Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Discussing Slavery and Presentism, Plus Breaking Down the SAFE-T Act With Sen. Robert Peters

Episode Date: September 20, 2022

Van and Rachel discuss Bill Maher’s recent comments about slavery and his criticism of “presentism” (14:11), before reacting to the social media conversations around ‘The Woman King’ (47:42). Plus, Charlamagne tha God has a questionable take on the shipping of migrants (1:01:38), then Sen. Robert Peters joins the show to help break down Illinois’ SAFE-T Act (1:11:05). Hosts: Van Lathan Jr. and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Sen. Robert Peters Producer: Donnie Beacham Jr. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Higher Learning is on here in studio. It's I, Van Lathen, Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. Rachel, how, you know, let me tell you something to happen, guys. We taped an interview with Illinois State Senator Robert Peters about the Safety Act a little while ago. But before we taped it, Donnie popped on the mongoose.

And me and Rachel were talking, bonding as we do. And Donnie goes, Rachel. How was your weekend? Did you... Leave Donnie. Did you get a chance to have some west? And then Rachel goes, oh, Donnie, thank you. Such a fucking brown-nosed man. No, Donnie cares.

That's what it is. Donnie heard that I had a stressful week, two weeks, month, really. And he said, let me check in with her. And he did. And I'm so glad he asked. I had a beautiful weekend. I feel refreshed, brand new, almost. but I took some me time for me.

I did football. My teams won. Your teams won in football, yeah. I went on a day, double date with Brian. I cooked. You went on a double date with Brian? You know I'm not. Well, Brian, another couple.

You know, I'm not stressed when I cook. What did you cook? Very basic. Brian wanted a steak. I made a mistake. I made myself pork chops. That's what I'm talking about. You know, I love more pork chops.

That's what I'm talking about. He's man, make me. Were you barefoot when you made the steak? Oh, my. Like, like, what? Yes. I'm always barefoot in the house. Brian,

Brian said, Hey, I know that you have been feeling lately, but you know what I'm saying? No. Type of situation. Barefooted. I feel like I haven't been present.

So I wanted to make dinner. We sat around at the table, talked, had great conversation, played Ruma Cube. I don't know what that is. So his mom brought, we all were together for Christmas. She loves this game,

Ruma Cube. Introduced it to my family. we're so into it now because parents were here last month got the game for them and we sat around and played it too it's like a it looks like dominoes no it doesn't because it has actual numbers written on it

but it's like dominoes but with actual numbers one through 13 written on it it's a numbers game how do you play it though it's hard for me to explain how you play it without them actually here but you have to either do numbers in a sequence

or all the colors have to match and the person to get rid of all of their roomicubes maybe that's what they're called wins. But it's like you're constantly having to think of, oh, I can move this around and everything has to be in threes or more in the sequence or all the numbers

and then their colors. I'm out. I'm out on Room of Q. Where did I lose you? I'll never play. Why? Where did I lose you? I've made the decision in my life right now that in perpetuity

I will never play Room of Que. Okay. So what's going to happen is I'm going to call Kalika and we're going to invite you guys over and we're going to play. You can play. You're going to love it. It's going to be an issue now. It's going to be an issue now.

I'll tell you why it's going to be an issue. It's going to be an issue now because I've put my foot in the sand. But why? Why do you be stubborn? Like I've just decided while you were describing it that I'll never play. Everybody, this was a setup. You had me. You know I can't fully explain it.

You had me explain it so you could put your foot down and say no. Look, here's the deal. What's going to happen now is you will call us over. We will go over there, right? We'll go over there. Everyone will get together to play RoomyCube, Roomie Cube, whatever. And I will have to say no.

I'll be forced to say no. So if you want to see an argument between her and I, then just go ahead and do the RumiCube thing because she's going to be like, why won't you play? And I'm going to be like, I said no. And I'm not going to turn of mind. We can play with three people. That's dope.

And then let's go. We're going to see how much fun we're having. Never. And you're going to be like, wait, wait. Oh, Kalika, you should have done this, this and this. I won't. And you're going to. Not playing.

I'm out. You said numbers, first of all, don't do numbers. It's not like you have to add things. What's six times seven? I'm not sure. I don't know that. You say that. What's seven times eight?

I have no clue. You're not trying. I don't know numbers. Nine times nine. Not 49. That's seven times seven. Oh, okay. Well, I don't know matter.

I don't want to, like, I don't know when you said that's up. You were confident with 49, by the way. 9-0-19-81 Yes Okay so I don't know math I don't want to have I don't want to do math for fun It's not that type of math

Do you play Dominoes? Nope Oh wow Okay Yeah you're spades Yeah but that's not math No it's not math No it's not math

She'll carry Rachel No I'm actually Very good at spades I'm very good at spades Oh I doubt that Why Van Why Why do you doubt me being good at spades

because it's a black card game. This is where I need the soldiers jackals to step in. Because it's a black game. No. And you're shocked that I even can play. Wait a minute. That's not why. You don't have a spade's disposition.

And what might that be? Not that. You know who taught me how to play spades? Family reunions. with my older, like, cousins. I'm talking 50s, 60s as a kid. I was curious. That's how I learned how to play dominoes.

Right. And my dad really likes dominoes. And that's how I learned how to play spades. I would sit with the older men and watch them play. So I might not give it, but if when I tell you that's who I learned from, then you got to give me some kind of respect. I mean, we can try to play. What you mean?

Brian can't play. Of course he can't. Brian doesn't know. Brian looks like a pinnacle guy. Oh, you know what? You did not just lame Brian like that. No, no, not being an uncle. You know what Brian looks like?

Brian looks like him and all of his friends. They get together. He has like a half cigar. He puts it on. He comes out in the wife beater. You know, he's got a bowl of chips. He puts them down in the middle of the table. You're like, Rachel's off somewhere.

Where's Rachel tonight? Hey, look, man, I don't know. And I'm just happy to have you fellows over so we can do our weekly poker game. You know what I mean? With green hats. With the green hat. He's got the cigar. You know what?

I didn't do myself any. I don't know why. Pretzels. The only time you ever see pretzels in a fucking big-ass bowl is when there's a movie scene with some guys playing poker. In the movies. I didn't do myself any favors by telling you we play Ruma Cube. I kind of, that's right up there. I didn't do myself any favorites.

Y'all, y'all got together. Y'all didn't play no Uno. We do play Spades. Y'all play Rooney Q. He can't play Spades. He doesn't play, you play Pity Pat? No, don't play Pity Pat. Do you play Tonk?

No. No, but why does that sound so... Talk used to try to teach me talk. Pitipat was our game. What is talk? What is Pity Pat? I don't know Pity Pat. My mom taught me how to play because my grandfather taught her.

I mean, I'm trying to remember. I played it as a kid. I haven't played it as a adult in such a long time. Let me Google Pity Pat. Yeah. What's talk? It's just like a matching game type of card game, you know, runs, all that kind of stuff like that. It's like, play Tate.

tonk for a dollar at McKinley back in the day. It's a matching card game. Like one time I won, like one time I won like, I'd say like $50 big talk thing and in, uh, in, uh, in Coach Tyos's class. Class. Yeah, we was playing talk in class. Like in, look, Coach Titus, shout out to Coach Titus, Willie Titus. He was the basketball coach, but he also taught like a shop class. He didn't care about school. Like, I got, like, Coach Titus did not care about this. Everybody had that teacher.

He just didn't care. We'd come in there. He'd be like, all right, cut a piece of wood. And then leave it on my desk. We cut the wood, leave on his desk. Hey. And then we would be back there in the back playing talk. You know what I'm saying?

Dudes will be rapping the whole nine. So he would be up there literally, like, looking at different, looking at game film and like writing tapes, like watching tape and making plays and stuff. Shout out to Willie Titus. You said, uh. They might be from similar. So where did you, you say you were at a hotel this weekend? Yes.

What was the hotel? The peninsula. Ooh, fancy. I treated myself. Which we all should at times, if you can. Now, you know, that's the hotel where Harvey Weinstein was doing his thing back in the day. I did not know that. Please don't ruin that for me.

It's a fact. I didn't know. And I wasn't in a room. I was at the spa and at the rooftop, rooftop garden restaurant. I'm telling you right there. Like, it's a, when I go to an L.A. hotel, I always consider what is going on there. Let me tell you why, because all of these L.A. hotels have stores. I remember, I'm in this one place.

He was really close to where I used to live in Hollywood. It's a hotel. I'm hanging out. I'm like, this place is kind of off the beating paths. It's kind of a nice place. And the guy at the counter goes, oh, yeah, Janice Joplin died here. I was like, come on, man. Like, I'm out.

You know what I mean? Like, I don't want to. That's a little. It goes back there kind of doing it. You know what I mean? It's like, I'm, it's, but I tell you what? Come on. Like, but I tell you what, more hotels in L.A.

have stories like that. I don't want to know. Then you would think there's scandal and famous people everywhere. I don't want to know then. Don't tell me. Don't ruin it for me. Josh Hardin had diarrhea at the Shato Mom. Is that like something you learned at TMZ?

Shit his pants. Called 911, we had to take. But why would he call 911 because he had diarrhea? You tell me. I'm trying to understand he did because he just needed to get out of there? I don't know. He just needed to get out. He said it's throwing up.

He said it's diarrhea. Oh, he was sick. What? Still, why would you? People shit their pants when they're drunk. I know, but what I'm saying is why would you? I mean, look, he called it and it's a funny 911 tape. So all of these places around here, they have different.

