, now, I guess the question was, if I would have known that they had gone through that. You wouldn't have let her watch it. I just wouldn't want to get in the middle of it in the whole situation with going on. But this is what that DiAngelo video had,

particularly the ladies at that time going through. I remember feeling like, because you know I grew up with such a, I couldn't watch anything. I remember, I watched music videos while I was eating breakfast in the morning before going to school, and the video would come on.

And I was like, well, no, I just was like, I hope my parents don't walk in because I don't think I'm supposed to be watching this. No, this is exactly what he didn't want us to do. He's a beautiful man. My remembrance of DeAngelo's so. No, I'm saying that, just, piggyback and know what you were saying before. No, yeah, of course.

He was a beautiful, beautiful man. But, man. Beautiful music. First time I heard Brown Sugar cruising. I was listening to cruising. My dad has passed away now. I'm going to talk about that in a second. But I'm listening to cruising and I'm into it. And my dad goes, that's that Smokey Robinson. I was like, no, that's DeAngelo.

My father was like, son, in this house, cruising is a Smokey Robinson song. Okay? And I was like, I just wanted, I had a little rebellion. It's DeAngelo. Like, you refuse to believe. leave it? I didn't. I never heard Smokey Robinson's Cruising before. I heard other songs about Smokey Robinson and cruising to me

was a DeAngelo record and it remains a DeAngelo record. Shout out to Smokey Robinson's Smokey Robinson right now. There's something that Phil Lewis tweeted. He tweeted out an article and then a list of names and ages and this article was about

how DeAngelo was 51 and this article was about how some of the deaths the high profile deaths that we've seen of black men underscores an issue with black male health in America. And he tweeted these names as follows. DMX was 50, Cooleo was 59, MF Doom was 49, Craig Mack was 47, Nate Dogg was 41, Prodigy was 42, Shock G was 57, Black Rob was 51, Irv Gotti was 54,

DJ Mr. C was 57, Rico Wade was 52, Trugoy the Dove was 54, Fife Dog was 45, Bismarkey was 57, and of course not DeAngelo. It doesn't even capture everybody. Gerald Aver was like 40. Yeah, doesn't capture everyone at all. So I'll say something. Real quick about this. You know, we've talked about this before about the life expectancy of black men.

And it's different in different places. I'm from Louisiana. The life expectancy of a black man in Louisiana. is 65 years old. 65 years old. I have recently lost an entire generation of black men. All of them. My uncle David,

my uncle Mark, my uncle Milton, my father all passed away. That entire generation of black men is gone. All of them. My mother's brother,

my uncle Hal, is still with us, and he's in great health. I love my uncle Hal. it's good to see him back in Louisiana. All of my dad's brothers and my father have passed on. Nobody made it to 70. No one. It is a gutting, galling thing to realize that the men that you grew up around, the men that raised you are all gone.

They're all gone. And the only thing left is memories, legacies, and wishes. And man, for somebody listening right now, you know, the average age of a white guy in Louisiana is 72 years old. Someone's saying, hey, that's seven years or whatever. It's a lot of hugs in seven years.

That's a lot of holidays in seven years. That's a lot of lessons. That's a lot of laughs. And black men deserves those hugs and those lessons and those laughs. I'm not so sure that the lifestyle of a hip hop star or someone like that is really representative of the average black man.

So I can't really say how this list really reflects on what the average black man in the South or in New York, wherever would be going through. I don't know. I saw some people make that observation. But this is real. And even in myself, you know, I see myself right now, I'm carrying probably an extra 20 pounds and what I used to.

It's something that I think about all the time, about how do I give the gift of my presence to people that that is a gift to? And what do I demand of myself and from myself to make sure that I can beat some of the forces that exist in this country and in this world that are trying to choke away my life force as a black? I was having this conversation with a friend of mine because we were talking about DeAngelo and it's just the same day that he passed. And we were talking about this very tweet. And, you know, she is a black boyfriend.

And we were just, I was just like, what do you think? Obviously, there's lifestyle, you know, the way a black man has to navigate this world versus a white man. There's obviously that. Obviously things that you've talked about when you talk about the life expectancy in Louisiana and being in proxie. to certain things that are harmful to black communities, whether, you know, in the environment and stuff like that. But, you know, she and I were talking, I was like, do you think that it's also the way black people, the community feels about the medical field or just a distrust of the industry

or even a fear? And this is what she was saying about her man. She was like, my guy fears going to the doctor. He fears, and she was telling me a story about how he had this excruciating pain, and they were in the emergency room for hours. And when he went back, he came right back out, and he was like, no, they want to take blood. They want to do all this. I'd rather just tough it out.

And so do you wonder, and I'm saying this, not to offer an excuse or anything like that, it's just more of what can we do? How can we be better if it is fear that's contributing to it or a distrust because of historically how black people have been treated when it comes to the medical industry is there a way that we can rally the community to prolong the life of black men, black people? Do you think?

I'm just too. Yeah. You know what? The most frustrating thing about it is that it's everything. It's not one thing. It's everything. We can concentrate on one thing at a time

and we can educate ourselves on one thing at a time, be that diet, be that lifestyle, be that stress, be that health care. We can concentrate on one thing at a time and we can highlight all of these things, but it's everything. If you are, and you know, you guys are just say what the fuck you want to say,

if you are a black man, living in this country, almost everything is engineered to keep you here for the least amount of time that you can be here. Everything. even in the way

I watch the Alabama solution on HBO and I watch some of the brothers inside of the prison system in Alabama deal with the lives that they are leading as prisoners then I think about the incarceration rates of black men I think about how black what a black man has meant to America

historically and traditionally. A workhorse of a thing that can die at any time. And then after he is dead, we can litigate and have conversations about the validity of his life. A thing. In America, in this country, we've traded culture for survival. We've traded culture. God bless you, for our ability to survive. Hey, I'm going to dance. I'm going to joke. I'm going to shoot. I'm going to whatever. Seeing, in exchange for that, don't kill me. In exchange for all of that stuff,

then I get a chance to live a life that's somewhat like yours is, where I eat better food, where I live in a better house, where I have proximity to things that, like, make my life a little bit better. And then once you can't trade that, once you're in a position, you can't trade that culture. I mean, we don't get respect to. for anything else, right? We're not respected for our contributions in science, our contributions

in academia or anything else that we do. The only thing that we get respected for is our cultural contributions. And so those things kind of undergird America's version of whether or not America's vision about whether or not we should be alive or not. And so it's interesting that you see a lot of these brothers that are in entertainment and, you know, cancer is indiscriminate in the way that it kills but a lot of times after their peaks are over you start to see a lot of the health concerns

come in and I don't want to speak callously because I have no idea what's going on in any of these situations but I care as much that these gentlemen become grandfathers then I do about the albums and the songs

and the stuff that they produce I care as much about that yeah yeah um to the health thing. And then we can, to the health thing. You know, I remember when my father was first

diagnosed with congestive heart failure. I was watching this. I was in my best bi uniform. I'm in the hospital. And he's got fluid all on his body. And like one thing that CHF does to you is that, you know, you pit edema. You can, like, you could press on his leg

and they would, like, leave an indentation on there. because he had so much fluid on his legs and on his midsection and all of that. So, you know, he's just peeing, peeing, peeing, peeing, peeing, peeing, because they've given us something to get the fluid out. And we don't really know what's going on. We're at the Baton Rouge General. The new Baton Rouge General, hold on Blue Bonnet.

