Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Kanye West Will Return, Druski and the Megachurch, and the Iranian Conflict

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Van and Rachel discuss Teyana Taylor’s comments on Ye, Kai Cenat’s career shift, and Druski’s megachurch skit. Then an update on the conflicts with ICE agents before associate professor Hussein Banai joins to help shed light on the conflict in Iran. (0:00) Intro (15:44) Teyana Taylor and Kanye West (31:17) Kai Cenat’s new path (42:39) Druski’s megachurch skit (1:00:14) J. Cole’s upcoming album (1:02:17) The war with ICE (1:19:00) Hussein “Huss” Banai on the Iranian conflict Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Hussein “Huss” Banai Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Jade Whaley Social Producer: Bernard Moore Video Supervision: Chris Thomas Vote here for the NAACP Image Awards: www.naacpimageawards.net Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Her learning is on is I Van Lathen Jr. And it's me, Rachel Lynn Lundy. Can I just start off shouting out my mom who just turned 70? My mom turned 70. Pretty hair. Pretty hair turned 70.

Looks good, feels good. I was able to come down and surprise her in Dallas for her birthday. So that was really, really exciting. Just want to say her birthday to my mom. My mom is turning 70 next month as well. It's the 70th year of the moms. 70 and fabulous. What did y'allel?

What did y'allel? We, Italian. No, no. Okay. Actually, no pork was had. Okay, what did you eat? Italian. I had, um, shrimp scampy, actually.

Okay. Were there meatballs on the table? Because that's pork based. Um, you ate a meatball. My nephew had meatballs. A pork based, the center of the lunchy diet. I thought they were beef. I think you put, you put pork in them, though.

I'm pretty sure you put, I think you put pork in the meatball to keep the meatball together. I think there's some pork in the meatball. Am I wrong? About that? this. Donnie. Jay says that you mix bread crumbs, but I think there's some pork in the meatball. Stop. Don't put that on us. We had Italian.

There was no pork involved. It was a nice nice celebration. Did you guys have cake? Did you eat cake, cake from mom? They brought cake at the restaurant, but my mom actually had a surprise birthday party from her siblings on Saturday. They all came down from Houston to surprise her. I missed that and then I came a surprise her for her actual birthday.

Fantastic. Yeah, really nice. Are her and a judge going to go on a vacation or something like that, romantic? We are all going, actually. So we're really, she's really getting a whole year. We're all going to Turks and Caicos. Oh. That's what she wants to go. Pretty hair trying to turn up.

What? Pretty hair is trying to turn up. She said, she's trying to turn up. 70 and fabulous. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, the short club, nice. Many more. The short club is very nice.

Many, many, many more for pretty hair in the entire Lindsay family. And your mom. Oh yeah, my mom, like my mom is a turn in 70. It's going to be interesting. It's a, it's a big deal for me personally because I've talked about it before. That generation of men in my family, they didn't get there. None of them got there. None of them got to 70. My dad, his brothers. My uncle Ray almost made it. You know, the women in my family have tremendous longevity. My beautiful Momo and all of that. But mom getting to 70 is a big deal for me. See what I do. Maybe I'll take it. Maybe I'll take it. her to Turks. Maybe we'll all go to Turks. You should. Let's go. I'll tell you the days. I'll pop up on y'all. Boy, we would ruin y'all vacation so much. No, you wouldn't.

You'd be fine. Oh, you have no idea to niggersness that's coming alone. You have no idea what's in my family. All right. It might not be us, but like we we have a big family. Yeah, we're coming along. Mom and Mom like to get slits. You know, I'm, I want to talk about this. My father, I had, there was another dream that I had.

But before I talk about this, I'm noticing more DACChery technology that exists in Louisiana when I go home. Oh, like a daffery shop? Like the drive-clothes? We have dapperies shops everywhere, right?

You get DACA anywhere. That's a very Louisiana thing. Yeah, you go to the store, you get, you tell the people at the store, you go, you know, they go, where are you going? You go, hey, you know what? After I leave here, I'm going to an AA meeting. And they go, cool, would you like a dachry?

It's a go. It's like we don't even consider dairies to be alcohol. I know. Like we don't. You don't. A dachary is like a Coca-Cola. We don't even care about it, right?

But my mother and Ebony and my beautiful cousin Jasmine Ellis, who graduated from Southern just recently, a homeboy of mine, called me up and was like, is Jasmine your cousin? I'm like, I'm too old to have this conversation.

Do whatever you got to do. And my grandmother, I go to, there's new daffery flavors that are out. Like what? They got the eggnog daug. They got the eggnog dackery. That doesn't sound right. It's like we're going to bring an eggnog dackery, like raspberry flash.

It's like when there was a dachary before, it's like three dachries is colors. It was blue, white, red. And the red could be something different and whatever it is. We didn't ask, we just asked for red. Yeah, the white is normally a pinocalada or whatever. But I haven't been home to see that. It's a daquery arms race that's happening in South Louisiana with everybody trying to one up each other

on what flavor of daquiry they could do to get the lead in the dachry. It's like a snow cone. First it was like the green apple that popped up. Then he had the purple. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I'll tell you who's on top of this daquiry technology.