And you went to the one, I don't know, man. You say you're down with the movement, but that's a... Stop! Stop! How would I know that? That's a tough hotel. But you know, the peninsula is like, uh, that's where like, look, you guys, no judgment at all. That's where a lot of the ladies go.

Okay. To... I've never seen that. See, you know, at the bar? I've never seen it. You have to bar at the peninsula. I would pick that as the place. Aged from CAA.

Had a long week. You want to talk to him or some guy that works in the studio. Maybe some lady that works in the studio. You never know. I pick like the polo lounge or something like that. I would think if you told me that was a place, I'd be like. Can't go to the polo lounge. Shouldn't go there.

Why? Because the polo lounge is the Beverly Hills Hotel is owned by the Sultan of Brunei. Terrible to gaze. So the reality is that Like just being honest with you Is this on the TMZ tour? This is not a, the Polo Lounge is definitely not a TNZ tour No I mean like do you point out hotels and you're like

Back in the day this person died here This person got arrested here Do you do that on the tour? So first of all I don't do nothing on the tour Okay Okay but back in the day I did But like the not the Polo Lounge and the Peninsula

Were not on the tour out The hotels on the tour out were the Roosevelt Hotel, which I know you know what's going at the Roosevelt. I don't know

what used to go on. I've been, but I didn't know. Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel is where John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe used to have their little

right there at the Rose right there at the Roosevelt Hotel. Some people say that Maryland's ghost haunts the hotel. I didn't see her. I haven't seen her either. You know what I'm telling you,

like, so there was the Roosevelt Hotel. It was the chateau, the Beverly Wilshire. Remember the hotel we went to? You know that hotel. Yes, yes, yes, yes. But I don't know what happened there. God damn it.

But why would I know this, fan? I'm not from here. I know. I'm not from here either. But you've been here long enough. Yeah, I have. That's very true. And not only that, I'm just a gigantic nerd with no life.

So the Beverly Wilshire hotel is from Pretty Woman. Is it really? Yeah, it's the Regent Beverly Wilshire from Pretty Woman. It's changed now. You know what I mean? So that hotel, I think that was the last one. Like, but all the hotels in L.A. Have a different story, you know?

Now I'm going to have to look up every hotel. But I live here. So it's not like I go to hotels that much, you know? Now the next time you want to stay at the peninsula. I didn't stay. You might think twice about how people carry on when they're there. You know what I mean? Now I'm going to be looking at who's there.

I go in, I do my business, I leave. now I'm going to be paying attention. Oh, you won't see them because they all wear that, like, white guys think, white guys think that we can't recognize them when they wear a curved brim hat and glasses and sunglasses. They're in there like a curved brim hat and sunglasses. Oh, my gosh, I was by myself. Do you think that people thought maybe I was?

Depends on, it depends. I can't say. I can't say. You fucking running a Matt Lauer over there. Stop. All right. You guys, the big deal. of the day is coming and boy am I fucking annoyed later on in the show we have a talk with

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Restrictions apply. See terms at fandual.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. Go for it. Fired up. Okay. Real time. with Bill Maher is a show that I watched for a very long time. It was a show that really put me on to a lot of different political

political and geopolitical voices from around the world. I started watching the show when I was in college. And to be honest with you, like even after that, the show has endured. It's been off for a very, very long time. Very, very long time. I've always appreciated it until recently. And I've always liked the fact that you get to see a mishmash of people and opinions. And Bill Maher had this genius way of combining these political takes with like a really, really, really biting sense of humor.

And it was good, you know what I mean? It was almost bleeding edge political takes that would be on there. Like you'd hear from people, you'd hear from guys in the intelligence community. You'd hear from singers and songs. So you didn't think had a political bone in their body. And it was a great place, a great way to spend your Friday night. Recently, he's changed and the show has changed. I'll be honest with you.

The real time has gone, and I put set this on my various social media, from the seat of white grievance culture, which is Bill going on there talking about basically every different, why can I? say the N-word. When I describe white grievance culture, why does this have to be a thing? Why does this have to be a thing? Everybody's wrong. I am a straight white man in America and my very existence is being assailed by those people who are wearing woke w's and want to take something away from me. It's gone from that to something a little bit different to me with the bile that I heard coming out of his mouth this, this past Friday. I'm, I'm, I'm

I'm going to play this for people. We're going to play this for people. And as we listen to it, we're going to understand the message that's trying to be presented by Bill Maher. And to me, the specific danger, and not just danger, the de-intellectualizing of something pretty complex that Mar attempts to do here. So, Donnie, try to give us that whole part, not the entire thing, but just slavery. Everybody who could afford one had a slave, including people of color. The way people talk about slavery these days, you'd think it was a uniquely American thing that we invented in 1619. But slavery throughout history has been the rule, not the exception.

The Samarians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, Romans, the Arabs, British, the early Americans, all the way up through R. Kelly. The Holy Bible is practically an owner's manual for slaveholders. The word slave comes from Slav, because so many Slavic people were enslaved, and they're as white as the Hallmark Channel. Who do you think gathered the slaves from the interior of Africa to sell to slave traders? Africans who also kept their own slaves. We're a species prone to making others of our species are bitch. I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Humans are not good people. And the capacity for cruelty is a human thing, not a white thing. That's the truth, even though it doesn't jive with the current narrative. But in today's world, when truth conflicts with narrative, it's the truth that has to apologize. Being woke is like a magic moral time machine where you judge everybody against what you imagine you would have done in 1066 and you always win.

always win. Okay, give me real quick, Donnie, give me the part on presentism. Do you have that? Plenty of liberals also want to abuse history to control the present. And last month, a scholar named James Sweet caught hell for calling them out for doing just that. He criticized a phenomenon known as presentism, which means judging everyone in the past by the standards of the present. It's the belief that people who lived 100 or 500 or 1,000 years ago really should have known better. Okay. Rachel, you hear that. What are your thoughts?

The thing with what I find interesting about Bill Maher is that I understand maybe the initial point of what he might have been trying to say, right? Because if you've been watching lately, you know, he's very big on the woke crowd and cancel culture and talking about. that. But to make the comparison of, you know, you can't knock what someone did in the past or judge an adult by things that they did in the past. Because prior to all of, prior to the conversation about slavery, he's talking about, you know, you don't judge people for stealing a pack of gum or wanting to be, you know, like things that you wanted to do back when you were young, wanting to be a ghostbuster or being a white person breakdancing. Like he goes through all these things before he gets to slavery. And to me, it's like that's where you missed the point.

It's like, okay, I understand what you're saying. You can't necessarily blame people for all the mistakes they might have made in their youth when they're adults. We talked about that in our podcast when we've talked about, you know, use of certain words as teenagers and, you know, we have differing opinions on that. But then to make that comparison for slavery is where he loses me. And that's what I feel like Bill Maher has done over the years. I get what you want to say, but then you go to this extreme and then you completely lose me on the point. And then what particularly bothers me about this is that he makes an excuse for people who want to say, you know, cancel culture this, woke this, or, you know, we want to take this out of history books or whatever it may be or the left is making, you know, issues about slavery and making us feel guilty and all of that. you give people an excuse when you say things like this. You give them an out. That's problematic. It's

problematic to also say if you lived back then, you would have been just like them if you had money, whether you were a black person, a white person or whatever, because everybody had slaves. To equate that you're not better than them just because you came later is completely wrong when it comes to slavery. It's almost saying slavery was okay back then because it was the rule, as he says. which it's clearly not. Slavery oppressed people. It killed people. There was bloodshed, all these different things.

And we don't have to get into it of what slavery is and what it meant. But to say to compare it to, oh, gum or other mistake that you made and that's okay because it was done then and everybody was doing it, to me is extremely problematic. And I'm actually shocked that he went there. And sometimes I'm like, I don't know if he's going there because. he knows it's going to be a topic of conversation, which everybody has been talking about this clip, or if he actually truly believes that. And whether he does or not, the issue is there's a strong sector of society that will take this and run with this and use it as a basis to put out problematic behavior or thoughts like this. Okay, so let's talk about that sector of society

first. I absolutely think he believes it. And I think that's why it's so important to discuss. So remember, when I have conversations about or or when we, when people discuss the difficult conversations that we need to have, the very important topics that we need to discuss, sometimes I think that we have to remember who we're talking to, right? We're not talking to the oathkeepers because they're not going to have that conversation with us. We're not going to talk to the O-A-O-A-N-N crowd. We're not talking to the newsmax crowd.

We're not even really talking to the majority of the Fox News crowd. They're not going to talk to us. They don't want to have the conversation. They like the silo of where they are. They enjoy it. They don't want to be pulled out of it. They won't be pulled out of it. Cool.

The people who we're talking to are the people who watch real-time. Those are the people that we're talking to. The well-meaning whites. the Black Square on Instagram whites. Everybody who would have been in that Galgado Imagine video. The people that are trying to help even when they look ridiculous.

Those are the people that we're discussing, right? Those are people who we're talking to. Those are the people that watch real time. You think so? Absolutely. The other crowd that we're talking about, they hate Bill. Bill's been doing his liberal thing for such a long time

and he shit on Trump for such a long time that they're out on him. Now, they'll use this as fodder every now and again to get a headline on the Daily Wire or to have a little sit down on Prager, you, oh, look, even Bill Maher sees it. They'll do that. But they're not, they don't want to see Bill Maher

coming into their house and sitting down and being with their sister. They don't want to be a part of the Bill Maher circle. The people that are influenced by what he just said are the people who we, quote, unquote, are trying to have tough conversations with, people who are receptive to this. And not only are they receptive to us,

but they are twice as receptive, in my opinion, to what one of their own would say on television. They're twice as receptive to what somebody like Bill Maher will get on TV, somebody that they've been following for a long time, they laugh with him, he's cool, he smokes weed. A lot of those people, that was, that crowd in real time, Bill Maher used to go off a little bit and move too far to on the fringe when he would say something

and the crowd would boo. You'd hear it when you would watch the show and be like, boo! And he'd be like, oh, whatever. Yeah. He got nothing but rounds of applause right there for both sides in slavery. They liked it.