It was new then. We don't know what's going on. The doctor walks into the room. We're all in there. My dad's laying down. like nobody knows what this array of symptoms really means he's laying down in the bed

and the doctor says well you're in heart failure like you're in heart failure and it's like 2004 2005 my dad still in his 40s which to go into heart failure in your 40s is is crazy he's almost 50

he was born in 55 so he's getting closer to 50 but he goes in the heart failure he's still in his force. And the doctor goes, yeah, you're in heart failure. My father, he goes, I'm going to be all right though, right? I remember the tension in the doctor's face because the answer is no.

The answer is, this is what's going to kill you. And my father, laying in the bed, viewed himself as someone who was going to be okay. No matter what.

Stuff happens. You go through it. Pain. was such a part of his life. Pain. Like you go out and you work, you pull in concrete, you're doing it. It's painful, but whatever.

Pain was something that he gave to me. It's a very important thing that he gave to me. Van, sometimes it's going to be pain. Like, you're going to get pain emotionally. You're going to get pain. Your ability to deal with

and overcome pain is actually what makes you a man. So the pain that you might get physically is just something that happens and then you get over it and then you're cool. It's pain, but whatever. and looking at my dad in the bed and looking at the doctor, I remember thinking to myself, this is not pain.

This is condition. This is the condition that you are in. This is the circumstance that you are in. It's not something that you can tough out. This is the reality of your life, and this will be the reality of your life. and to his credit he fought it for nearly 20 years until his heart just gave out on it.

And I just wish for a different condition for black men that doesn't involve pain. And we'll see if we can affect that over the next generation, but these guys deserve to live. All right, let's take a break. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess.

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on your Samsung TV or Galaxy Mobile device, navigate to the Ringer channel, and boom, you're in. Come kicking with us. Supreme Court, Voting Rights Act, it looks like it's about to be a dub. Well, we talked about this. We knew this. We talked about the Voting Rights Act. Specifically, we've talked about it surrounding gerrymandering and what was going on in Texas and the Texas Congress there, at least the Democrats, trying to stand against it and what was being done. And within all of that came this.

case, which has been challenged before. This case out of Louisiana, your home state, you know, doing great things there in Louisiana. Of course. Making historic. Historic. I mean, listen, my state. Neck and neck between Texas and Louisiana.

But we talked about this. This deals with, it's not, it's, it's, it's, so we talk about the Voting Rights Act has been, this has been in the works. What's happening isn't just with this case specifically where the oral arguments were heard in front of the Supreme Court yesterday, which is why this is getting attention again. This has been something that has been happening. Republicans have been chipping away at the Voting Rights Act for a couple of decades now at this point, or trying to. And this remaining piece from this Louisiana case is the final thing that they need to pretty much get away with the 1960 Voting Rights Act.

So right now, I don't think I really need to get into all of it, but basically this Supreme Court case is particularly centers around the 14th and the 15th amendments of the Constitution and whether or not creating a second majority Black District within the state of Louisiana is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause within the 14th and 15th Amendment. And the reason that this even came about is because when the new census came out, it was determined that black people represent a third of the population of Louisiana. but they were trying to draw a map that only gave them representation. Out of the six districts, congressional districts,

they were only going to give them one, which doesn't represent the black population. So then it was challenged. They got a second majority black districts. So there was two to represent the one third population, which is a fair representation. It should make sense. Of course, that was then challenged by non-black citizens within Louisiana,

that this was unconstitutional, and they were using race to do it, which is something that we talked about with Texas and the gerrymandering. They're saying, oh, it's not racial what we're doing. It's a partisan thing that allows us to do it to give Republicans more of a voice, and that is allowed through the Supreme Court. Legally, they can do that. So that's a similar argument that they're making here. And the Supreme Court decided back before to not hear this case. And so they allowed the 2024 elections in Louisiana to go move forward with there being two majority black districts. And then it was challenged again in March this year. And the Supreme Court said, you know what, this time we're going to hear it. But we want you to re-argue it. And this time,

we want you to specifically focus on whether this is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause under the 14th and 15th Amendment. And based on the arguments that were made in front of the Supreme court a couple of days ago and the justices will ask questions and they'll say certain things based on the way that they were asking questions and the way they were saying things, it is very obvious that they are going to say that it's not allowed for them to have districts based on. So we got New Orleans, Baton Rouge, grouped together, one seat. And then you had, Shreveport was the other.

the district that we had in there that was carved out with black representation so that you can have the representation that you needed from Louisiana. I think the most interesting part about this entire thing is the thing that you said. I want people to understand something. This was argued in March 2025. There was no decision by the court that was issued immediately. The court argued this to be re-argued on a. different issue. The court looked for the opportunity to nuke this. They took it upon themselves.

They said, go back and argue a specific question, whether or not Louisiana's creation of a second majority minority district violates the 14th or 15th amendments. They asked for that. And in these arguments that you hear these people making, particularly Kavanaugh, because Kavanaugh and are the holdouts here. What they are essentially saying is, well, we realize that the Voting Rights Act was instituted in order to make sure that there was black representation in places in the South where you have vibrant and dense black populations, but that you might not see that representation in the district map drawing so that those people are represented. What Kavanaugh specifically saying is that that was, meant to last forever, that it was meant to last for a time in this mythical time where America had figured out its racial issues and that we could then trust that all of the voting, particularly in these places in the South, which is where it's going to be most effective for the right, would be on the up and up.

And that we are there now. Right. That we are there now to the point, we've made it to the point to now that the representation of black people in these specific districts, we're now ready to have a conversation about whether or not we still need to assure that black citizens in the South, and everywhere, really, are represented in districts.

We're now there. Let me tell you something that I think is very important when we're talking about this. This is obviously something that this court that seems to be an activist court wants to do. it's a part of the DNA and the makeup of this court, which is another reason why I'm so critical of the Supreme Court,

period, abolish the Supreme Court. But I say something here. There's cover for this that exists in a cultural way. This is why the demonization of terms like woke or the ideas of pronouns and all of that stuff, the demonization of that, and the railing against that type of talk and that type of speech is so particularly dangerous.

And I'm not trying to connect to issues. I'm telling you something that I think is deeper and let me play it out. The term woke has come to mean annoyance for people. It's annoying. Like you hear something You see something that's trying to incorporate All of the concerns of a group

Whatever group that might be Into a cultural conversation And you go oh that's woke I'm not fucking with that I just want to have fun That's woke Don't tell me how to talk Don't tell me how to comport myself

That's some woke shit I don't like that That's whack we over that woke shit The woke has gone too far Okay what happens is to me is a codification culturally of an idea

that we no longer need to have conversations about where people are vulnerable or about what specific groups of people might need. So when you are able to demonize the idea of a society where you give a little bit of deference or understanding to someone that might have a specific plight in that society,

then you, to me, open up the floodgates for people to say, yeah, you know what? And as a matter of fact, we don't need DEI anymore. As a matter of fact, we don't need protections that Dr. King and so many other people fought for in terms of voting and representation because that is woke shit. It is a woke idea to make sure

that black people in the South have districts where they're represented. We don't need that anymore. Why will we need that? Like we're to the point. We're off the woke shit. And I got to be honest with you. It's not just white people, white supremacy,

in any way that have got behind the idea that woke is dead or that woke is bad or that woke is something that we need to move away from. it's become a sort of mainstream talking point from a specific cohort of people that were tired of considering your rights, tired of considering whether or not you get a fair shake in America

because whenever you did that, you came off as woke. Oh, it's woke for me to be able to define who I am. It's woke for me to be able to say, hey, it's woke. I'm not, you guys, I'm not saying that saying something and being told, hey, you can't say that

or you shouldn't say that, is the most pleasant thing in the world. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that there's a conversation that needed to be had about how we communicate with each other. I am saying this, though. We are not nearly, nearly to the point

in American history where we can pretend like racial, sexual, gender dynamics don't need to be consistent, and constantly evaluated for how people are living in this country. We're just not there. We're not there because we're not even trying to get there.