My mom, my grandmother, Ebony, and Jasmine. They, my mom and my grandmother, the last time I was there, they were wearing matching, savage finty onesies and it was going crazy on the dafferies so they know and that's what we'll bring to Turks My father told me that I should apologize to you

In the dream? Guys, I want you gotta listen to it listen to this, listen to this, listen to what happened to drink I promise so I'm this is probably because of sinners and just the whole sinners

By the way, it was really awesome to see Ryan Cougler on Good Hang with Amy Polar. That was after we've been going hard for Senors for... It was... For sure. Fantastic to see that. For sure. That was nice. That's not the kind of guy I am. Okay, I don't care about that type of shit.

Who cares? You know what I care. Who cares? Who cares? It was like fun. It's like, oh, we're going... Senors, send us, send us. N-A-C-P.

Send us everybody. Then watch it up and it's like, what's up with you? How are you doing that? I was like, embarrassing for me. Right. Now, now, now,

so I'm in, not the house from sinners, but a house like sinners. Okay. And I'm talking to the cryptkeeper from, tales from the crypt. Okay.

Now, when I think of sinners, I think of tails from the crypt Demon Knight because that movie reminds me of sinners. It's, you know, a horde of vampires outside. You know, the conceit's been done.

they did it in a completely new, beautiful way. Sinners is fantastic, all of that stuff. But I'm talking to the cryptkeeper. I'm talking to the cryptkeeper kind of in a house that reminds you of the juke joint from sinners. Okay. But he's the cryptkeeper because I'm probably thinking subconsciously sinners demon night.

I put all this together. But this cryptkeeper has my dad's voice. And it dawns on me. This is a little horror-filled. guys. It dawns on me that I'm actually talking to my father and he has decomposed. This is the, it dawns on me in during this conversation. It's okay that I'm actually talking to my dad and he has decomposed.

But me and him are joking about it. I'm like, I'm looking at him like, you know, you've looked better than this. You're a handsome guy, but this is not like a great look. He's like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And he's laughing. And he says to me, he goes, you're still. alive, nothing is, nothing has to be the way that it is. And I'm like, what?

He goes like, for me, I'm not like, you know, whatever you laugh at me, this is me. This is how I look. This is it. This is how I look. He goes, you're still alive though. Nothing is the way that it is. So he goes, son, you're mean to that girl. And I think that he was talking about you.

Could be various people. I'll take it. I'll take it. But it could be various people. And then I looked at him and I was like, man, I know. You know, I just, I'm going through a lot. And then he goes, yeah, well, you're a man. That's what comes with it.

And then he drinks something and his head explodes. End of drink. He takes a drink. his head explodes. I mean, I feel like he told you what you needed to hear or what you subconsciously have been thinking about and that was the end. Don't like the way that it ended, but...

I laughed when his head blew up. This is the only dream involving my dad where there was no sadness. I laughed when his head blew up. It was like a funny thing. It was almost like the end of a sitcom. His head blew up and I was like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

I was like, ha, you're so crazy. You were laughing throughout it, right? Like, y'all were joking. about the... Yeah, we were having fun. It was like a sitcom with the Crip Keeper who was actually my father.

So whatever. So I apologize for the way that I... Come on now. Yeah, I apologize. Maybe that's myself telling me that, so I apologize for the way I carried on and the way I've carried on. Thank you.

I appreciate that. Thank you to Mr. Lathen as well. Yeah. He wouldn't have apologized. But maybe. But, but, but yeah, yeah. That was the thing. This was the most interesting dream I ever had, though.

It was interesting because after that, I pulled out a katana blade. Wait, did you move to a new dream? Dream flash. Okay. But dream flash occurs. And after the dream flash occurs, I pulled out a katana blade and I was trying to cut down a tree with it. And then I got real sad that I couldn't do it. Trying to cut down a tree with a tree with a car.

Catana blade, like a real tree, like a Louisiana tree. Like, I'm in Louisiana-triot-Kat-Ther with a katana blade. And that ended. Wow. It was over. I woke up and I was like, whatever the fuck that happened like that. I started to write the dream down, but then, like, I didn't, but that was the end of the dream. The first part, your first dream did not need any interpretation.

I think you got it. And I appreciate that. Thank you. There's more, though. Oh. There's more that I have, not to this dream, but there's more that I have. I have to figure out why in this dream I didn't. Because before when I see my dad in the dream,

I see him at his most handsome. Like I see him at his most virile, even when he was trying to get me to do niggas in the ocean. But this one, it was like how he probably looks. Like it was like, it was horror. But did you feel horror? Because you said you were joking and you were laughing about it. It almost-

It almost feels like. like an acceptance, like an acceptance of, you know, I don't know, for whatever, for you to go from there to there. I'm not a dream interpreter, but I do appreciate your apology. Thank you. Was not asking for it, but yes, thank you. Yeah, you don't get to fuck people. No, I do. No, I really do. But also, our conversations aren't limited to a podcast, so for everybody else out there. So we got stuff on the show. We got Huss and I to talk a little bit. about Iran. Professor.

Professor Husbanai. From Indiana, we talk a little bit about the Indiana Hoosiers and their football conquering kings of football, maybe. You know, I'll be at the game. Who do you have in the game? Who's favorite? I haven't even paid attention to who's favorite in the game. Indiana's favorite by, I think, seven or eight.

Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so. They've been kicking the shit out of people. They've been taking their foot and putting it inside the hole. I do know this, but I didn't know they were favored by that much. Okay, I'm probably rooting for Miami Miami. Miami win in Miami.