They loved it. So what I'm saying is, he's winning them over. And not only is that winning his crowd over because you never know who's in the crowd. You know what I mean? He might be curating those people, cherry-picking them. but I think that attitudes like this

are slowly starting to win over a group of people and this is my problem with it it's wrong across the board and when I say wrong I don't mean emotionally wrong I mean Bill Maher de-intellectualized that entire conversation and not even from a way that hey I see it

Whatever. If we were to talk about presentism, right? Well, how do we define the present? What's the present? We're talking about now today? Because remember, when you're talking about presentism, different things in society move at different speeds. So Twitter moves quick.

Twitter is a completely different place 10 years ago than it is now. Does America move that fast? No. Do other things move that fast? No. So when you say presentism, judging someone now today by the morality of years gone by, what's years gone by? So is it unfair to excoriate people that were racist in the 60s and 70s? Is that too far?

Is that too far back? Do they deserve to pass? If we went almost 100 years ago, right, in Germany, are those people that the ones not only that carried out one of the worst atrocities in the history of humankind, but the people that went along with it, is that recent enough to where they should be excoriated or far enough back to where we should go, hey, that's just the times? Because what I would say is, what is the amount of time that you should be forgiving for rape, forgiven for raping a child? Like how far, what is that, 200 years, 300 years is like literally ruining the womb of a 13 year old girl toss on a mother and her

and her child in the in the ocean like how far like what gets you what gets you a break there yeah no like when and so the the reason why I say that is because when you're when we're we're we talk about the specific uniqueness of American freedom and everybody talks about that look at the Bill of Rights, look at freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to bear arms,

all of these things that are incredibly specific about American freedom. But we never, ever really discuss as a whole community, black and white, the specifics of American oppression.

Because there's, just like the freedom here was specific, the oppression here was different too. Bill has no clue about that. When it comes to slavery. Bill don't know what the fuck he's talking about. He literally compared different forms of slavery from all around the world to American chattel slavery, which in it of itself, was so unique, so revolutionary and cutting edge that it really hadn't been done before, not in the way it was

done here. Racism itself, as a whole, white-to-black racism was invented for the purpose of holding, transporting, and subjugating slaves. Sure. We talk about apartheid, what they looked at to build apartheid. And racism here in this country was one of those things. Absolutely. So, plus this, when we're talking about slavery, when we're talking about the American condition, we have to remember a couple of things.

Number one, this has never been reconciled. That's the first thing. So if Bill was jerking off in the barn when he was a kid and he's like, that was a stupid mistake, that was something stupid to do, I wouldn't do that now. The reality is, has he had the full circle moment with himself to understand why it was bad, why it was wrong, and what he had to do to get better? Because there's a difference between the childhood mistake and something that you built your entire identity on that you refused to reconcile. slavery is something that we haven't really figured out how to get our hands around in America. And that's partly because there's always been something new to replace slavery with. You go from being actually enslaved to then after that, Jim Crow, to after that the rampant white terrorism that robbed black Americans of the land that they held.

Black people, I've said on this podcast before, held the most land we've ever had. the history of these country in the 1900s, as we came away and put all of our money into what we thought would build us generational wealth in this country. White people said no. They said no to that. And through usury and terrorism went on a decades-long tear to take from black people what they had had. Right. After that, you know what you have? You have political terrorism, marginalizing black voices, right? You have the white, you have white America

fighting back against the civil rights movement which brought out more atrocities. It's on fucking tape, right? After that, you have plowing drugs into communities, right? All over the place.

You have economic abandonment. There's always a way that we've been reminded where we stand in this country and that started because of slavery. The Pope. Pope, let me make sure I get this right.

Pope Nicholas V. This is in the 1400s. This is in the 1400s. Like, formally, for the Portuguese, who were really the forebears, they were the real Gs, the starters, the initiants, if you will, whatever, of the transatlantic slave trade.

He told them to subdue and reduce persons to perpetual slavery and to apply and appropriate all of these people to the censors of the kingdoms, dukedom, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions, and goods, and convert them and her and use their profit. Okay. The Pope officially said it was okay to exploit and vanquished people from Africa. that starts racism, essentially. The slave trade had become something like you have countries back and forth, going back and forth. You have people going down to Africa, situation between Portugal and the Congo, where the Congo would definitely supply slaves to Portugal. The turn happened when the Portuguese started coming in and bringing Congolese citizens into the slave trade. Like there's actually a letter that was written that said, hey, just to let you know, the people that we supply you, those are war criminals and other people like that.

Like, we see now that you're coming to take our citizens and we want you to stop because slavery is different in other places than it is here. Mali Empire, one of the greatest empires of West Africa, 50 million people. You guys always talk about Monsa Musa and how rich he was and how big the Mali Empire was, right? One of the biggest empires in West Africa. I'll give you an example of sort of different places and how they viewed slavery. They had their own constitution. In their constitution, Article 20 of their constitution

talks about how to treat slaves. Do not treat ill the slave. It says don't treat them ill. You know what I mean? There was a guy, Monsa Sakre, in the Mali Empire, that became the king of the.

Mali Empire, a former enslaved person. So when we talk about slavery, we have to understand what slavery is. We have to understand the different forms of slavery. We have to understand what slavery was in the parts of the world that you are naming. And we didn't have to compare that to American cattle slavery that was based specifically on race, specifically on race, even serfdom in other places. The serfs were connected to the land. So if you sold the land, the surf was with the land. in serfdom what we're talking about the slavery is talking about

some of those other places you could not separate a family you couldn't do it in those same places there was laws against raping your slaves now I'm not saying that the slaves didn't get raped but what I'm saying is

what happened to black people during the slave trade was the intentional and systemic dehumanization of a people for the point of capitalism it went on here in America. We're talking about like 1619, right?

He's talking about 1619. Okay, 1619, if you want to say it began there, the country gets founded in 1776. When the country gets founded, those guys, we talk about how brilliant they were. We talk about how brilliant Thomas Jefferson was, and he was. We talk about how brilliant Benjamin Franklin was, and he was brilliant. We talk about how smart these guys actually were. So smart that they invented a revolutionary new form of government, right, that can exist in perpetuity for years built the strongest nations in the world. You mean to tell me, I'm supposed to believe that those guys didn't know that raping people was wrong, that murdering them was wrong, that setting black people on fire was wrong, right?

You mean to tell me, like, I'm supposed to believe that? Thomas Jefferson, I say it all the time, he allowed his children to live as slaves. So what I'm telling you is it has nothing to do with whether or not we're looking back on them as moral people. It doesn't matter if Thomas Jefferson was a good guy or a bad guy. It doesn't matter whether or not George Washington was a good guy or a bad guy. It doesn't matter whether or not Benjamin Franklin was a good guy or a bad guy. It doesn't matter whether or not any of these people were moral or immoral people. What they did was wrong, fucked up, point Blake, period, and the country has never done anything to access the humanity of black people after that.

Because the reality is I brought up the Holocaust and I want everybody to read exercising Hitler. That's the name of the movie. I brought up the Holocaust, right? That is the atrocity that people always compare slavery to when you're comparing atrocities. We shouldn't do it. Much love to my Jewish brothers and sisters and everything that their people want. went through, can't imagine it, right? Can't imagine it.

The reality is, before Germany was allowed to come back into the world community, their population had to denotify itself. They had to actually go into theaters and watch movies about what an asshole Hitler was. They had to actually, like, suffer for what they put the world through. Right after slavery, black Americans were expected to make a, community with the people who have been murdering them for generations. Never been done before. Like right after slavery, black people had to go, hey, what's up?

Figure it out. And then they had to rely, which has been always the thing, on the goodness and the mercy of white people not to continue their same entire behavioral pattern towards them that they've been doing for hundreds of years. And then when they did figure it out and were successful, they took it away from them. They robbed them of it. And so the reality of the situation is like Bill Maher is sitting up there saying,

hey, the same thing you went through is the same thing that people went through everywhere in the world. First off, he's wrong. I'm not even talking about whether or not it's worse because to be honest with you, I couldn't give a shit about who had it the worst. I'll be honest with you. First of all, hold on. Why would you come at black people like we don't know that other people,

like we don't know that other people were enslaved, man, that's in the Bible. Like, we know the Bible better than anyone. Exodus, we understand that other people, we're not talking about slavery over there. We're not talking about slavery there. We're not talking about slavery there. And the fucking fact of the matter is the slavery that we're dealing with, the oppression that we're dealing with, white people invented it facts. Un-fucking deniable. Facts.

He can sit there and spin it however he wants to speak. in it. He can talk about it however he wants to talk about it. American oppression as it relates to black people. American genocide as it relates to the native people. That's on white America. And the reality is if they gave a fuck about fixing it, they would do stuff not to coddle it, but to actually approach it in a holistic way and work with the legacy of the people who have been affected and try to change something. But no, what do we get? We get fucking jokes. We get jokes from this guy who has absolutely no historical reference to understand what he's talking about. Do you know how many other examples of humane conditions of bondage I could give you?