What we are trying to do with things like this and other stuff is to pretend like these things aren't reasons or aren't valid so that the good old boys can good old boy again. Yeah. And any time that us, people, that we adopt these things, we are playing into that narrative. All of this stuff is, is, if you think that's a leap, I'm telling you, the, anything that is making the good old boys uncomfortable is getting destroyed. The teaching of African American black history, inclusion at the top levels of a lot of these companies, anything that disturbs their ability to say the N-word and the, F word and the R word with impunity and making you laugh at it is being looked at as something that's a bridge too far. All of this actual stuff goes along with that. Yeah. All of this shit with the DEI and the destruction of the affirmative action, students of fair missions with Edward

Bloom, and all of this stuff is a part of that. It's actually a byproduct of what has to happen. And first, which is people's cultural acceptance of you guys talked too loud. You talk too long. Shut the fuck up now. Yeah. I mean, woke is everything that you're saying. I agree with all of it, too. But I think in addition to all of that, woke became not just something that's annoying to them,

but an attack on them. It attacks their very being. And I think the wildest thing about what's being done in the way the 14th and the 15th Amendment are being twisted for historically why they were implemented anyway. Yes, it was for equal protection under the law. But they're twisting it to say, hey, we're no longer getting equal protection because, to your point, as what Kavanaugh is saying, we're less racist now than we were back in 1965 when this was implemented. They're saying, so now we don't need it, because now it is an attack against us. Historically, that's not why the 14th, the 14th

than the 15th Amendment were implemented. That is not why the Voting Rights Act was implemented. It was because historically, the history of why these things exist is because of how black people were treated in this country. And so just the fact now that you think, oh, we're a little less racist, does it make any sense to say, well, we're now being persecuted? That's not historic. That's not happening.

One, let's just say that. It's not happening. They're not being persecuted. We are talking about things that actually happen in time in history. And the mentioning of factual things does not mean you are being persecuted, but that's how this is being twisted. Now, these things that have been implemented because they were necessary then and are still necessary now, and we will get to a story even more so, which highlights why this is necessary. They're now saying, well, it's being used to attack us and we all should be treated equally under the law. And historically, that is not why it was here in the first place, which is how they won getting rid of.

affirmative action and other policies that were implemented to provide a fair representation, a fair opportunity for non-white people. Well, there's one place that racism still exists, and that's Telegram. It's still alive. They've been able to keep racism going, but only in one place in their innermost thoughts when they think that nobody else is paying attention. It's alive on Telegram. over seven months

and 2,900 pages of messages sent over telegram elected Republicans and leaders of local groups young party activists in New York, Vermont, Arizona, and Kansas

use racist and homophobic language and invoked Hitler and the Holocaust. This was reported by Politico. There was a TLDR. There was a telegram group where all of the different factions of young Republicans were talking.

Now, there's been some talk that these were young kids making young kid decisions and all of that stuff like that. Untrue. The young Republicans for some reason... That talk came from our vice president. Yeah. These are just young kids. It goes from 18 to 40 for some reason.

And I should also say that these are people that like had posts, right? Peter Gwinter was the chief of staff to Mike Riley, who's a New York Assemblyman, this is somebody who has a job. He posted, I love Hitler. This guy was all over the place. He's in the Hitler.

William Hendricks, the vice chair of the Kansas Young Republican, said, bro is at a chicken restaurant ordering his food. Would he like some watermelon and Kool-Aid with that? That's very important because the Kool-Lade watermelon chicken thing is age old.

The fact that he is invoking that tells me that he is keeping the tradition of the age-old racist tropes that according to some should have gone away by now. Look, you know,

it's so you guys know. I mean, do you think that this was surprising to us? No. It wasn't surprising. It wasn't surprising. I'm not saying that people don't while out in their group chats.

They while out in their group chats. I'm letting you know. They while out in their group chats. They do. They while out. They wild out in their group chats. What you have here is 2,900 pages of elected Republicans and other people having some of the most vile, racist, homophobic, and derogatory conversations that you could pull up. And living in it and loving it and reveling it in it.

Then you expect us to believe that those people don't take those same biases into the hall. of wherever they're making law or whatever they're trying to do and don't act on that? Yeah. They're not doing it for fun. It is not for sport. It is for action

and it is for lifestyle implementation. And we're seeing some of this stuff like, I mean, not outright, like the racist rhetoric that's being put out here just like this, but the sentiment is being put out here from the government and even in the decisions that the court is making.

So when I made the reference before about Kavanaugh, And now he's like, well, things art is bad. No, they are. This is what's happening behind closed doors. And J.D. Vance, I think that his statement and how he's just brushing it off, do you think J.D. Vance would do that if it was somebody who wasn't white? We're not canceling kids because they do something stupid in a group chat.

And if I have to be the person who carries that message forward, I'm fine with it. And by the way, if they were left-wing kids telling stupid left-wing jokes, I would also not want their lives to be ruined because they're saying something. something stupid in a private group chat. If it was somebody who was a Democrat, liberal in any kind of way, independent, anybody that did not align with his beliefs or look like him, do you think that he would have

the same response? No. And my question to J.D. Vance would be because he said, these are just young kids. I don't want this to ruin their lives. They shouldn't be held to this one thing for just, you know, being kids, right? Which you have already said. They were 18 to 40. at what age should we start holding people accountable

for this type of rhetoric? That would be my question to Jady Vance. At what age do we say actually now you're too old for that? I would love for him to answer that question and he wouldn't, right? He would probably just say, oh, this is a distraction

as he said in all of this. It's just a distraction. But the important thing is, and you said this, as to who makes up this group, people who work in the government, people who work on within politics.

It's one guy as a state senator. These are people who are making decisions on a local level who probably have aspirations to be even more involved in the government on a national level. This is how they feel. When no one is looking around, this is what they think.

This is what they say. We are a joke to them. We are disposable to them. We are inhumane to them. As one of them talked about saying watching us is like going to the zoo. This is how they think and this is how they make policy that excludes, that separates us from them because this is how they view us versus how they view themselves. And so when JD Vance is like, oh, we shouldn't pay attention to this, these people will act on this because we're already seeing actions happen within our government.

Like I said, that is based off a very similar sentiment. We are nothing. They are everything. The response is actually worse than the group chats. I will agree. We should say there are some. Republicans who are, which I think makes what J.D. Vance saying even more deplorable, there are Republicans that are condemning the actions of the people in this group, even some

people who are a part of other young Republican organization on national level. There's a young Republican schism. Yeah. And there's all types of. So they are condemning it. They're allegations. There are allegations that this was made public by one young Republican group that's trying to get at the other one as fucking Game of Thrones for the young Republican races.

Right. So, but what I'm saying is, so even some of the condemning that's coming from them might not actually even be in good faith because they got beef is up with this group, which is why the fucking text came out in the first place. What I'm talking about is I watched the News Nation thing last night and I watched Adam Mochler as a Charlie, one of Charlie Kirk's producers or someone like that to just straight up condemn it. And they're having problems doing it. Yeah. Having problems doing it to me reinforces the problem, the issue that we're having right now. And the issue that we're having right now is just easy ways to say this is wrong. We need to be better.

And these people need to learn lessons before they're allowed to will any power in American political dialogue. It's just bridge too far for something. You cannot deny that this is racist. All right. You know what? Let's get to our interview with Isaac Brian. I know somebody with Isaac Brian. Let's get what he's got to say about Gavin Newsom, some of the things with reparations and everything going on.