Yeah, yeah. I just want to see a good game. They've kind of been the underdogs and so I've in this playoff championship. So I'm rooting for them. I like the Michael Irvin attached to it, obviously. Cowboys situation. This is the best that the Cowboys can hope for for.

For Michael Irvin. So we have Husk coming on. Look, all conversation with Hussein Iran, Iran was wide-ranging. We talked about you asked great questions about women in Iran. What the people are facing. The history of protests in Iran, of course.

There's also questions to be asked about how the protests in Iran and potential U.S. action inside of the country reinforce U.S. Israeli hegemony in the region. And how Iran as a country has always had to deal

with outside imperialist meddling into who they want to become. Now, I'll tell you something is not to go too deep in this. This civilization of the Persian-Iranian people is brilliant, beautiful and fundamental to human development. If you guys have, you know,

I want you guys to understand, you're black, you're listening to me, understand where you come from, you know what I'm saying, Massimusa, all the different things. Like, I want you to understand the cradle of civilization that you, that you come from. Also, I'm weirdly interested in you understanding the history of Iran. The history of that potential, of that particular country. Because in the history of that country is another example to me of how contemporary Western forces can refrable.

the human identification of a people, how you can have an idea of something, someone, and who they are, and how that idea, when translated through directly European and imperialist framing, can make you believe things that one aren't true and also can limit the scope of your knowledge about just how fundamental

and necessary a civilization has been over the course of their existence, right? You can say that about most civilizations. Sure. The Persians are, they're special people. I mean, if you look at a lot of what we,

they are. They're special, interesting, specially interesting people. So, you know, how you deal with the protest and wanting the protests to be successful as far as people accessing their freedom

and not wanting to create another powerful client state or see Iran broke up into a bunch of different states, all of that stuff. We try to get to some of that with Hus. He's going to be on in a second. We got Tiana Taylor talking about why she won't abandoning Kanye West.

Kaisanat. Kaisanat growing up before our very eyes. And the Druski Mega Church sketch, boy, I can't wait to talk about this. I'm happy today. And everybody knows. HV is happy. even fan.

Oh, I was like, who is that? It sounds like an STD. Oh, my God. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul PREDicts. Predict the spread, total points, and even the game winner. Sign up and get a $25 bonus. Offered by Fandul Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant, 18 plus.

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Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Tramphiara Radio.com. All right, why should we start, Rachel? What you want to start? Let's just start with Tiana. Let's just start with Tiana. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Maybe we should start.

No, we're not going to start. We're going to start with Tiana where you want to start. But we also have to hit on the latest in ISIS War on America. Sure. So we'll get to that as well. Donnie. All right, but let's start with Tiana. We talked about her earlier this week.

after she won her Golden Globe for one battle after another. She did an interview with Vanity Fair where she opened up about her love for Yay. She made it clear that while she doesn't agree with or support his anti-Semitic rhetoric, she's not willing to abandon someone that she considers family. Thoughts on this stance from Ms. Taylor. I think I'm surprised at how much attention this is getting because I think I'm kind of like, well, what did you expect her to say? Because, like, as she goes on to talk about it,

I think the key word to focus on is she's not going to abandon him. She's not saying she's promoting him. She's uplifting him. She doesn't even have a public presence with him. She's just saying this is somebody, it's almost complicated when it's somebody that I've known for a very long time

who I know in a way that nobody else does, who maybe she considers family, even more than friends. But she goes on in the interview to talk about how if he comes to me, he's going to get something that's very honest. She's like, you don't see the stuff that I do behind the scenes. And she talks about helping him if he needs help. But she doesn't say, you know, she's not like, oh, he's got a new album and she's promoting it.

She's not necessarily on anything new that he's doing. But she's basically saying, I don't agree with the things that he agrees with. But at the end of the day, I'm not going to abandon him. and I don't see anything wrong with that. I can't, I don't know what they're, you know, like, if you, for example, and I don't know, like, that, you want me to use somebody else, you want to use somebody else, just if, if you went off the deep end and had a, had very public crash outs for a very long period of time, I could not see myself abandoning you. I really, really couldn't because I know you in a way that the public doesn't know. It's just very personal to me. And so for me, when you have a deep friendship with someone, I might not support you publicly in the way that I did.

We couldn't necessarily podcast together if you had that type of crash out. But as just like human decency in me, I would still want to be there for you as a friend and try to help you through whatever it is that you're going. And I feel like that's what she's saying. And I think that it would be wrong of people to ask for her to do something different. I think it's easy for you to say and judge when you have no personal connection with that person. But when you do, think about how we deal with family or other friends in our lives. This to me is human decency.

This is how you should respond to a situation like this when you know them in a completely different way. Well, said, I have two different things to say. number one, this is her very publicly. Oh, of course. Yeah, she was asked. So, yeah, she was asked. And I like that she didn't lie about it. Right. She didn't lie.

She didn't say, I didn't want to talk about it. She didn't do any of that stuff. This is her very publicly, at least talking about the fact that she intends to continue to love on and have a relationship with Kanye was. So we have to give her credit for what she did. This is very public. This is, you know, not via text. It's very public. Okay.

Obviously, you know that. That's why we're talking about it. Okay. Number two. So you guys, you don't watch the Marvel movies as much as I do. I do not. But at the end of Marvel movies, there's something that happens. Okay.