I could go down a list. Slavery is slavery. It's terrible wherever it happens. But I'm telling you one thing that what we went through here was a psychological and let me calm down. What we went through here was a psychological, spiritual, and emotional decimation all for money. And everybody was involved. Everything, the newspaper was involved. The clothing industry was involved.

Building boats and ships was involved. The country doesn't work without slavery. If you're telling me right now, what does American whiteness represent to black people? The reality is it represents terror and has always represented terror to black people. The only people who can change that are white people. We can't just decide to stop being afraid because we have no reason to. The only people who can change what that is is white people. You don't want to do it?

Fine. We're going to dance anyway. That's the reality. You don't want to do it. You're cool. You don't want to do it. Fine. We're going to find it.

to get through the shit anyway. But don't come back me and tell me I'm fucking crazy. You must be out of your motherfucking mind. But that's what they've always done, right? When I listen to what Bill Maher did and I saw the way that he tried to water down slavery in a sense to tell us, well, y'all did it too. So you can't point the finger at us because over in Africa, this is what y'all did as well. That's, to me, that's exactly what we're seeing happening politically in our society,

in our education system as they're trying to turn back time. or watered down what's been done before. Oh, if George Washington had lived now, he would be have a diverse circle and wouldn't have done the things that he did. It was just, he was just a product of his time. That's literally what he's saying, which is why I think it's so interesting

what you brought up about World War II because when you talk about what's present, are you saying that if we had lived back then, or we lived in Germany, we would have been okay with that because we would have been a product. That was the rule then. No, that doesn't make.

any sense. And then neither does his entire analogy, which is why it's so problematic. But you just gave this whole history and detail and it's facts and historical and talking all about it, but nobody, but what people are going to hold on to, which is why I believe in exactly you, too, that it's so dangerous in what was said is because all they're going to hold on to is, oh, wait, Africans had slaves to? Then what are black people complaining about? Because y'all had slaves as well. So y'all can't point the finger because we all did it. That's what people are going to deduce from that. We're going to talk about this from the woman king. And by the way, it's just an important thing that we would say that we say this, right? It's an important thing

that we say this. Bill is talking to black people. He's actually saying black, right? But he's talking about Africans. Those two things aren't the same thing. First of all, I want all my Africans to hear this, y'all black. So shout out to my people. Shout out to my Nigerians, my Ghanians. I'm glad I started to drill off wars again, all of that stuff. We hear how I learn it started to Joloff Wars again. We decided. I'm glad we started them up. They black.

But they weren't black then. Yeah. And we've discussed this before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Prior to any understanding of a worldwide black identity, nobody cared about black. There was no black because there's no white. Right. The way you identified yourself was, hey, I'm German.

Sure. I'm Portuguese. I'm this. I'm like, right. Black and white were invented for the purposes of slavery. Sure. After that, black, because, I'm German. comes an identity that we all get behind.

So we talk about the fact that Africans enslaved other Africans. Yeah, he's right. Everybody saved everybody. No one's saying that like anybody's too good to have committed atrocities. Nobody's saying that. And if he's saying that, no one ever said that. What we're saying is the way that black people were treated in America was specific, intentional, and absolutely disgusting.

Yeah. Those three facts are not debatable. So I guess the question would be. I've got to have them so very. Okay. I'm so sorry. Okay. Oh, my bad.

All right. Okay, I rudely interrupt a van because I had to run and take a bathroom break. But no, look, first of all, I apologize. No, don't apologize. You said some really amazing stuff. But people don't listen to the podcast for like, I've been ranting. No. Yeah.

You were, listen. You were passionate about it. Thought warriors love to hear it from you. When you post about it on social media, when you post it in the group text, I'm like, he's very passionate about this. And as you said, you're a longtime watcher of Bill Maher. So you've seen the progression of him change. And so I imagine it's very upsetting to you as maybe somebody, I don't know if I want to use the word admire, but somebody you like really were. Okay.

Somebody that you admired go from that to this and to use such a troubling and problematic comparison where it in essence, you know, pretty much, like it doesn't honor the black struggle. It doesn't. It takes away from the things that we've been through. And it pretty much summarizes what's been done to us in this country with that, with that comparison. So I can imagine how upset you are, which so don't apologize for going on a rant when everything

that you said was so great. So this is the real thing. and this is a van problem, a problem with me, Van Lathen. I don't want to talk to third person. The real thing is, I should have been jumped off the Mar train.

Bill Maher has had, has been an Islamophobe for forever. Bill Maher has been, like, there should have been, look, I'm not like a, look,

I'm not moralizing. I'm not moralizing. I'm really not. Like, I don't, I don't really care who's a good person who's a bad person. Okay. Because I don't think that that's a sustainable way to debate the societal issues.

Like, the only thing that you can debate is what happened and what did. Right, because you don't know how if somebody's a good person or bad person. Right. But by the end of his life, Benjamin Franklin was against slavery. I threw Benny in there with the rest of his people. By the end of his life, by the end of his life, he was with slavery. Abolition is movement built up in America. after a while.

But to be honest with you, after the creation of the country, there were a lot of guys like Benjamin Franklin that went, look, we can't be about all of these tenants if we're holding four or five million people in bondage, right? The reality is that the same reason why people got fucked over then is the same reason why they're getting fucked over now.

It's because of the money. The money is what did it. The money. And then by, here's the money. thing. Start off as the money. After three fucking generations of looking at a black person like a piece of cattle, they're a piece of cattle. The question is, how long does it take to uncaddle somebody?

It hasn't been done yet. I don't think it has. And so the reality, not to the degree that it needs to, and so the reality of that is we have to be so much further along than what we are for us to give passes about that. We are America, no passes, no quarter, no nothing. And so many other people don't either. And for him to sit here and like, I don't, look, like, I'm not telling you that, I'm not telling you that slavery was a white thing.

I'm telling you that American slavery was. And this is where I live. And this is where I've been trying to live. And let's talk about it. But. Not laugh about it. Not laughing. Because when they were laughing, it made it seem like you're laughing at us.

It's not. And shame on everybody that was in that audience. Shame on you too. Let's take a break. Take a little bit of a break. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Trimphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks,

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Kind of piggybacking off of what we were talking about before, but kind of staying in the same realm. So the Woman King this weekend came out, made $19 million at the box office. Did you see it? I did. I did not. I think the whole thing.

could pretty much guess that. You were at the peninsula. I was at the peninsula. Not that I'm not supporting black movies. I mean, you had to see you. You see the movie. I didn't see it. I still have time.

But it made 19, it won the weekend. $19 million at the box office. And a lot of people didn't even expect it to do that well, but it did. But just as it was also trending that people were, it won the weekend and it made all this money at the box office, it was also trending. There was a hashtag on Twitter, hashtag boycott Woman King. Yeah. So a number of users profess their disinterest in seeing a film or this film that they believe obscured the history of the kingdom of Dahomi.

Dahami. Da homie. Fuck. Tohomie's kingdom. Does it not look like smell like the homie? Hey. I like it. What is it?

No, we're going to go with the homie. No, tell me where it is. No, we'll go with the homie, man. Help. Donnie. Don't help her. Donnie. Like, we're going to go with the homie, man.

Donnie. Hey, Mungoose. Are you there? You saw the movie. Right. Oh, Donny doesn't know either. Don't know either. Don't know either.

Don't know. Oh, it is. It's the homie. Google says it's the homie. Now, why you make me feel a certain way? Because it's funny. They're the homies. Why do you make me feel a certain way?

Anyways. All right, the kingdom of Dahomy. Viola Davis stars in this film. And so at issue is that this film is that this film is set in 1823 and people are saying it does not accurately portray the relationship between the West African country and the slave trade. You saw this movie. Is that true?

Well, I don't know because I'm unfamiliar with the actual story. But I do know that in this movie, like, the slave trade and they want to move past the slave trade or by old Davis's characters want to move past the slave trade. It's like kind of a thing because she's not, like John Boyega's the king. John Boyega's the king. Yeah. She's leading an all-female, she's an all-female warrior army. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it explores their proximity to the slave trade. Okay. But to be honest with you, that doesn't have anything to do with why people are, want to boycott this movie. Okay, because that's what I, I mean, I know, like Nicole Hannah-Jones tweeted about it a month before it came out. Well, Nicole Hannah-Jones's tweet was different. This is what she said. She said,

It'll be interesting to see how a movie that seems to glorify the all-female military unit of Dahomey deals with the fact this kingdom derived its wealth from capturing Africans for the transatlantic slave trade. Okay. So capturing Africans for the transatlantic slave trade. All right. So we talked about this a little while ago how there was no unified blackness at that time. Sure. Right. This is what some people would say is presentism, right?

There was no unified blackness at that time because there was no unified blackness at that time. because there was no unified blackness at that time, then the people that they were capturing were to them. Just the other. Yeah. By the way, that's wrong. Capturing people and selling to slave traders is wrong and all fucked up. I guess the question is, and the real underlying question is,

is there a story worth telling that supersedes that? is the story that they're telling because all the guys that we just talked about that were slave owners been plenty of movies made about them sure they're romanticized

they are lauded but plenty of movies made about this but are we in a different time now I mean maybe but the question is this is a conversation to be had amongst the diaspora this is now now it's black people talking to black people Yeah.