Isaac was very well-dressed for this interview. Let's get to it. Okay, you guys, Isaac Ryan joins us today on Higher Learning. How are you doing, brother? I'm good, man. It's good to be with you. You represent California's 55th Assembly District, and it consists of what? Lamurr Park, the Crenshaw Corridor, Baldwin Hills, View Park, Ladera Heights, Culver City, Century City, Miracle Mile, Pico Robertson, Mid City, basically the west side and the south side of L.A.

So if you guys are listening to this and you're not familiar with the geography of Los Angeles, the places that he just mentioned. are some of the most important and influential black communities, not just in L.A. or in Southern California, but in the country. And that is not an oversimplification or an exaggeration. We're having you on the podcast right now because we have, first of all, we know a lot of the same people. And I've got to call somebody out right now.

So every Sunday I've been running over there at the Crenshaw, I want to shout out everybody at the Crenshaw Y. The run is fantastic. It's a great group of different characters at the Crenshaw Y that runs on Sunday morning. Yeah. You get a nice, when you start learning the backstories, it's such, you got dudes in there. It's like, I'm 22, I can still hoop. I'm putting one guy on them on with different colleges.

Another dude is an ex-Army, whatever. It's a great group of black man over there that's playing, and a couple of Hispanics. And one white boy. It's one white boy out there. But he's nice, though. But he goes, you. You got the big arc and shot. Nick May is my boy, y'all hear me,

mentioned Nick on the pod all the time. Yeah. And he's one of the guys that runs the Crenshaw-Wye, and he's a mutual friend. Absolutely. But he's never connected us. He hasn't. I'm a little disappointed.

What is Nick doing? I don't know. He's busy taking care of the community. That's crazy. That's a great answer. Yeah. Leave Nick alone. Some friend, Mans, man, to B-Vans friend.

It's tough. It's tough. Because there's a standard. It's a standard. Nick is my guy. my brother like I love Nick. Okay. I saw a tweet that you tweeted, and it is Twitter. You spoke directly to Gavin Newsom. Now, it wasn't based on anything that happened in our interview with Gavin Newsom, but it was based on legislation that he vetoed. Yeah. He vetoed five bills

that spoke to a record of justice for black Californians. And your tweet read, the governor and I have done incredible work across many issue areas. But this is beyond disappointing and we cannot stop pushing for what our people deserve, especially in this moment. What exactly did Gavin Newsom a veto that made you send this tweet out? For me, it was AB7, a bill that would have allowed for colleges across California to consider if somebody is a descendant of American Chattel Slavery in the admissions process. It was a carefully crafted, thoughtful piece of legislation that would open us up to a broader conversation about exclusion in our institutions of of higher learning.

Okay. Why is it so important? It's so important because with the affirmative action rulings, with Prop 209, we know that black students have been disproportionately impacted. We also know that our universities were built in many cases by slaves. I'm thinking of Georgetown and other universities who also were then barred from attending these universities. That's part of why we have such deep education gaps.

Those education gaps, particularly in higher learning, lead to income and wealth gaps. So if you want to close the wealth gap, you want to put more money in our pockets. You've got to let more people into these institutions. of higher learning, particularly people who have been excluded, and that's the descendants of American shadow slavery. What would you say to people who, like, so critics, such that bill particularly, who said, well, this wouldn't have been able to, the reason it was vetoed is because it wouldn't be able to withstand the 2023 Supreme Court decision on affirmative action.

I say bring it. We knew. We had that ahead of time. That's why the California Black Lawyers Association stepped all the way in the paint with us on this. We had constitutional scholars lined up across the country because Clarence Thomas, who's no friend of mine and no friend of ours, probably. said in his affirmative opinion of that affirmative action case

that if this was about Friedman, if this was about American chattel slavery, it would on its face be race neutral, which is part of the language we lean into while we're leaning into the legacy of harm, we're leaning into a lineage-based form of repair and not a racial proxy. If you're going to take us to court,

I think that's the kind of court case that black folks deserve. Remember, folks didn't want to see Brown v. Board of Education either. Right. So you're ready for the court case. We're ready for the court case. We deserve that. And you expect that challenge.

I would have expected that challenge immediately. In fact, Ed Blum, who funded the affirmative action case, was saying from the second I introduced this bill, I'm going to sue on it. And we're just saying, over it, bring it. In fact, it would be the California Department of Justice who had to defend this case. And it's the same Department of Justice

who helped anchor the reparations report to begin with. And so that's something I think we deserved and I think we missed this opportunity. You know, Blum's goal is to get these things to the Supreme Court. That's his goal. His goal is to get it on a home field so that then the Supreme Court can render a decision that's been favorable to him

in other fights that he's taken up, you know, students for fair missions, all that, stuff like that. If it had gotten to the Supreme Court, do you think that you could have won the case? You know, I'm not sure. Right. But I think we deserved that chance

and we deserve that fight. This Supreme Court has tripped us up before with some decisions that were actually favorable, right? Remember, Obamacare went to the Supreme Court, and Justice Roberts was the swing, a Bush appointee. And so I think we're a little more imbalanced than we were then now. But we definitely deserved that conversation.

And if they were going to shoot it down, then we needed to be very clear that the Republican Supreme Court, many appointed by President Donald Trump, just shot down any idea that descendants of American slavery should be given any preferential treatment or any type of resources. So folks, quit getting confused about who's fighting for us and who's not fighting for us because we got a lot of Trump supporters to believe that's the pathway to reparations. And it's crazy. I like this. You know why?

Let me tell you why. A lesson from my father. My dad was coaching this in basketball, which is a terrible thing. My father didn't know anything about basketball, right? But my father's coaching him some basketball, and there's a defender that's in conflict. And I remember my friend goes, well, if I leave my guy, then he's going to make the pass.

And when he makes the pass, that guy's going to score. So I'm on my guy. My dad was like, make him make the pass. Right. Put him in conflict. You're in conflict. Put him in conflict. Make him do the thing.

And if you made him do the thing, he might fuck it up, he might make a mistake, whatever, but make him do the toughest thing. I always think about that because sometimes whatever the odds are, it's about putting whatever is against you in conflict, putting it on Front Street, making them off balance, and getting that case in front of the Supreme Court, if for no other reason, then to show Americans that there is a part of this country that does not want to see reparative justice, a restorative justice, should I say,

would have been a very important thing. I'll ask you a broader question about Governor Newsom. Yeah. Has he been an ally in the fight for reparations in California? I think he's been an ally to black people. I think the fight for reparations is complex, and I think it's evolving. California is definitely at the forefront.

I mean, we have other states that won't even explore a task force, right? So not only have we explored a task force, we've established a formal agency in the state. Both of those happened under the governor. He's done some other things that have been very beneficial to our folks, whether it's on the criminal legal front. I mean, even this year, he put $10 million in ongoing money with me to increase the wages of incarcerated firefighters.

He ended the use of secret police deals where they sign away their misconduct agreements when they get fired so that you can't look up the bad shit that they did. He has been an ally on many fronts, but I think on this one, you know, we saw 50-50 at the end of this session, right? Why? Because 10 bills hit the desk and you only signed five of them. Back when I was in school, 50-50 is an effort. And I think, you know, I think in this case, some failures were made.

But I think he's got another year in office. And, you know, I think we all continue to grow and push forward. And I'm still optimistic that we can do more work next year. So Governor Gavin Newsom came on this podcast and he spoke passionately about reparations and what he's done for the black community. And he said that he signed a bill. And that was an announcement. It hadn't, it wasn't known yet.