Particularly in movies that could possibly be the last hurrah for a character. Let's say the movie is over. Okay. And you're wondering, hmm, this seems like the end of the story for Star-Larly. Lord, played by the notoriously unproblemic, Chris Pratt. Do you know what Marvel does? What? At the end of the film, they go, Star Lord will return.

Captain America will return. Black Panther will return. They let you know. There is something that's coming very soon. It's happening right now and I'm seeing it. Kanye West will return. Kanye West came out with Dionne Cole. Yeah.

Came out with Dionne Cole at a comedy show. He stood there in the yanness that we understand, smiling big yay that we like to see on stage with someone, Dionne Cole, who is the host of the NAACP Awards, where the question is, well, how are learning? Finally, finally be coordinated. Tiana Taylor, at the apex of her career, apex of her career. She's had a fantastic career guys.

But right now, Tiana Taylor is in her season. And while she is in her season, she very publicly vouches for and talks about the humanity of Kanye West. Kanye West will be back. he will drop an album that album will not contain any of the stuff that he's been on for the last couple of years it will probably be very musically viable and good because normally they are

not like the old days but the guy knows how to jenny up a tune he's good at that and we will be forced to contend with our cultural relationship with Kanye West again Kanye West will return the question is why. And I'll tell you why I think

that he will return. Okay. Kanye West hasn't had a tremendous amount of success at craziness. He hasn't. Like people go to like the right or they become really vicious, racist, racist, anti-Semites and they start movements behind it. They become big figures that are a part of these things and stuff like that.

Like they start parallel careers and they have ministries and they do the whole when it's durable in that way, a lot of times people redefine you by your new set of ideals because your new set of ideals seemingly bring something to you. Those new set of ideals

are the way that you get a second wind in your career. That new set of ideals is the way that you become viable. There's a cynicism about it. It's the opposite for Kanye West. Every crazy thing that he's done, every vile, anti-Semitic thing that he's done,

every self-hating, racist, coonish, whatever, it's cost him something. And because it's cost him something, I think that people, some people, not everyone, because I know a lot of self-respecting black people, self-respecting Jewish people

that are done with Kanye, done forever, they're going to hold the line. But a lot of people look at Kanye and because it cost him some type of social standing, it cost him the Adidas thing, it cost him something. They look at that and they go,

you know what? This dude has something wrong with him and look at the fact that his family is in disarray. His career is in disarray. The Kanye West that we know is all gone and more than him being like this socio-political destabilizing force, they realize he's not okay. Yeah. They realize that he is more akin to a guy standing outside of your apartment, masturbating and saying the N-word, then he is somebody who has a lot of ideas that are fully flushed out and formed and mean

you harm. I'm not saying I agree with that. Sure. I'm not saying I agree with that. I'm saying, though, that a lot of people look at it that way. A lot of people look at that as a guy who obviously has issues, those issues have caused him big time. And before they want to see good music from Kanye West, there's still a portion of people that just want to see him okay because they don't believe that he actually is fully invested into the things that he's saying. I don't know if those people are right or but I think that that idea is out there. I think that makes a lot of sense. I do think that there will be,

I think that there is space, unlike the first group of people you described, you know, who do get these movements, who do have these flushed out ideas, who do build an entire platform off of it. I think there is space for Kanye West of he's not okay. And I think most people would agree with that.

It's interesting because as you were talking, I'm like, I'm trying to figure out if Kanye West does return like a Marvel character, I can't see myself. You know, I can make space of that he's not okay and that there is what appears to be a mental health issue. But I don't know if I could go back

and be like, well, he was going through this. Now let me support him in the arts. I just don't know about that. Why don't you know, though? So here's the deal. Shouldn't that question be answered by? now? That's what I'm asking. Well, my answer right now is no, I wouldn't.

Okay, cool. Like flat out, I wouldn't because I'm trying to think of how I would feel if the things he was saying, and he has said stuff about black people, right? But the majority, but like a lot of it has been anti-Semitic. And I'm trying to think of if it was, if I was, if he was saying those things about black people, would I return? I wouldn't. And so for me, the answer is no.

You know, I understand that I had. understand both sides of what you were saying. For me, no, the answer's now, no. Like, yeah. I get it. I don't consider him to be a musician anymore. I don't look at him as a musician anymore. What do you see him as?

Kanye West, yay. So if he puts out music, what do you see as? I'm not in a rush to run out and hear it. That curiosity is going. Yeah. I'm more interested in, kind of what he says or do or does or the next antic

than I am anything that he would put out music. Yeah, and it doesn't mean that, you know, because I can hold space that there might be mental health issues, I, you know, you said it so well, his family's in disarray, you know, business is disarray, like, so many things seem to be an issue.

I hope that he's okay, but that doesn't mean that I have to necessarily support the things that he does. The question is, why do you hope that he's okay? Let me another anti-Semite self-hating racist that you hope is okay. Well, I'm not rooting for anybody to, well, like, well, here's a thing. When I say okay. I'm asking this question of you and of me of all of us too.

When I say okay, I'm assuming that he is no longer, that he is retract, going to retract the things that he did said that were anti-Semitic and that he is no longer moving down that path. That is what I mean by okay. I'm not saying he's okay and he's staying in the same place and the mindset. The okay part of it is him getting better and, denouncing those things that he did and said and like, you know, however he decides to do it, to me, that includes that.

That is what I'm saying. I'm assuming getting better means you are not in the same place that we left you. That's what I said. That's what I mean. That makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense. And, you know, there's an affinity that we have that it's difficult to break. We are black people.