The woman who stars in this movie is Viola Davis, right? It's black people talking to black people now. The movie itself isn't, isn't, it explores that entire thing. It explores the horror of the slave trade. Does it explore as much as it needs to? I don't know. I'm not familiar with them as much as I should be. So I don't know, right?

But people were saying it were acting as if, like, if you clicked on this hashtag, you would think that it wasn't even addressed, addressed, that it was completely skated over in this movie. But apparently, you know, this is without seeing it, but you did, that they do show Viola Davis' character talking to the king John Boyega about abandoning the slave trade because of its impact on their fellow countrymen. So what are, what is the beef that people have if the film does note it? It's not like I was thinking it was completely ignored and it was just glorifying this, this all-female army.

But it does address what the king was doing, what this country was doing, and how it was problematic. And it shows a woman, again, is still maybe glorifying her, but her confronting him about how, what they were doing that's wrong. So what are people upset about? I think that this issue doesn't have very much to do with the movie. I think that this has to do with a conversation between making it. No, between people who identify themselves as foundational black Americans. Okay. You've heard this term before.

foundational black Americans and people throughout the diaspora. And I'm going to make sure to, I'm going to make sure to use the right tone when I'm talking about this. The Woman King is about an African tribe, right? An African tribe that a lot of black people here in the country would look,

a lot of black women particularly, would look and see a oneness with. Sure. They look like a, us, they're us before we became the us that we are now. There's an ongoing conversation in the country about how much of a connection we should have. The people here who are foundational black Americans, and by the way, some of the things they say I agree with, some of the things they say I disagree with, the foundational black

Americans, from what I understand, won't speak for them. Maybe we'll have somebody on the podcast to talk about this a little bit. I'll be out in Atlanta later on this. week. There's a couple of people out there that are going to be doing the panel with me that talk about these issues. They're talking about what happens here for black people here and the treatment and the condition of black people here in America and what it means to be that, right? That's what they're talking about. That's their eating. That's their journey. That's their goal. When we talk about reparations, they're talking about for foundational black Americans. They're talking about the unique experience of being a black American from here in this

country. Yes. And they're not talking about any immigrants. Not really, from what I understand, I could be wrong. They're not talking about any immigrants. No, anybody with a different lived experience. So this movie to them, as I understand it, might as well be white people. It's too much for me.

I mean, this movie to them, like, from what I, it might as well be white people. What they're talking about is, what they're seeing is a film. that glorifies slave traders and that film is in no way connected to black people here because they don't feel that connection.

They don't think that the connection is valid. That's what I've been led to understand. For me, I think the question that still remains worthy of discussion is, what does the diaspora really mean? Well, to them, nothing. I don't...

If you look and you see blackness on a film back in 1823, if you see an all-female warrior army and you in no way, we come from Africa. Yes, we have a totally different experience which you laid out earlier in this podcast. But if that's our ancestry, if that's the motherland,

if that's where we come from, our roots are, how can you totally disconnect yourself and look at them? I get it. I get that we're different. We talked about that before. Yeah. But to look at that and say, I have no parts of that, to me, I don't understand.

Yeah. I don't understand. So to me, I guess I look at this is if the subject wasn't covered, I'm not looking at it from a foundational black American view. I'm looking at it as, this is history, this is Africa. Did they cover the things that they needed to be covered or did they skate over him and glorify? them as we have done with other problematic historical figures. It sounds like they did not. I'm good.

Well, I mean, look, certain people, I have no problem with, I saw the movie, I enjoyed the movie. I thought it was a very powerful representation. Vio Davis was great. I have no problem with the discourse over the movie either because this is useful discourse. Useful to a degree. It's you. I understand your, I understand your count.

I understand your point. Useful to a degree. Okay. Like, youth feel like it's not useful. Why? To detect, to, I think you can totally say we're different from you because of what black, being black American in the same way they would say they're different from us. We talked about that. Yeah, of course.

I think that's fine. I think those are healthy conversations to have, but to totally disconnect from the continent we come from to me is problematic because that's what they, that's what they tried to do to us. did they not try to totally shut us off from everything we knew to start to start here living a life of slavery? They completely disconnected us from the continent. No, you're right. You're right. You're absolutely right. I long to be, you know, I've never been to Africa and I desperately want to go.

But I long to have to feel what it feels like to put my feet on in Africa and to experience that. I hate that I am as disconnected as I'm. I am. And the mindset that we are disconnected is something that they put in us when they brought us over here. So to me, I feel like that perpetuates that thinking. You can still have your own identity here in this country because of what we've been through and identify as a black American and still have love and feel connected to the place we

came from. Yeah. I feel love and connected to black people everywhere. I do too. That's what I'm, that's why I understand this. We go to, hey, man, look, we'll have somebody that identifies as FBI on the podcast. We'll have the conversation, you know. Do they call themselves FBI?

It's like foundational black Americans, Ato's, you know, the American descendants of slaves. And look, for me, I try to make, and I get in so much trouble for this. If my man, if my man Phil was listening to this, he's going to be, I try to make space for all conversations within the community and within the diaspora. the people who are mad about something, the people who are accepting of something, I try to make space for it all. A lot of times it gets nasty. A lot of times it gets nasty,

and a lot of times we forget that the one thing that we owe each other as black people is the ability to openly communicate with one another without name calling or ass kicking or any of that stuff. I think it was jarring to me when you said that might as well be a white person to them.

To some of them, yeah, to some of them, yeah, it definitely might as well be a white person. There's a reason that we have unified as black because so much is against blackness. Yeah. And so I think that we fall into, if we separate ourselves and say, that's, that's y'all over there and that's this over here, then we are playing into the same mindset that has been placed against us for being black. I just find it. Yeah. I find it as an issue.

It's like, you know, offering up. whether it's your own people, other countrymen, the slave trait. Remember, no one had a concept of what American chattel slavery was going to be. No one had a concept because it didn't really exist to them. Doesn't change anything. But what I'm saying is I am inviting and interested in the voices that have a discourse about it because they want to be heard out. The question is, are we building a thriving black community in America, or do we seek to build a thriving black world community? You know, like, because I just, that's the question, the central question.

So, you know, to me, I like black people. I like black people with funny accents. You know, I get pissed when they, you know, sometimes they take roles. Yeah, yeah. I get pissed, but we, we really, as a diaspora, need to understand what pan-Africanism is. We really need to understand what black power and black unity is. Yeah.

I'm surprised you watched it with John Boyega playing the king. Why? You think, you know, I don't like John Boyega? Well, he's British. Oh. But they're British. You know, it's like, whatever, man. Let's talk about a friend of mine.

Very close friend of mine. I'm sure Reddit will love that. The SJ's over at Reddit. will love this clip we have to discuss it Charlemagne the God has a great show on Comedy Central called Hell of a Week and he had some opinions

about Governor Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott Ken Let Texas slide sending immigrants to Martha's Vineyard Donnie can I get this out? For much, Republican governors have sent busloads of illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities like New York, D.C. and Chicago with the message of,

if you like them so much, they're yours. Okay? Well, just in time for Hispanic Heritage Month, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis up the game by sending two plain folds of immigrants to the East Coast, Elite's favorite vacation island, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. I personally think it's genius. But I wish that governors like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott would give Democratic governors and mayors more of a heads up, because then that would expose the hypocrisy of the which is they don't want immigrants here either. Well, I don't think that they had to put the laugh button on that. Yeah.

Because it wasn't funny. And you could tell from the panel that was sitting there that they weren't laughing either. Right. When that happened. And I hope, man, that you hold your friends accountable. I know you like to have conversations and discourse with differing opinions. but I would hope that in this one, you call your friend out. If you want to say what Abbott and DeSantis did is creative,

it is. It is creative what they did. But to say that it's genius, once again, I have to believe that you don't believe that and that you're doing that for shark value. You have to be doing it. Shark value. Oh, I love that.

That should be a new high learning saying. A five. For shark value. For shark value. So number one, I don't think it's that. Creative, I definitely don't think it's genius. Moving migrants around for whatever reason has been something that they've threatened to do. People have done before.

It's not that. It's a bad take. I talked to Shalaman about it. It's a bad take. Number one, let's look at this from the sky. Sure. So his overall point, and we talked about this this morning, his overall point was that Democrat, mayors and governors don't want immigrants here either.

Right. this overall point. So they're sending these migrants to sanctuary cities. And so either we're talking about what people feel in their heart, which you can never do with politicians.

Doesn't matter what a politician does in his heart. Lyndon Johnson said the N-word a million times over. He signed a Civil Rights Act. He signed a Voting Rights Act. He helped Martin Luther King get all of his legislation through. I

was fucked up at Dr. King at the end. But so, Lyndon Johnson, I know he's UT, you like him. Like, Lyndon Johnson, at the end of the day, ally. Like, I mean, as hard as that is to say knowing the things that came out of his mouth

at the end of the day, ally. Okay. Signed a lot of legislation that black people need. L.D.J. Yeah. So, the reality of the situation here is that a sanctuary city exists so that migrants, undocumented people can live and work without persecution from ice and other people. That is the point of a sanctuary city. If the sanctuary cities

are coming from the left, if DACA is coming from the left, it's unfair. I'm not holding the water to the Democrats. It's unfair to say they don't want them here either. Now, are you saying that like Gavin Newsom loves immigrants? How do I know? Right. I really don't know. Right.

Like, but once again, when we're talking about the left and we're talking about the Democrats and their inability to win certain battles, we do have to be fair. And the reality of the situation is Joe Biden. Joe Biden continued Title 42 for a little while. He hasn't been great. And he's got a huge crisis on his hands down there with the influx of migrants coming up through the border since the pandemic. And the question of U.S. immigration continues to be, how do you maintain a safe and secure border? And that's very important.