And a lot of people were circulating that clip around and, you know, praising Gavin and Gavin Newsom for what he's done with reparations in the state of California. But then it quickly came out that he vetoed five other bills. Right. Why do you think he passed SB 518 and then vetoed the five others? You know, I don't know why he vetoed the five others, right? You know, I know there's a lot of people advising the governor on a number of different things. I reached out to him directly on AB7.

So I know he was thinking about it and there was deep consideration. But I think he also knew we have to establish a formal agency in California, that that's something. that he can do, he should do. It'll outlive him. It allows for the work to continue beyond him. And so I think it was important for him to do that. But I will say you won't see me in any of the photos of that bill signing because I couldn't get back fast enough because I was actually leading a delegation of 20 legislators down

to Selma, Alabama. We were at Brian Stevenson's lynching Memorial. Right now, remember getting the call that he's signing this tomorrow. It won't be public if you want to come back, you know, to be in the photo op. And I was like, you know, I'm actually here doing this deep history dive with a number of my colleagues, many who are not black, and having this deep learning experience. And as I'm walking through, I'm like, and there's no way he's going to not sign the other ones, right?

And, you know, a few days later, I was a little bit surprised. So for people listening to this, I think if I'll cut to the chase, if we take everything out, everything else out that we might have issues with the governor on or any political official politician on. and we boil it down to one issue. What we want to know from people is whether or not they are supportive of reparations, supportive of restorative justice,

or whether or not there is something that they are stubbing their toe on before they get to the finish line on it. I'm going to talk about Westmore, Maryland, in a second. I don't know how much you know about that situation. But as someone here who has done a lot of the work, a lot of the political work, I know, of course, there's activists,

work and all kinds of other stuff. I guess the question is, do you count the governor as an ally in reparations and restorative justice? Do you count him as an ally? Or was this such a setback that you have reassessed your relationship with him on this particular issue? I count the governor as an ally. I count the governor as a friend. I know he's got a good heart and good intentions. I think he made him political miscalculation on this one. I'll stand by that. I would tell him that. but I think I know him well enough to know that he wants to make a positive difference for all people and black people. Then why didn't he? I know.

That's the question I'm having too. But I know what the ops look like. Let's just be clear about that. I know what the ops look like. Tell us about that. Okay, because listen, the reason why, tell us about that. Because for me, a guy who is not, and listen, we've talked about this board, not entrenched in the middle of the political process. Yeah.

People say this all the time. You know, we're idealists, we're leftists who don't understand the way government works. I had somebody on Twitter say that, you know, I didn't know civics. And I understand civics in the way that it works. But what I want to know is that I can count on people to do specific and certain things.

Okay. So when you say you know what the ops look like, you're talking about from a political framework, a political sense, right? What does an op look like? And if an op is not someone who doesn't sign the bill to get you the thing that you want, then what is an op? Yeah, yeah.

I think ops can be significantly more dangerous than that. Okay. And I think, like I said, with the governor, he signed some bills, right? He signed this bureau into law. He signed the task force into law. There's some movement there. The ops are trying to destabilize the entire movement. I'll give you example of one.

I call them by name. Bill O'Saley, Republican, used to serve with me in the legislature. Some folks got confused by his rhetoric, by his maneuvering, and believed that he would be the one. to deliver reparations for California, despite the fact that he would go on Fox News nightly and say that he believes it's unconstitutional. And he was just whipping folks up.

He had the chair of the California Task Force sitting next to him in an interview, pumping this dude up. You know he's the U.S. attorney now over Los Angeles. The one who's raiding our streets, the one who's locking up protesters. He said some of the most anti-black things I've ever heard on the assembly floor,

but he spun up a section of our community to believe that the Democrats were so bad and the black bourgeoisie are so bad that we got to go over here. This is our pathway. And I think that's significantly more harmful and more destabilizing to the movement than somebody who makes the wrong political calculation one time and might seek to try to repair that in the future. So I guess with with him having such limited time in office. Next year's a big year. It's got to be. And you've even

referred to, you know, we're past the window dressing in regards to reparations. Do you think that based on what you've seen so far and with the limited amount of time that he will ever make a full commitment to reparations, or will he continue to kind of thread the needle? I tell you, I'm only on this podcast, and I'm only talking about this because I expect some big things from the governor in this last year. The entire legislative black caucus does. I'm vice chair of the black caucus, right? There's two million black people in California, the largest black population west of the Mississippi. We need to see a final showing from the governor, and this agency was a big move. These five vetoes were also a big move. And so if we call

this a watch, then let's close out strong next year. Right. And part of putting your best foot forward politically is making sure that even the people that you caucus with understand that they can do things that you don't fuck with and if you don't fuck with them, you want to put the pressure on to make sure that they understand what delivering for you looks like. But it's always, you know, it's call in, not call out, which is why I'm going to stand on the fact that the governor's a good man

and he's got a good heart and he's not an op. I'm just really disappointed right now. Okay, fair enough. Let's move to a broader decision. of reparations and restorative justice and the assault that it's under right now. Okay? Are you familiar with the veto

that Governor Westmore was involved in some time ago? Are you familiar with it? I am. What were your thoughts on it? I think it's a very different situation than California. California's never had a black governor.

If we had a black governor who sets the budget priorities for the entire state and then revises them in May and then formally has to sign it. in the budget, there's so much you can do. You almost don't have to have a task force. So I understand where West was coming from, but then you got to show up and step up and step into that. But I think what he was trying to get ahead of was the confusion that arose from our task force and some of the things thereafter. The problem is by vetoing that,

that confusion started anyway. So in many ways, he was in a lose, lose no matter what. Also, you establish that task force, it might not complete its work until he's already out. So does he not move on, you know, reparative justice or reparations until he leaves? or does he say, you know what, squash this, let's do some stuff right now. And I believe he's put several hundred million dollars into the budget directly to do some repair work and building on that. And we've seen that legacy in Tulsa and other places where if you've got the political will already ready to go, there's stuff that can happen. There were a number of recommendations, by the way, in the California Reparations Task Force that we were already pushing in the law. There were laws that were already passed that matched recommendations from that task force report that even I wrote before it came out.

because some of us came into office with that repair mindset. That's why we ran, right? You know what I mean? Reparations type work, reparative justice type work, mitigating the harms impacting our community, trying to help folks who are struggling, especially black folks. That's why we ran.

And so, you know, I think some of the politics around Governor Moore's decision overshadowed the need to just do to work. I was like, that's what I was going to ask you. Do you think that the reparation should strictly be monetary? Do you think that it should be an incremental approach, similar to what you're talking about with the road to repair? whether it's home loan assistance, college admissions, programs, or something like that to help out? Or do you think it should be a combination of both?

I think reparations in its truest form is monetary compensation. But I don't think you can get there without some formal structure first, which includes a constitutional precedent. You need legal precedent. For example, in California, we have Proposition 2 or not. It says, I can't do anything in the government based on race. But we have some things that we would think are racial proxies that are not racial proxies. For example, if I were to do legislation for undocumented communities. Undocumented is not a race.

I know what we are all thinking, but undocumented people can come from anywhere around the world and identify racially in various different ways. We have to figure out whether lineage-based harm repair can stand legal scrutiny. That's one of the questions AB7 was going to pose. It's one of the questions a number of the bills that he vetoed could have posed. There's been no legislation anywhere in the country that is specifically for the descendants of American chattel slavery. And I know that if there ever is anywhere, it'll be legally challenged, and that court case matters for all of us around the country. How does it with San Legal scrutiny?

I think in the ways that Clarence Thomas talked about it during the affirmative action case and the fact that there is some precedent, particularly after emancipation, for direct benefits for freed and freed emancipated slaves. Look, so there are, there are going to be white people listening. And I'll tell you something. nothing makes white people grown more than reparations. It's a groaner, okay? CT is back there and CT is running aboard these probably, oh, God, reparations again. Come on, man, let's talk about Kanye.