We look at this culture as a great big family. And you have people in your family. I've done all of this stuff. It's a difficult thing to disconnect from. Now, I know a lot of people that have just straight up disconnected from it, and it's done. But I also know that if Kanye West becomes somebody who doesn't look like he is outwardly hateful and all of that stuff, I mean, he iced out a swastika.

That looks nuts. Yeah. You look crazy. Yeah. Like you look fucking crazy. That's a fucking crazy thing to do. Right? There will be ways that come.

Kanye West could have endeavored into anti-blackness and all of that stuff, anti-Semitism and all of that stuff that would have seemed like it was a little bit more thought out and concrete. That's not to say that he doesn't have ideas because I watched him talk about the J6 protesters. I watch him kind of platform Nick Fuentes and Milo Yanapolis. If you look at Kanye West, Kanye West early on in his career, gave us John Legend, right? He didn't give us push a T, but he gave us like John Legend,

Big Sean, people like that up under him, right? Those are the people that we got. John Legend, Big Sean, guys like that that were on the label. That's what Kanye gave us. Tiana Taylor, John Legend, Tiana Taylor, Big Sean. Kid Cuddy was on that. Kid Cuddy. That's the cultural contribution of the first part of Kanye West's career.

The second part of Kanye West's career, the people that Kanye West gave us are Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, and the resurgence of Milo Yanopolis. That is undeniable that the people most directly connected to Kanye now in the last six, seven years. The people that he put on,

go back and watch that video with me and Kanye at TMZ. Watch the reverse angle of Kanye's standing up when he asked, does it, have I said something today that made people think? When it shoots all the way to the corner to Harvey's office, you see two people raise their hands.

One is Candace Owens. And behind her, it's Charlie Kirk. Yeah, I know I saw somebody point that out. Like, behind her is Charlie Kirk. So we can't say that there hasn't been a clear shift to where he's put something out there and like upheld people and promoted people and big up to people and made people in a different way

than what he gave us at first. And I'm still listening to ordinary people fucking Tiana Taylor blowing up. Big Sean, Kid Cuddy, these are people are cultural staples. But the people he's given us sense is different and they exist and they hear. All right. Donnie?

Let's talk about the youth. Twitch streamer Kai Sinat uploaded a 23 minute YouTube video titled I Quit. The film acts as a vulnerable exploration of his mental state and kind of dives into his desire to evolve beyond his established identity as a streamer. It also serves as an announcement that he's launching a new clothing line called Vivette. Did you guys watch? Yeah. Yeah, I watched it. I watched someone. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't that long, but I I got to say, I mean, obviously I don't follow Kaysenot and what he does with streaming, but I know he's the most followed.

I know he's the most popular. I know all that his high energy and everything he brings to the table and why the youth are so interested in him. But I got to say, I was, well, and let me preface this. I do know that before he did the I quit video, he's been talking about his mental health and his journey. and not as in depth as what he's doing right now. And then his follow-up, he's got another channel called Kai's Mind, I believe,

where he's documenting him going through all of this. But he talked about his mental health. He talked about imposter syndrome. He was kind of leading up to this. But still, despite that, I was shocked by the video. And I don't mean this to be rude, but just he's 24 years old. Just the self-awareness. the introspection that he has of not just saying,

this is it and this is all I want to do, which you can imagine how attractive that would be to somebody at that age, when you're at the top of your game, to say, I actually want to step back. I'm not quitting from what I do, but I'm quitting of, you know, trying to have to be on all the time. It's not healthy for me. Of quitting of overthinking everything.

I'm going to step back, you know, in preservation, in self-preservation in order to do certain things. things that I'm passionate about in order to be better as a human being. So I'm not performing from y'all. I'm doing what's purposeful for me. At 24, I just have to commend him for what he's doing with such a huge platform and how influential that's going to be to so many other young people when it feels like everything they do is so wrapped up in the streaming digital world. And he's like, actually, this has been really harmful and dangerous for me. And I'm going to pull back. And I'm going to pour my energy into some other things that are offline.

To see a 24-year-old say, I'm moving myself offline, you know, because it's better, when constantly what you feel like is being pushed to them is, no, this is it. This is where you need to be chronically be online. I think it's so, it's, I'm admiring him for it. Yeah. I don't know why every entertainment topic today I have so many thoughts on. Please. The first thing I want to address is

he was reading the book and when he was reading the book online he was stopping to look up words he didn't know. A lot of you guys don't read like you say you do. Just straight up. If you're criticizing that, I'm telling you straight up, you don't read like you say you do. I look upwards as I read. I'm reading the book.

I keep talking about the book, The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism. Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism. Look at me. I can't be saying anything about the book. Carlos Garido. The book is an incredibly academic text about Western Marxism, the purity fetish, goes back to ancient Greek thought, how you, sometimes you read something, and before it gets to what it's talking about, it has to define the intellectualism that it is using to get to the place that it's getting. I'm not an academic.