A safe and secure border means people aren't getting through that don't need to get into the country in terms of I'm talking about, just have to be real about it, drugs or terrorism or whatever. You want safe and secure borders, but you also want to maintain some sort of morality in the humane way that you treat people and also that people are getting their asylum cases heard on their merits. All of that stuff matters. There's only one party, if we're being honest, that is at all attempting to be the friend of the migrant from Mexico or Venezuela or whatever.

And that is the Democrats. The other side of this argument has made it their sworn duty to fingerify everyone. Paint them as dangerous, paint them as exploitive, and dehumanize them. And that's the reality. And that's what DeSantis did. The Santas put a bunch of people on a plane with a camera. To make a political stunt out of it, children and sent them somewhere. We all saw this.

This take is bad. Me and him talked about it this morning. We had a long back and forth. It was very lively. This take is bad. The real thing that this underscores is that, Sharr, like a lot of people, have lost faith in the moral backbone of the left. Of liberals, and they've lost faith in the actual backbone of the left and liberals.

They no longer believe the morality. exists on the left side of the political aisle, they've seen too much. And because of that, sometimes overcorrection is like this happening. Correct. This isn't the hill to dial on with that. This isn't the point to make with that. Because at the end of the day, we talked about it last time, there were Democrats actually stepping up to provide these individuals who they had no warning were coming

into their city with food and shelter and health care and things that they need. And that's more than you can say for the other side. I mean, well, the other side is, yeah, the other side is basing their politics on ramping up, ramping up their constituency by saying that all of these people are going to come into the country and kill everybody. Correct. I'm just more so saying it in a sense in the context of his statement. Yeah. Yeah.

Not, not the best. But look, I think that this. It was horrid. Okay. I think that the situation actually brings up a really interesting point of of conversation. Like, there are people out there right now that are just so, so exhausted with the Democrats that they just can't believe whatever they say, even when the legislative history is there to prove it.

Fair. but don't use this isn't the one to make an example. I get it. I get your frustration. And I'm not wronging you for that. I'm just saying this wasn't the time the example to use. Yeah. It was for shark value.

Shark value. Do you want, like, would you like to have Shaw on the podcast? You can bring him on. Yeah. Are you going to do the thing? When he gets on here, don't like be his friend because you don't fuck with him. Okay, that's extreme. It's not that I don't fuck with him.

But I'm not going to be his friend. I mean, we're going to talk about whatever there is to talk about. Right. But I know you want me. I know what you want for me. You want me to just lose it on him. And I'm not going to do that unless there's a reason to. Yeah.

We promise you guys we'd have a conversation over the Safety Act in Illinois, which reform of cash bail. You were in the courtroom with the bail situation. As a third year law student, I did revocation hearings. And I did a lot of bail hearings. Okay. And it is extremely depressing. Right. So Illinois is trying to overhaul the cash bail system.

And they're being criticized for it. They're getting their ass is kicked. Robert Peters is a state senator from Illinois who is a staunch supporter of the Safety Act. And he joins us next on higher learning to explain it to us. Calm down, everyone. Robert's going to talk. Next up. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech.

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introducing new Nass Energy Grand Prix Guava for those that want to be fueled up and fired up with a hundred-bound hour tropical tasting power. Ignite your taste, start your engine. Shift your flavor to high gear with new Nass Energy Grand Prix Guava. Hit the street, grab a can, and get after it. Okay, so there is something going into effect in Illinois,

January, 2023, that has people talking. The Safety Act is coming to Illinois. And I got to be honest with you. Some people on the right say that lawlessness will rain. Lawlessness will rain in the streets of Chicago on the campus of Illinois. Northern Illinois. I think there's the Salukis. Maybe that's Illinois state. I can't remember. Southern Illinois. Look, there you go. And the man voice that you just heard is going to help us polish the brass on the Titanic before it all goes down in Illinois. His name is Robert Peters. He is a state senator from the great state of Illinois.

And we are happy to have him on Higher Learning today. Senator Peters, how are you doing? I'm doing well. I'd rather be talking about other issues than combating a bunch of misinformation. Can I just start off by asking, am I allowed to curse? Yeah, of course. Okay, good. Well, I've been stressed out by the fucking misinformation I've gotten to all weeks.

I'm excited to talk about it. All right, so let's start here. Before people, before we even get into what the perception of the Safety Act is, why don't you tell us your best description of what actually is going to take effect in January, 2023 in Illinois? Yeah, so the Safety Act came out of one of the Black Caucus pillars, the criminal justice performed pillar, and actually has multiple parts to it and had a variety of different start dates. And so actually parts of the Safety Act have been implemented and put into place over the last 20 months.

The last part, a very major piece, the piece that has gotten a great deal of misinformation, is the part that ends cash bail, originally known as the Pre-Trial Fairness Act. That part of the Safety Act is the last one in the implementation calendar, and that is January 1st, 2023. We have done things that have already gone live, is police certification, you know, police accountability measures, use of forest standards, training standards, those things have actually already been implemented. This is the last bit of the Black Caucus Pillar Safety Act pie that, you know, is going to go into effect hopefully here soon. Could you delve into the,

that a little bit more because I want, you know, you hear it, you read the headlines and you think that it's just about the no cash bell. But there is so much more that's being done with this act that is so beneficial to the community and to get rid of certain issues that. that have been a problem within our community for such a long time. If you could detail a little bit about some of the things this act targets. Yeah. So, for example, we changed deadly use of force to prevent people from being shot in the back by police, created a little bit of a stronger accountability measures in terms of police certification

so that people can be decertified when it comes to being in police. We expanded body cameras. I understand that a lot of people find body cameras to be controversial, both on the left and the right. But one of the most important parts about this is that actually just being, just being able to know there's been something bad happening is important in terms of creating some sort of accountability and to be able to foster a proper amount of tension in terms of community law enforcement relationships. It's healthy that helps build a public safety policy. And then the no cash bail piece is not just about no cash bail. it fundamentally shifts the standard for pretrial detention. And what I mean by that is instead of basing pretrial detention on whether you have money in your wallet or not,

it focuses specifically on the idea of whether you're a threat in terms of public safety or your risk to fly. So essentially, you know, we have a system where if someone has a lot of money, but they've been accused of something really bad, they can still go home. They can still, you know, get on a plane and fly, away. But if you're poor and you're working class, even if it's relatively a minor thing that you've been accused of, you get stuck in Cook County Jail. Instead of it being, so what we've done to say that doesn't work. That's bad public policy. Let's actually focus on a public safety standard, a public safety way of dealing with detention. So in fact, we created a law that's more

focused on public safety than the status quo. And people living in other states, should be demanding a system that moves away from basically the accused has to have money in their pocket and towards a system that says, hey, if you're a threat to public safety, you might be someone who needs to be detained. You know, talking about people who can't afford to bond out, I think about situations like Khalif Broder up in New York and, you know, how that might have changed his life and what might have happened. had he not been too poor to secure his freedom. Go into the weeds a little bit about what actually the process is to determine how dangerous somebody is and whether or not they should be detained or not detained.

This is more than just a customary arraignment type of situation, as I understand. So what is it? Yeah. So let's say someone is accused of something that is a violent crime. crime. So you hear a lot of things about certain crimes and quote unquote violence. Well, we actually focus on what would be really described as violent, very violent crimes as an example. So the idea is like they go through the process, they're accused of a very violent crime. They have to then show, right, they have to make an argument, the person accused to that judge that they deserve

to have their, to not be detained, to be able to go home, essentially their freedom. and that they are themselves not a threat to a person or persons. The state doesn't have to go through nearly as much of a rigorous process in terms of making that argument. But what we do say is that you do need to present some evidence. You need to show that someone is a threat. You can't just say that about anybody because the issue is that if people just said that about anybody, anyone in any place could conceivably just be locked up and incarcerated, which would then, in fact, make this not a standard that is fair at all.

That is basically compared to where the status quo is, which is like cash bail, where what happens is you get in front of, I was just in bond court, I think it was this Thursday, and to give an example, if someone came in there, there were two accused people, person one has actually some history being caught up in incarceration. person too does not have any history. They're kind of being accused of roughly the same thing. And yet the judge gave a higher bond to the person who has no history and a lower bond is someone who does have a history.

And it was completely arbitrary. The idea is to remove much of the arbitrary nature of the pretrial system. So it has some evidence behind it. So there's actually some level of a court case, right, to go through the court system. It's not being rushed through in a matter of minutes, right? Usually we're talking about when you're dealing with bond, it's 30 seconds to two minutes. We remove that. The idea is to actually have an intentional process and that you can actually debate whether someone is a threat to society or not. And that is really sort of what the shift has been in Illinois. So give you another good example is when we pass this bill, domestic violence organizations, the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence, describe this. as criminal justice reform that puts survivor safety first. So oftentimes what you see, especially like today, in this current system, the one that is, you know, has cash bond, someone is accused of domestic violence and either they're left in the

house without having to have any argument about whether they actually did something really bad to someone that, you know, to a family member in the house and they're not detained, they're not even taken in. Or someone does get detained. They pay their bond. they come right out and then they might commit something very violent. We hear a lot of cases about people who, you know, a spouse calls on their husband or something to go in to get incarcerated. They pay their bond.