But it's a groaner. It's something that makes people think that here come the blacks again, asking for something for nothing. I want you right now. You're talking. You're very polished. You come in here. Look, look, he's just dreads.

Got the changes. You are, you're polished. You know your shit. You wish you had me on sooner. Make the case why reparative justice, restorative justice, why reparations is a fundamental issue

in American history, American present, and American future. Yeah. You know what makes white folks grown more than reparations? What? Being called racist. Slavery.

And grappling with this history that you know you benefited from, that you were not directly a part of, and grappling your whole life with what do I do with reconciling those truths. And many folks that manifest in trying to treat people right. And trying to be a good person and stepping up and trying to vote a certain way. Reparations is part of that conversation. You can't truly heal something until you were. repair the harm. Malcolm Max said, if you stab me in my back and you pull the knife out six inches, that's not justice. You pull it out all the way. That's not justice. That's not justice. Healing the wound is justice. Until we have full repair and full accountability for the harm that's

been done, we can never really reconcile the relationship with black folks in this country and this country itself. And we've had that kind of repair before. And when we did Japanese internment camps in World War II, right, we rounded up Japanese Americans and Japanese folks. We put them in internment camps. Afterwards, we realized that was wrong, and we provided immediate reparations for that. And because of that, we were able to move on and reflect on that history, learn from it, not do it again, but know that we've stepped up and made amends. With slavery, we never made amends. And now it gets scary because the amends become so costly, because the disadvantages associated with having been enslaved in this country have stacked on top of each other for generations. It's impacted wealth.

It's impacted job ownership, home ownership. It's impacted life expectancy. It's impacted every part of black life in this country, and that's a lot of repair that's due, which is why we can't shy away from it, especially in this moment. Last question for me, because I want you to respond to this. William Dherty, your guy.

Sandy Dherty. Sandy Darity. You love, you love, are you about to say something about Dr. Darity? Well, I did not know that he was a consultant on the California's reparation tax course. By the way, I don't know him,

but I would be honest with you. No, but you referenced him all the time. I look at him as somewhat a deity, I'm not about to say anything bad. I know how much you revere him. I read the book every year. I'm not about to say anything bad. The church of daredy is here.

What I'm going to say is, I did not realize, like I said, he was a consultant on the reparations task force. And he said that he believes that it is financially impossible for state and local governments to implement reparations because closing the wealth gap in California would cost more than the entire state budget. Yeah. What's your response to that? And I guess more so it's like speaking to people.

who are critical of reparations. If someone like, you know, Dr. Darity is saying that it's actually impossible to do, how is it that black people achieve reparation? Can I clarify something real quick? All right, I'm caping right now. But I think that the reason why he might be saying that is because his focus might be on a federal...

He's talking about $14 trillion. Yeah. So he's talking about $14 trillion of reparations and that can't happen at a state level. he's keeping his target on what he believes the federal government's responsibility is for reparation.

That might be why he's saying that. I'm sorry. I wasn't saying it in a critical way. I wanted to respond because I know that that is a thought that people have. Oh, it's going to cost the state too much. I even think Gavin Newsom said something about one of the times he vetoed a bill

is because it didn't fit within the budget. So I think it's important to address someone who you love, made reference to it. And then the governor himself has made reference to that as well about the budget, if you could address that. Yeah, so I definitely agree with what Van said about, you know, Darity has always had a focus on the federal government making these amends.

I actually didn't believe the states should jump into this at all. And that's a valid perspective to have as a scholar. Interestingly enough, a little more on my background, I came out of UCLA before I was in office. I founded the Black Policy Project at UCLA. I was the first expert witness to testify for Dr. Shirley Weber in support of the task force. I wasn't even in office yet. I was just a scholar at UCLA.

I'm cited in the criminal justice section of the reparations report. I think like a half dozen times. The black policy project that I founded did the economic analysis that is in the report. Professor Michael Stoll came out of MIT faculty over at the school of public policy at UCLA, did that work, incredible black scholar. And so just some scholarship background. I respect Dr. Daredes' work. I respect his belief that the federal government should bear this burden alone.

I also think we all have to do our part. We have to do it on an individual level, and we have to do it at a state level. I think if we can even do it even more micro-targeted at a county, at a city level, whatever we can do to improve the conditions of black life or for struggling people, and especially those who can trace their lineage back to the greatest sin in our country's history, we have to do that. So if we can't do it all at once, that's our right. Take a step forward and take more step forward.

Just don't send us backwards. Yeah, that probably has to do with even something like Bruce's Beach. Correct. It is a very specific injurious thing that happened to a specific community that you can make right through legislation and all of that stuff like that. I'll give you another example right here in South L.A. Not far from the Crenshaw YMCA,

the largest urban oil field in the country, the Inglewood oil field, right? You see it coming up at LAX. Black folks live all around it. It's been harming our life expectancy. It's been lowering our life expectancy, higher asthma rates, higher rates of heart condition. We passed a piece of legislation two years ago

to close that oil field by 2030 and requires that oil company to pay an annual fine of nearly $20 million that can only be reinvested within two miles of that oil field. That's black communities. That's environmental reparation. That's justice right there. That's justice right there. And the governor signed that bill in the field.

Another reason I'm not going to call this man an op, right? I think you've got to call some folks in, let them know when you think they've made a mistake, but you've got to continue to do the work. And the governor has done a lot of the work, and our community has benefited from that work. But we need to see a strong final year. But that's an example of what I would call environmental reparations. It doesn't get us everything we need, but that's justice.

Yeah. Last question before you get out of here, and we really appreciate your time. And shame on Nick. Reparations is a conversation that we've seen explode. Yeah. Explode. I want to give credit to a lot of people. Now, sometimes when you say these names, people don't like it.

Sure. Okay. But if you talk about Aidos, If you talk about tone talks, if you talk about Evert Cornell, if you talk about people. Tone is a constituent. Okay, exactly. UCLA grad, right?

Yeah. Yeah. You talk about these people going a long time ago, and there's so many different political factions that exist inside of black America. But this fight has been going on. I remember first hearing about reparations coming back to the forefront, mid-2010s, or even earlier than that. People have been working a lot longer than that.

But when you see it on Twitter and you see this and you see it, you see it start to happen and people are saying this is the issue for black people of our times. Another thing that goes along with that sometimes is the conversation about who is entitled to these reparations. Right. And it's a conversation that sometimes people think drifts into identity, xenophobia. Right. Right. When we talk about specifically black Americans. Aidos or FBA or however you want to put it I am as that as it gets Sure

My people come from the soil Of South Louisiana Yeah And we I trace my, this is my ancestral home Sure I trace my lineage all the way back To those people Right

That did that thing there I understand that Who is entitled to the reparations How are they entitled to them Is in any way the cultural part of this limiting or dissecting or harmful to the idea of a strong

diaspora of black people even here in America. That's a beautiful question. And we were just talking about our roots in Dallas County, Texas. I believe when you're talking about reparations Dallas. I don't know why you got a whole way. He was born in Irving.

Oh, you was born in Irving? I don't know why. I just felt like if we went back far enough, I might see some Trinidad and Tobago or whatever, but that's okay. I think if you're talking about reparations, that's repair for folks who are harmed. And the folks who were harmed in this country by American chattel slavery were the folks who were enslaved during American chattel slavery

and their descendants. That doesn't mean that we're, you know, not also required to root out systemic racism, right, and systemic injustice. We can fight for all black people and also be very clear about who's deserving specifically of reparations for American shadow slavery. And there are other countries that have to engage in this conversation with people in their country, right?