And so because I am not, there are times I have a whole journal, a reading journal that I keep on the side of me that when I see a term that I don't recognize or that I haven't heard before, I write it down, go back and define it, then reread the chapter with a concrete definition of that term. If I see a term that I understand and it is out of context, I'll write the sentence down. the entire sentence, go back, understand that sentence and context, come back and reread the chapter. This book is short, so it doesn't take a lot of time. But I have to do that to make sure that I am absorbing what I'm getting. So if you guys are like getting on his ass about that, then either you read a bunch of shit and you don't give a fuck whether or not you absorb it

or you're not reading as much as you should because if you are and you're pushing yourself in your exploration, there are going to be things that you do not recognize. lot of times when you're reading. I know all y'all are the smartest motherfuckers in the world, but every once in a while, everybody has to stop and make sure that they're grasping what it is that they're getting. Sure. Man, I'll tell you what I think happened with Kai.

Kai had something that happened to him that was personal, that played out on the internet. Something with some girl. Y'all could go look it up. Oh, yeah. He had something happened with some girl, and it played out on the internet. And you know what he realized, in my opinion?

He realized that y'all don't think. think he's a person. Yeah. That he is a thing. It is interesting to watch Aidan Ross being a position where he is being ridiculed for thingifying and disrespecting a black woman

dehumanizing her. And Kai is being sort of ridiculed by some, by some, not all, by some, for humanizing himself. He's a 24-4. year old person. And he realized that, you know, if something actually happens to me, like, on the internet and it's slightly embarrassing or it is slightly emotionally disruptive for me,

people are not going to respond like I'm a person. Yeah. People are going to respond like I am a thing sitting in front of a screen for their constant entertainment and for them to laugh at. And for them to laugh at, and sometimes with. And when he saw that, he was like, in my opinion, he went, what's in it for me? Yeah. Like, sure, I'm making a shit ton of bread. I'm making a lot of money.

I'm incredibly famous. I'm all of these things. But if I can't grow and hurt and be flawed and be vulnerable in front of people, what's in it for me? And every black man, every man, every woman out there, ask yourself that question. Ask yourself when you're thinking about how you, want to be in the person you want to be and how you want to better yourself, ask what's in it for me

in presenting to these people a version of myself that they can interact with in such a vapid way? What do I get for it? Do I get any understanding? Not, I'm saying this to say this, not to go into a long fucking thing about it. You know what he said? In my opinion, he went, you know what? Do you know who cares about me getting? better. Do you know who cares about me being vulnerable? You know who should care about that?

I should care about it. Yeah. That's the person that should care about it. Sure, I'm going to share it with y'all. But I'm going to let y'all know that this other way of doing this where it's all for you guys, where I'm not a person, where I'm just the thing, it's not going to work for me long term. I can't do it as long as some of the other people can. I want more for myself. I want different things. I want be taken seriously. I want to take myself seriously. I want to take my mental health, my growth. I want to take all those things seriously. And I don't owe that to y'all. Yep. The only thing I owe to y'all is authenticity in the way that you look at me, excuse me, in the way that I look at myself. So I was so happy to see this. And I hope that this is inspiring to a lot of

other people to be able to say, you know what, I don't have to show up like I know everything. I can act like I know everything and still be wrong. I can show up. in who I truly am and start a journey with people rather than just sell them shit all the time and sell them fake internet joy and algorithmic bliss. Right.

So I'm proud of them. I never met him before. Neither have I. I'm proud of him too. I just thought it was such a beautiful thing and a brave thing, right? Because it's, I don't want to say it's a stark contrast to,

you know, who he was before, But it is as far as what he's giving to his audience. And what you said is so interesting too. You're right. Like people, as much as he was online, and I even think that with, you don't even have to be online as much as he is. I think when people start consuming you

through their ears or their eyes or both, they really start to talk to you or treat you like you're not an actual human being. And for as much as he was streaming and doing all the things that he was doing, yeah, he almost became a caricature of himself. It's like, who really is Kai Sanat outside of the streaming world? And I never correlated it to what, correlated it to what he had went through with his ex-girlfriend. But, I mean, that makes all the sense in the world. So, you know, more power to him.

I hope that this inspires other people. It's not that you have to give up on streaming, which he's not, right? He's not quitting streaming. It's just that he is showing you all of, like Kai Sanat the person as a person. as opposed to Kaisenot the public figure. Right. And who knows if it sticks? Maybe I'm just,

but for real, who knows if it sticks? Like, you don't know, nobody knows. Who knows if it sticks? I mean, there's room for both. There's space for both. I know, I know. Who knows if it sticks? But, like, at the base of it,

you owe people, what you owe people is your attempt at authenticity and growth. You don't owe him or perfection your own or anything else. So Kai trying some new things. He's a young man. He's growing up before our very eyes. I salute it. I think it's great.

I think any conversation around, you know, mental health in this way and stuff is great. I enjoy it. I think it's great. Yeah, same. Good on Kai. This episode is brought to you by the all-new five-year business boost from Comcast Business. It's the certainty of a price lock for five years on qualifying Internet bundles plus the reliable Wi-Fi with their best equipment.

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Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Five. All right. We teased this earlier. Druski released a skit on megachurches. Let me play a little bit of it and then get y'all's reaction from this skit. You're going to get pregnant with the Word of God.

You're going to get pregnant with the Word of God. You're going to get pregnant with the Word of God. I had somebody in the congregation that's why I'm wearing Christian Dior and Christian Lupitans. Because I'm a Christian and I walk in the blood of Jesus. I did not hear him say that. I never heard him say that part. That's funny. Drew's a kid genius, man.

I did not hear him say that part. Donnie, do we have any reaction from some of the megachurch pastors? Have they reacted to this? I've only seen a lot of AI stuff. So let's just make sure that that's... Yeah, I've been a lot of AI videos. I've seen comparisons of the things that he was directly referencing. Yes.