They come out and they literally kill a family member. What we are saying is, okay, if someone is accused of domestic violence or sexual assault, they have to actually come in. And then there needs to be like an actual discussion about whether they're a threat to those folks or not. Who has that discussion? Who has a discretion to determine whether or not somebody is a threat or not? So that's up to the judge. I mean, the idea is the statement, that argument and the judge has to be able to determine whether someone's a threat

or someone's a risk when it comes to a roleful flight. I have a follow question to that. First of all, I have to say, I used to do bell hearings. And so I wish something like this existed because it was wild the arguments that you would make, the bell that they would set. And you knew whether it was 30. thousand to 200,000. These individuals couldn't afford it and were automatically going to jail. It was, I would ask for PR bonds all the time and it was never granted no matter what. So I see

no problems with this and I think this is so incredible that this act was passed and you guys are doing this. My follow-up question to what Van was saying is, since things are changing and there is, obviously this has always been in the judge's hands and their responsibility, but now in a different way, knowing that there's no cash bail, is there some type of, I don't know, program training, discussion with the judges who will be making these decisions to make sure things are done a certain way. Yeah. So for the reason why, so before I was a state senator, I helped form the Money Bohn coalition with a bunch of folks. And one of the things that we sort of really focused on is the idea that you have to have an extended time period for

implementation. One reason is because politics, we saw what happened in New York. The thing that usually stands out to me as a New York sort of Joker reference is after the New York bond reform, the New York Post puts up this mugshot of a dude and says, you know, he's been let out 154 times. And the thing that, you know, nobody ever tends to think about is that means 153 times before bond reform and one time after bond reform. So it wasn't 154 times after bond reform in New York. But we saw that and we said, we can't let this happen. And here we are, where at least it's happening before it's been implemented and during a political campaign and not after. So we had an extended implementation timeline. The other one is that the Supreme Court created an implementation task force.

So there are a variety of different task forces that include different stakeholders, particularly when it comes to the court on making sure that we can implement the pretrial fairness act in a way that works for the court system, right, everybody from the clerks to public defenders to state's attorneys, to advocates, right, to survivor and victims groups, but also to make sure that counties of different sizes, so small downstate Illinois counties, rural counties are be able to have a say and tell us what processes that they go through, what they're going to need, and to make sure that, you know, suburban counties that are nearly as big as cook, you know, tell us what they're going to need and then cook. And so we actually have an implementation timeline. No cash bill. I'm going to tee you up here because I did a little research. Has there been any place in America where this has been tried before?

Yeah. So, D.C. Uh-huh. is the most famous example. I can't remember, but literally decades ago, they essentially got rid of a cash bail system. So that's Washington, D.C. The federal system is basically divorced of any cash bail.

So they don't use bail. So I always laughed when a federal prosecutor, a certain mayor in the city of Chicago, makes all these critiques because she worked under a system that did not use bail. I always laughed that Rod Blagojevich, our corrupt former governor, was out pretrial. He was out, again, pre-trial, and he was on the apprentice. So the man, the former governor, Robloyvich.

Yes, he critiqued the pretrial fairness act and the safety act, and yet he benefited from a federal system that said, sure, you can shake down a children's hospital. That's something Rob Blagojavich did. you can talk about how grandparents, how you basically shook down old people to get reelected. But you're allowed to have your freedom to go and go on David Letterman and go on the apprentice. And he has the audacity to critique us for saying, I think more and more working class people, particularly black and Latinx working class people, should be able to have that right too. and so that just shows the hypocrisy of so many of the people who critique this.

And then the last place is similar, but a little different is New Jersey. So much of the last. What I was waiting for. That's right. So you got and you got, I went through each one. I've got so nerdy on this. That's what I was waiting for. Do you remember who was the governor of New Jersey when that was first implemented?

That really wild liberal man, Chris Christie. Oh, wait a minute. minute. What did you say? Wait, what? Who was the government? Like, was it? Was it? What? Chris, Chris, Chris, you, are you sure? Are you sure that wasn't Robert Kennedy? What? I thought, Chris Christie. Wow. Wow. I thought that AOC was the governor. I thought a else, like what, what, yeah, exactly, right? So Chris Christie and I think a Republican legislator. passed their bail reform law in New Jersey that basically conceivably ended cash bail in New Jersey.

But I do want to say, you know, they have a tiny bit. They don't ever really use it. I want to make that clear. So they don't really use any of it. But a full repeal of cash bail, the first in the state, and the first in the country is Illinois. And I just want to be able to have that and hold on to that because all these attacks I'm getting, I'll give me an idea of my office. I was talking to staff.

They got a call from some right-wing person in Texas who started threatening everybody in the office and making a bunch of stupid threatening statements. And I just want to say that someone who's in that sad of a position that they called all the way from Texas to berate my staff, I want to be able to hold on that I made them that way. I want to make sure that they, and I hope that if they ever, hear this that they should know that I feel really sorry for them. And I hope they spend more time worrying about UT football than they do about state Senator.

Oh. Oh. Okay. Senator now. Oh. Okay. Senator. Now I'm from Texas.

I'm from Texas. I went to UT. So on you, sometimes I hate my state. Get her. I'm not even going to lie. And I'm here to tell you, support you as a person who is a Texan, okay? Somebody who supports what it is that you're doing. You said it right.

Who is licensed to practice? No, no, don't walk it back now, Robert. Don't walk it back now. Steve's Arkeesian. That's what they need to be worried about down there. Don't walk it back now, Robert. Well, I want to touch on the backlash because we start, like when you first hopped on, you were talking about it. And, you know, I know people are out in the streets holding up signs that are like Chicago violence is coming to the suburbs and there's all this fearmongering going on.

how worried are you about some of this that is coming, not people calling your office, but just undoing the work that you guys have done? Well, that's a big question, but I want you to know that I talked to my therapist about a couple hours ago, so I'm in a much better place than I was back then. So I remember when we first passed this bill and a journalist, and I can't remember who asked me how I was feeling. and I said, I feel absolutely horrible. I said passing this bill, which was hard enough,

seems easier than what's going to take to keep it intact and to implement it. And I thought a lot about history, and particularly Koretta Scott King. After Dr. King got assassinated and murdered, she decided to keep the fight for a jobs guarantee going into the 70s and then watched in response to civil rights fights, to a series of uprisings and sort of, you know, sort of aggressive anti-establishment behavior that the right instead passes not a jobs guarantee, but a tough on crime, sort of our first law and order piece of legislation, which you can kind of say was the undoing of civil rights movements and civil rights fights.

This is about 1971, 1972. And so that sort of stuck in my head. You have the history of that and you have the history of what happened after the Civil War during Reconstruction. And even though, you know, this is not national policy itself, it's a microcosm in Illinois. The small but I think very important, very influential civil rights piece of legislation in the Safety Act was going to face that backlash and that pressure. and that we would face that backlash and that pressure, not simply just from right-wingers in, in the Republican Party, but even have the risk of people who identify as being, quote, quote, centrist or liberal and a high-level grievance politics. And so as I sit here today, I mean,

it's frustrating. It makes me nerve that I'm in this position. I never thought I would live to see a microcosm of things I read about in history books. I sort of joke and say that a large part of the public sort of cosplay the civil rights movement. They cosplayed the 60s in 2020. And in a relatively short period of time, we have now lived through the 80s and 90s of political discourse in this country. And I felt that very heavily, not just as an elected, but as the chair of the at Black Caucus. And so it's weighed a lot. It's been exhausting.

But when it comes to this bill and what it comes to what this means for so many people on January 1st, in order for them to take this down, they're going to have to do it over my fucking dead body. Wow. Well, look, that's all I got for you, Robert. I do want to tell you something, though. And I want to make sure that you guys stay encouraged up there. And we appreciate you coming on to dispel some of the myths and some of the. and some of the misinformation.

It's not just myths, it's intentional misinformation. I want you to know something. That as an Illinois state senator, your one Star Trek sex scandal away from the White House. You might not know what I'm talking about, but your one Star Trek sex scandal away from the White House. So remember that. It could happen like that.

that. Think about it. He was in your same spot. Somebody fucked up. Boom. Six years later. Let's let's tone down the expectation. You know what I mean? You know, like there's like one Jordan, you know, I don't need, you know what I mean? Let's just tone it down. I mean, you know, I know what you're talking about. I can't wait to everybody Googles what you're talking about because they're going to Google that. And then they're going to have even higher expectation. Got to look it up. All right. Robert Peters, thank you for

joining us today on higher learning. We will check back and check in with you to see how things are going in your state after this comes to fruition. And we hope that it spreads like wildfire. We hope that using economic differences to incarcerate

people or let them free is an antiquated and old tradition in America. So we appreciate what you're doing. We appreciate We really appreciate all your passion, man. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, yes. Definitely.

Thank you guys so much. All right. So there's a viral tweet that has sparked debate about HBCUs and PWI. It's a debate we have here often on higher learning as I went to a PWI and YVN went to an HBCU. HBCU. So, and he judges me for it. I went to PWI too, though. All the time.

He makes me feel less than. But anyways. a USC student at Princess Lang Zero tweeted a video with the caption, quote, oh nothing, I created a majorette team at a P-WI and performed at our first game. Truly, though, I'm so blessed and can't thank God enough. Thank you to my parents and to everyone who supported me along this long journey and my girls. F.Y.E. emoji, the cardinal divas of SC are up next. So the debate that's going on on Twitter centers around the argument of HBCU culture not belonging at PWIs.