Because we know that the slave trade impacted more than just the United States. But our responsibility here is to take care of the folks who were enslaved here and their descendants thereafter. But I think it's also why we don't want to get too lost in some of the tribal cultural fights internally in the community or externally. And I'll give you an example of that. When the military is rolling down through our streets and the Supreme Court is saying racial profiling is okay.

And they're nabbing folks without due process and not allowing them to have lawyers, that is also a black issue. So you might say like, hey, these brown folks doing this, no, no, no. That's a solidarity moment. And we have to step up in that moment, too, right? We can fight for reparations. We can fight for all black people. And we can fight for systems that are fair to all people because we know when they're

harming somebody, we're not too far off that list. Isaac, Brian, I hope to see you out there hooping, bro. Because I'm ready, bro. I'm just letting you know. You said Sundays. I'm just Sundays. Man. Chris y'all Y.

Y. Y'all come out there. We can hoop. I'll just let you know I'm getting my game back. I talked about it that, you know, my knees was hurting. I've been rehabbing my kids. We don't want to hear about them knees, man. I'm 45 years old. I'm saying I've been getting my game back.

Just asking people, I've been getting my game back. Well, you can go witness it for us. Report back is really happening down there on Sundays. We are excited to be connected with you. And we are going to keep our eyes on this issue. Please. We're going to keep our eyes. on this issue. I think there are a lot of people

that are listening right now that I wouldn't say that they're surprised, but I'll put you like this. Once again, we have the ability on the podcast to not have to go give votes, to not have to go shake hands,

to not have to go negotiate anything. Right. We get the opportunity. We are legitimately looking at the players on the field and going, that's a bad play call. Right. And then eating the wings, right? Right. But we are also the governed.

We are the people that these policies are going to affect. And we want to make sure that we have a say in them. I think that a lot of people might be surprised to hear that you have such a good relationship with Governor Newsom. I know Governor Newsom can be a polarizing character. But I think it was important to hear that you guys have been able to get a lot of good work done. But you expect more out of him. And we can expect more out of people, even that we are in political agreement with most of the time. And so I think that was an important message to hear

and we will support you as you make your run the governor. Like, come on. He's always trying to get somebody to make an announcement. This took a time, man. We would love to see that. I mean, that's my thing is always, I'll always leave these people and be like, hey, why don't you do it?

Like, I'll support you, okay? At least you won't be mean the people that's interviewing you like some other people. You know what, that's it. That's it. That's it. I appreciate you, bro. Thank you so much for me.

Thank you for joining us on higher learning, man. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 US-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more.

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I like what the young brother had to say. I'm sure we will need him on in the future. We certainly will. Stephen A. Smith. We're getting to a point with him. Well, we're getting to a point where I'm about to not even want to talk about it. Why?

Because I... Okay, so that's to cut you off, but Stephen A. Smith had some words about Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett on his podcast. Play it. When I point to a Jasmine Crockett is because here's what I know.

All I ever hear her doing is going off about Trump. Ladies and gentlemen, can I tell you what my belief is? I have no desire to be a politician. Let me reiterate that. And I appreciate House Leader, Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffrey, speaking to me in the way that he did by saying that I speak with the frustration of the American people because you damn right I do. Let me tell you what gets me annoyed.

And I hope Jasmine Crockett is listening to this. By the way, she's welcome on the show. When you go on national television and you call him the president in the United States out of his name and you being all disrespectful, as a representative in this country, do you believe the citizens of Texas sent you there to do that? They don't like them either. I'm talking about those who voted for her in all likelihood.

But because he is who he is and he is in that position, they expect you to go to Capitol Hill and figure out a way to maneuver yourself through that terrain. to work in a fashion that's going to facilitate getting things done on behalf of your constituents. That's your job! That's your job! Excuse my language on Sirius XM,

but it ain't your job to say, he ain't shit. He ain't worth a damn. That's not your job! Anybody can do that! He's a dealmaker. And if you figure out a way to make him look good in any way, quit pro quo is something he lives by. He'll reciprocate.

If you know that, why you can't figure it out? Is that hard? All right. So Stephen A. Smith had that to say about Jasmine Crockett, to which he was highly criticized. Highly criticized from people within the community, for people saying, why would you even, or are you going after her?

He's making accusations as if she's never done anything without even knowing her track record on all the things that she has done and continues to do in the committees that she sits on within Congress. Jasmine Crockett does a lot, in addition to calling out the other side. as one should. She represents the district that my parents live in. That is exactly the type of person

that I want representing us, one who gets things done, but equally keeps her foot on their necks. That's what I want. I don't want to sit in silence. I want to feel, I feel Jasmine Crockett when she is speaking. I want to feel that you are just as passionate, just as upset about the things that are happening as your constituents. That is what I want. So a lot of people had issues with what he has to say and then wondered, why are you going after Jasmine Crockett when there are other people who are equally as critical and don't look like, and aren't a black woman? So particularly people were saying, some people were saying he should be canceled. Some people were saying, hey, this is just you, you're being misogynistic.

You're going after a woman, particularly a black woman. And then Stephen A had this to say, to follow up in response. But I'm not y'all. And the one thing that will never happen, I will never succumb to. I will never surrender to. Never, never surrender. Is somebody intimidating and trying to rally folks against me to quell what I have to say? Bump that. Bump it.

I ain't built that way. Facts are facts. Jasmine Crockett is a representative out of Texas. That is a fact. Who I believes hearts in the right place is incredibly passionate. That's an opinion. Definitely intelligent with a damn good way. Keep playing.

All I'm saying is is that. At some point in time when you want to get things done, you got to walk across the aisle and deal with people that you don't want to deal with. I've been in this business for over 30 years. It's a fact. There is a level of success that I have been blessed and fortunate by God to achieve.

There is no doubt that I have encountered people that I believe are racist as hell or no good or certainly didn't have our communities interests at heart in any way. And somehow, some way, you have to work with them. Okay. You have to work for them sometimes. Oh, wow.

You have to deal with them. Even here on YouTube, do you know something? No, tell me. If you say, if you speak the way that Jasmine Crockett has spoken, sometimes, that stuff gets flagged. Sometimes it doesn't even get disseminated. This notion that you can do what you want to do when you want to do it, how you want to do it to whomever you damn well, please, while still having your hand,

out for other people's assistance. It's not how things get done. Y'all are talking about and alluding to being real and authentic. I'm talking about something more than that, winning. Going to win the midterms? You're going to win the presidency. Or you're going to get power and relevancy back in our United States government. Because you see, that's what Hakeem Jeffries has to deal with.

That's what Chuck Schumer has to deal with. That's what Nancy Pelosi has to deal with. That's what an abundance of Democrats have to deal with. Obama is out of office. because he still has to deal with that. Everybody has their thoughts and opinions, and I get that. But to call for a rally for me to be canceled, that's shameful. It's immature.

Bad news. Not only do I have the platform that I have. I have more coming. This is kind of the thing with this as the way that it works. So these things are twofold. Number one, is Stephen A. Smith asking Jasmine Cross, to be polite to President Trump? Is that what your understanding of this is?

I don't know if it's polite, but sure, similar sentiment. Okay, so, okay, so a couple. He's asking her to tone it down. Well, which might be worse. Well, this is, to me, this is the height of the, when I think about the plight of the black American experience,

I think about what Stephen A. is describing. I mean, just to be honest with you, I think about walking down the street and someone saying, hey, nigger, and then you having to go, how you doing, mister? That to me, that little interaction right there is whenever I would see that, right?