I listened to a little bit of the Breakfast Club yesterday. I know they had a pastor on and got his reaction. so there is reaction out there but I don't have that handy at the bottom. Okay, cool. I was surprised that I was surprised that there was

so much backlash from the mega church Christian community for this video. I was surprised at it actually. I guess I'm not seeing the backlash. Oh, shit. I guess I've not seen.

I mean, I know it's there. Right? But overwhelming what I saw in an overwhelming nature was people saying, I mean, they're giving him the material of this. I mean, he's not far off, whether it's come from people within the Christian community. Not saying that they agree with everything, Drusky, but they're like, I mean, they're giving him this material for it. I know that there are people who are disagreeing. I'm just saying the overwhelming response that I saw was laughter. This video came out a couple of days ago and already has over 50 million views. It's on Instagram, on one, on one. I see 84 on Twitter. 84 on Twitter, 50 something on Instagram. It's his biggest video yet.

It is triggering a lot of reaction from people. I've seen mostly good, not saying it's bad. Heathen Van, please, you know, what's your community saying? Let me ask you this. Why do you think this one? Drusky has videos, every video go crazy. Black people in the church. This, it's not even a hit dog will holler situation.

We've talked about it before. I can't remember what it was, but it's like black people don't play when it comes to church. It's just such a, so many of us grew up in the church, even if it was a different denomination, so many of us can, whether you grew up in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, you can be like, oh, y'all did this in your church, you did this. there's a community, a culture surrounding it. And because it's so ingrained in you of you don't make fun of this, you don't say the Lord's name in vain, you don't say these things, it almost feels like blasphemy to laugh at it. Even if you feel like what they're saying is true, it almost feels like I can't agree with this because, you know, like you have the fear of God in you or maybe the fear of a parent

or the fear of a pastor or the fear of a church. And so I think so many people feel triggered because I think there's a conflict. They know that he's not wrong. But there's the fear of the other side of what you've known for so long or what you've been told is true or what you grew up in. And I think that's what sparks the conversation so much within our community. So, you know, Drusky has a diverse audience. It's not just black people. So I think people who don't understand the culture are watching it and are entertained and are laughing.

Because let's be honest, white pastors be flying through the congregation as well. Like they got their own circus going on with what they do, specifically surrounding holidays and stuff like that. But with us, it's so deeper because it's a language almost that we all understand. And that's the conflict. At least that's how I see it. You ever seen a movie called Leap of Faith? You know I have.

Steve Martin? Steve Martin? Yes. Okay. So I want you guys to go out and watch a movie called Leap of Faith with Steve Martin. Steve Martin plays a traveling pastor. I can't remember the name of the pastor. And he gets to one town.

And this guy is just full of shit. He's a comment, right? He gets to one town, and this is the town where this movie follows a pretty standard Hollywood formula. Jonas Nightingale is the name of the preacher. This movie follows a pretty standard Hollywood formula where Jonas Nightingale doesn't believe in anything, doesn't believe in God, doesn't believe in nothing. and he gets to a place and gets surrounded by a town full of people that desperately need him and he starts to question what he actually does believe because of what he does in the town,

what he sees, what he's doing, how it affects the town. There's one part of this that I always remember, even during that time. So this town that he's found himself in, they're farmers and it hasn't rained for a long time. and these people have direct questions about their lives. And one of the people in this tent revival, I don't know if you guys have ever been to a tent revival, but it used to be fun for me. Like you would drive down, Gardier,

and you would see next to the Texaco, a tent has been erected, and you know that it's time to get busy. Later on, you can go there. It's a tent revival. People in there are playing. This is real Bible Belt praying. It's real Bible Belt shit.

It's a tent revival. They're going in there three days. They're going to get holy. So traveling, whatever he goes there. Somebody asked him from the crowd to go, when is it going to rain? And that's the question they want to know the answer to. They're praying for rain.

They're giving money to this fucking guy because of rain. They wanted to rain. They wanted to rain so they can feed themselves. They want to pray to God enough so that God will send water to nourish the soil. He looks back at them and he goes. When I look around at this place, I see all. all of these different people. I see people that are broken,

whose spirits are in crisis. I'm not giving it exactly, I'm given from what I remember. I see people who have broken marriages, teen pregnancy, all of that stuff. You ask me, when is it going to rain? I ask you, when is it going to stop? And then everybody starts clapping.

I remember looking at that. when I was a kid and thinking, is this what these motherfuckers do? I remember thinking it even then. I remember thinking, well, he didn't answer the question. Like, is this what they do?

Is this kind of how this goes? Is this a fast-talking con man's game? That movie resolves itself by him going out on a journey to really, he leaves. He leaves the tent revival scene and while he is like hitchhikes on that 18-wielder and when he's hitchhiking the way, it rains. Right? It rains. Also there's a kid

that actually starts walking. He doesn't know how he did it. He doesn't know if he did it. God works through him. So the movie at the end of it resolves itself in a way where you connect with the humanity of some character and this guy's frailty and all of that stuff and it resonated with me. I say all that to say that our examination of who these guys are, it's not new. It's not new.