Do you agree or disagree with this? So black people can't have a black experience at PWIs. I have a black experience. I think that if you want to bring the culture and you want to create something that is representative, like represents us that you don't see shown at your PWI, what's wrong with that? So they got to stay in a white lane is what you're telling. I'm like,

they got a... I hope you honest with you. I think it's cultural appropriation. They're black! It's white. That goes on at black schools. I don't know why, but I just want to blame Charlemagne. That goes on at black schools.

Next thing, the SC drum major will come out there and do a back then? Have you not seen white drum majors? I'm a take doubt that. That is cultural appropriation. What's the difference? White? These are black.

Who can do black other than black people? She made a whole major ed team, man. And they're black. Who can do black? No, I am totally with you. I have seen the drum majors that are white skip out there, roll their bodies down and have the back of their hats, touch the turf. I've seen that. I think that is the worst thing ever.

That's not what this is. These are black people bringing their culture to their PWIs. They don't see themselves represented. So we had a step team. Uh-huh. We, okay, wait, no, let me take this back. And it wasn't Delta. African-American culture committee had a dance step team.

Is that cultural appropriation? Nope. If Delta's organ, if deltas do a probate or step, is that culture? Why not? Because the deltas are a nationwide organization. So are major-s. No, they're not. The deltas are a nationwide organization that has different chapters everywhere.

that do things that are pertinent and visible in Delta culture. And it's everywhere. This right here. This right here. This is smiling thrilled to represent their school and their culture together. They look great. But here's the deal. They doing this and it's a sea of white people behind them.

I hate it. I hate that. Shout out to the white people because we, you know, y'all been catching strays this episode. But I'll be honest with you. I'm to HBCU to be cool with this. No, I don't like watching the white people behind trying to do what they're doing. That's not cool to me. But the fact that they are representing the culture is all black women.

I'm not against this at all. Go to a HBCU. No. Carry your ass to Dillard. I think this is beautiful. Xavier Southern, Gremlin, Jackson State, Fam U. Texas Southern, Prair View,

Alabama, A&M, Howard, Clark. This is so long. Carry your ass in one of them schools, man. Blin.

Not Blin, Blin is a junior college. What's the one in, what's the one in South Carolina Wax went to? I can't remember. But like,

Cario ass, South Carolina State, that's not the one Wax went to, but it's another one. Cario ass of them. Carry your ass of that. You want to be,

look, they're killing it. They're doing it. They're doing it. They're doing it all right. But like they, they, these girls are, you know, they're from the high planes.

And it's like, I'm, fuck, the band not even going to rock for them right for them to be able to do their shit. They're doing it right now. They're rocking for them right now. Hey, look, I'm down to be all connected, but certain shit belongs in the HBCUs, man. I'll be real with you. Certain shit belongs to HBCU. You're so wrong for that. Maybe.

But I'm just like, we, you, if, I'm not, okay. You can't even, go ahead. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not going to do it. What I'm saying is, if you had gone, you would kind of... I'm sorry. See how you y'all?

He judges me? I don't get it. Because you know what? But to be honest with you, I'm going to be real with you. You do have the HSBCU experience. You know why? Because you were Delta. And the reality of the situation is you was there on some black shit with a bunch of

deltas, delta and around. You saw them cues that were in that video? Do you see that video? I can't believe I used to. I would love to have somebody on from, like, the Divine Nine to really talk about how the, and they were from LSU. Are you serious? I, like, Donnie, fact check me on that, but I'm almost positive they were from LSU. Wow.

I bet the cues on the yard love that, that they look like that. That was kind of weird. I mean, not weird. They just look wild. No, they didn't. Like, I was like, who is? I never saw cues like that. Nor saw them chanting.

Now, nasty Q-Dog is a real thing, but that's not the kind of stuff that they were saying. And to know what an Omega Man stands for, it's just I would love to have somebody come on and talk about how things have changed. And because, you know, there's a whole movement as well. At least I know there's been talk on the sorority side to not even have people pledge in college. Why? What the, what?

Yeah, like, there has been some discussion. I don't know if this is like a national thing, but I've heard Delta talk about this, that some, there's been talk with regionally about people not pledging in college because people get in trouble for hazing. Why are they going to play that?

People pledge grad chapter all the time. Yeah, but nobody respects that. You don't even know that you aren't one. I know, but I know that they talk shit about them. I know that I don't see guys be on the yard for four years not be with the capas or not be with the alphas. And then all of a sudden, it comes back

and they grad chapter or city chapter and I've seen dudes gripped them up and look at them crazy I also seen the love It doesn't matter All I know

It doesn't matter for us I'm going to join that shit Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated It's not a It's a non-hazing chapter A sorority I mean So it doesn't matter Either way for us

But you do throw the hooks up In every Every single episode You go like this That's it That's it I'm gonna join that shit Like hey

Hey, Q's. Somebody reach out, man. I'm sick of it. My family was in that shit. I'm going to join that shit. Were they Omega's? Yeah. Like, I'm a...

Look at how he's moving, y'all. I'm going to join that shit, man. It's never too late. It's never too late. I'm a pledge. All I thought were you just that are Omega Sci-Fi. Hit Van up. It's not too late for him to play.

I'm going to join that shit. Stop. Oh, yeah, but nah, man, she can't do this. She's cool. I respect. I think this is Princess Lang. I think what you did is absolutely beautiful that you are bringing black culture to a school. PWA doesn't mean you have to stay in a white lane.

You can still be your full black self. And the fact that you are doing this, something that is meaningful to you that represents the culture. I think is an amazing thing. I'm not trying to. The Cardinals, my name. Shout out to the day. Shout out to the, uh, the, uh, the, the dancing dolls down there.

Not the dancing dolls. That's what they are. Oh, sorry, there's a TV show with the dancing dolls. I thought that's what you were referencing. What's the TV show? I think they're from Jackson. They're from Jackson, Mississippi.

No, the dancing dolls are from Southern University. Yes, you are correct. But there's also a TV show where it's young girls and they call themselves the dancing dolls. And that's what I thought you were referring to out of Mississippi. Boy, that was the height. If you could get you a dancing doll, anyway. All right.

Do you have an unexpected ally of the week? Yes, State Farm. And you can tell them why. We have to tell a little, oh, you guys, look, we told you that Unispected Ally of the Week was getting a little facelift. And it is because this week's ally of the week is presented by State Farm. If you're a small business owner, it isn't just your business. It's your entire life. You could be capturing portraits as a photographer or financial outlooks as an accountant.

Whatever the business, you need someone who. understands what it's like to have one themselves, and that's where State Farm small business insurance comes in. State Farm agents are small business owners, too. They know what it takes and how to help you personalize your policies for your small business needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Talk to your local agent today.

Presented by State Farm, the segment is sponsored by the good people over at State Farm. Do you have an unexpected allies? Yes, State Farm for sponsoring this segment. Obviously, that's where I'm going to start. That's a good one. So mine is going to be controversial. My unexpected ally of the week are, I have two of them. Maria Bello and Dana Stevens.

Maria Bello is an actress. Been a lot of movies over the years, including history of violence, other films. Maria Bello has been around for a long time. Okay. They are white ladies who also happen to be the writers of the woman king. And let me tell you why I'm giving them unexpected ally of the week. I understand the discourse about the movie and a lot of people might not see this is something that an ally would do.

Okay. But the reality is this is another leading role for one of the greatest and best actresses of her time, Viola Davis, that puts her in a different light. She got to be a badass. She got to kick ass. Everybody should go see the movie. She got to be physical. She got to be strong and powerful. And the role itself, to be honest with you,

is just fantastic for her, not to mention Janet Prince Blythewood, who directed the film, is also another black woman. So I like situations where people that are outside from the community get stuff made and it can benefit someone. So I'm going to go with them. Despite the fact that a lot of people think that the problems that the movie has is because it has to why. Because they have. Right, right, right.

But we're not going to focus on that. We're not going to focus on that. I'm going to focus on the fact that the movie got made and black women got to shine. They look amazing and the film is great. It's great. So that is it. You want to take us out of Unisputt the Outlaw of the Week? Yes.

I thought you had two. Oh, wait, both the women. Those are your two. Both women. Okay, those are your two. All right. Well, this week's Outlaw of the Week was presented by State Farm as a small business owner. you put a ton of trust in yourself to go out on your own.

Big part of having your own business is also deciding who you're going to work with. And that's where State Farm's small business insurance comes in. Choose State Farm for your small business insurance because State Farm agents are small business owners too. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Talk to your local agent today. And with that, we are out. Okay. Higher learning is off.

But we're not just going to leave you. We'll leave you with the biggest hit of the day. We have to. We out of here, man. We have to leave you with the big of period of the day. Hey, Utah District 12, listen up right here. There's a new name on the ballot for the Senate this year. My name is Linda Paulson, Republican and awesome. Love God and family and the Constitution.

Talk to me. I tried to get another conservative to run. Nobody could do it, so I'm getting it done. I'm pro-religious freedom. Pro-life, pro-police, the right to bear arms and the right to free speech. I want less government. Control and regulation want to stop and expose all political corruption. Where's integrity, morality, accountability, government programs should lead to self-sufficiency

and support traditional family as a fundamental unit of society. But in schools, they are pushing for new beliefs. And just to clarify this, because there's some who can define this, as a female adult, I know what a woman is. That is transformative. Whoever is running against her, you got, what, a week to respond? You got a week to respond. Actually, don't respond.

You got a week to respond. Just win the fucking race of this woman. What the hell? Take a thing else off and did not stop learning. I'm Van Lady Jr. I'm Rachel and Lindsay. Bye, guys.