Whenever I would see that happen, I would always think about the humiliation of that. And the humiliation didn't come from weakness. It came from understanding. Hey, if I look back at this person and I tell them to get the fuck off my shit, then I could be killed. If I'm walking to work, if I'm walking home, if I'm walking to go play with my sons,

me looking at this person and telling them exactly how I feel about the way they are talking to me could be my final decision. So the bigger decision there is to endure that. so that I can then continue to live, continue to work, and continue to play with my kids. If there is anything that the people that went through that fought for, it was so that we didn't have to do that. If there was anything at all that those people fought for

was so that we could have some understanding of our dignity Legitimately, it comes down for, oh, is fuck me? No, sir. I actually think it's fuck you. And let me show you. And to demand that Jasmine Crockett act in a way that is palatable, dare I say socially responsible,

with a president that has made his brand insulting and debasing people. legitimately. How many examples do you need like derogatory racist nicknames? The president put a sombrero.

Well, he didn't put the sombrero. He tweeted a meme of a sombrero on top of a game of Akeem Jeffreys' head. I am no gigantic Khakim Jeffries fan. But that's fucking racist. That is racist.

The entire movement on the right led by Trump, the MAGA movement, is based in humiliating not just their political opponents, but anyone that they don't feel like is in lockstep with exactly what it is that they want. And there have to be people,

be them on the left, right, or center that go, no. Actually, if it's fuck you, if it's fuck me, then it's fuck you. And I don't even understand how to contend with what's being said here, because what's being said here is such a breathtaking double standard

that you don't, it's not even about the just straight up weakness in the actual words. It's really about the motivation. Who has ever, ever, ever got what they wanted from being polite to Donald Trump. I'm talking about somebody that doesn't exist within his own party.

Within his own party. Yeah, yeah. The only thing that you can do to a bully, and I'm sure that Stephen A hasn't encountered all types of bullies throughout his time, the only thing that you can do to a bully is to punch back. See, this is what I'm saying. This is why I said, I'm at the point,

and I started this off of not even wanting to discuss any more Stephen A. Smith viral moments. Because to your point, when you're like, I'm trying to understand this, like, the obvious double standard in it all, it's hard for me to believe that he doesn't. What I'm noticing, especially since he's had his political show, is that he makes some outrageous comment. It sparks all of this, this huge reaction, right? And everybody's talking about it. And then he comes back and he reacts to the reaction and back. and backtracks just a little bit, right?

This isn't as much of a backtrack as what he said before. And now I can't even remember when you called him out. I can't even remember what that one was, so many things. But he goes back of, these are all the things I think of Jasmine Crockett and how wonderful she is. He didn't say that the first time. And I'm feeling like this is the cycle with him. He's got a new show.

He's got to say something that's provocative. And I am not excusing it. I'm just saying, well, I don't even want to address it anymore. Because I feel like this is the game. He is going to say something, we are going to have strong reactions, and then he is going to respond to those strong reactions. And this is great for his show. And if anything, if I don't understand exactly what it is that Stephen A. Smith is doing where he's, well, I don't think I'm confused on where he's aligning politically, but just like the motivation of it all. If I'm not understanding it, one thing I do understand is that this is a man who wants ratings.

This is a man who wants the attention. This is a man who has a show to sell. And I'm not going to help him do that. So I'm almost getting to the point where I don't even want to respond because I feel like this is just a part of the game. I don't even know if he really believes it more than he believes in the popularity of his show. And I'm not saying, I'm not trying to give him anything.

I think I'm just tired of it. And that's the only thing that makes sense to me. Hmm. Let me tell you why I disagree. And I understand what you're saying. You're probably right. Let me tell you why I disagree. we simply are not in this moment.

You're right. We're not in the moment of, let me manipulate the algorithm and people's emotions to self-promote the thing that I'm doing. You guys, we're all self-promoters. You think that I haven't said, oh, look, I look particularly handsome in this.

Let me post this. You know, part of the reason why I posted the video of me moving so slow it was because I was moving, I thought my shoulders looked good. Let me get on some shoulder. You know what I'm saying? You never know. You're going with a little shoulder sometimes, Rachel.

That's my thing, shoulders. That's my shoulders and traps. That's my shoulders. My shoulders. Oh. Other shoulders are nice. But the times that we live in right now call for an honest evaluation

of the political reality and the cultural reality in America. You guys, we're about to lose the whole thing. We're about to lose the entire thing. And the thing that we had wasn't even all that great. The Supreme Court decision could nuke nearly 20 seats. That along with Republican redistricting. Just the other straight of political redistricting that Trump is doing,

means that you could see a permanent change in what happens in the House of Representatives, along with people in masks on the street, robbing people of their due process, taking them out. Along with basically government hits in Caribbean waters, along with the attack on SNAP, on health care, along with, along with, along with, we don't have time for the games. I get it. We don't have time for people to just simply be in it

to raise their own voice. with absolutely zero principle and zero thought about the entire ecosystem of the American political reality, particularly for women that look just like Jasmine Crockett, we don't have time for it, and we got to discuss it because if it is that cynical, if it is that cynical that he is doing this

to boost a show, it's actually worse than if he actually believed it. You're right, but to me, to the point, you're right. We shouldn't stop talking. about it. This is my frustration coming out. But further on in that clip, it points to why I say the motivation behind it is capitalism. Because what he goes on to say is, not only does he go on to then invite Jasmine to come on the show again, ratings, he then says, oh, you think you're

going to cancel me? I have more stuff in the works. I have a bigger platform. I'm going to have a bigger desk where I'm going to be inviting more people. See, that is the goal and the aim on all of this. And you're right. You're not, you don't, you're mostly. by things that actually are about helping and impacting people. His motivation, to me, how I'm observing it, is getting a bigger desk and getting more platforms. And I'm probably wrong, because there are people who are taking it seriously

and it's impacting the way people think and it's hurting the argument for people that look like him. You're right. This is just my frustration. I'll end it by saying this. I met Jasmine Crockett one time. If Jasmine Crockett came on higher learning,

we'd ask Jasmine Crockett some questions that Jasmine Crockett would not like. Okay? They're the same questions that we asked Gavin Newsom that kind of got him ensnared. Like, we'd ask some questions to he's like, overall, my opinion of Jasmine Crockett is very high. We have some disagreements.

As disagreements that I would have, we're going to talk about the article in the nation or the piece in the nation was just written about the CBC. We'll do that on Monday. So I'm not deifying, like I did, Sandy Darity, any one political figure. I'm saying this, okay?

If I had one request of Jasmine Crockett, it would be please do not go on Stephen A. Smith's show. It's very important not to reward something like this. This has nothing to do with whether or not I think that they would have a productive conversation. This has nothing to do with my belief that you should platform and have conversations with people on the other side of issues than you. It has nothing to do with any of that. It has nothing to do with my belief, a belief that I thought with the audience of this podcast about whether or not you should have people on that you disagree with.

I actually love to do it. I enjoy doing it. And I think you should do more of it. But we cannot get in a circle where, or a cycle, should I say, where Jasmine Crockett, who was politically cat-called by Stephen A. Smith, where she then goes on there and benefits that platform by making the moment that that actually, I'll say again, by making the moment that he wants from that.

I agree with you. I do not think that she should go on his podcast. I do not think that we should reward people who are triggering us and calling us out in this ridiculous and transparent way by going on and then, you know, benefiting their platforms. I just don't think that she should. Okay. We'll get back to the issues next week. A lot of issues, a lot of stuff to talk about. We'll get back to the issues next week.

Take thin caps off. Do not stop learning. I'm Van Lathan Jr. I'm Rachel and Lindsay. Bye, guys.