We've always done this. We've done it on a living color. Living color did it. We've done it on. The question is why do we feel the need to keep examining it? Like that's the question. The fact that we have generations

of making fun of this particular type of Christianity in church. It exists. We've always made fun of it. Why? Because deep down, we know this is not real. Deep down, you guys, not every,

let me just say this right now because people have been begging for me to have a more nuanced discussion of Christianity. And you guys are right. You're owed that. You're owed for someone to take your faith seriously, your humanity seriously,

your metaphysical existence seriously, your eternity seriously. I get that. I understand that. This part of it, we realize, is circus show and capitalism. Right. We're trying to go to some of these churches and glean the spirituality out of it. We're trying to go to some of these places and get the crust of the bread or the word. Forget about the meat and the protein that's in the middle that you're supposed to.

You're trying to go to some of these places for the same reason that people go to the club, to see what people wearing, to see how people acting, to see the show on the stage. And what you're hoping is at the end of it, you glean the spirituality and the salvation out of it. But you're doing the work, in my opinion, rather than a lot of these people. You know it's bullshit. And when someone calls you out on your bullshit, you feel convinced. You feel convicted for falling for it. And I'm not necessarily saying that you shouldn't go to these churches.

Everybody talked to me about all the great work that New Birth does in the community. I wasn't even talking about New Birth, but good on New Birth and the rest of the churches that's moving in the way that they should, moving in the Word. And also I should say something like this. Everybody is men and no one is held to a standard that they cannot meet, which is a standard of perfection. No one is held to that.

but the reason why some of y'all are mad is because you know what you are doing is not actually authentic and you know that these people are not actually authentic you just have kind of acquiesced to it and you don't like to see anybody calling it out well yeah because you feel like it is a direct i think the people who that you're referring to feel like it's a criticism of them and in essence it kinds of it is if you promote or tolerate this. You know, when we were talking about Jamal Bryant and his wife's dress, I'll call her Dr. Bryant because I don't remember her name and I want to put respect on her name.

When we were talking about that and there was a generalization of mega churches and I was pushing back a little bit because I was like, not every mega church is like this. Even when I watch this Drusky thing, I am not triggered by it. I watch that and I'm like, yeah, I've seen it. I've seen the circus of church. I've seen people take it too far. Like I understand that pastors sometimes say, hey, how can I connect to a younger generation? What is it that I can do, whether it's through social media, whether it's through a sermon. And so maybe you do things where you connect the sermon to maybe something that people are talking about. But that doesn't mean capitalism and exploiting what church or the word or the religion is.

supposed to be, which is what Druski, I believe, is hitting at. When I watch this, I laughed. He is making fun of a particular type of megachurch pastor, and they exist. I saw recently, you're talking about leap of faith? And anytime I think of leap of faith, it makes me think of Benny Hen. I feel like he fully was embodying a Benny Hen. You go back, you guys go back and watch Benny Hen videos if you're unfamiliar with it. He's literally taking off his coat and slapping people as they fall down. He's pushing people and they all fall out. It becomes a show. It becomes a mockery is what it is of the religion that you believe so much in.

And I think that, again, I'll start off. I'll say what I said at the beginning. The people who feel triggered are the people who allow and look past these pastors who are mocking what it is you believe in because that's what it is. they are Druski and I could say that they are doing what Drusky's doing to you but Druskees is a skit

and they're actually taking your money you know what the weird thing is for me is I don't have no problem with the pastor getting on the harness and coming down not at all I don't either I don't have no problem with that I went to I went to one church and it was

focused on the Lion King and I was telling the story about the Lion King and they had done some of their own animations with the Lion King, right? I was blown away at the message. I was blown away.

I was blown away on what they were able to do talking about the Lion King and the story of like all of that stuff. I was sitting there about to cry. Like I'm not saying any of that stuff. Right. A moment is fine. Look, part of it is celebration. Remember in Footloose,

going back to another movie when Kevin Bacon was trying to tell them that like, you know, John Lithgow was being an asshole and he was reading from the Bible. Yeah. And he was like, they danced. Yeah. Like, we dance.

They danced. Right. So part of that, part of being in celebration in your church, like hooping, hollering, all of that stuff. None of that stuff to me is, is, is below board. None of it. None of it. I had a conversation with somebody a couple of days ago.

We was talking about this. a conversation we was talking about was like, just ask yourself this question. You give your money to your church. You get evicted. Is your church someplace that you could go to say, hey, I don't have no place to stay? Yeah.

Like, I legitimately need some place to stay. Yeah. Is your church someplace that can figure out how to get you housed? Is there community within your church? I'm not saying. your church is not when you're listening to me and you're saying, hey,

we do that type of thing in my church, bro, sister, thumbs up, absolutely. Thumbs up, absolutely. Because I know it's churches like that out there. Are there other people inside your church that would give you a place to live,

that will watch your kids, that would help you with job training? Is that the type of community that exists where you are? If that's not, you need to go somewhere else. Because as much as I like Joel Olsting, and I've heard a lot of messages from him that I liked in the past. The fucking city was flooded

and the motherfucker didn't open the church up. Absolutely. I don't give a fuck what y'all talking about and how this, he should have been waiting through the fucking water fighting snakes to get to his church to open it up for people.

And whatever else you tell me, I just don't fucking, there's no way around it. So this is not a criticism about God. This is a criticism about how human beings, are treating one another. Exactly. And the way that we pray upon each other sometimes.

And take advantage of the most vulnerable, believing, needy people amongst us. It has nothing to do with God. God frowns on it all. And God also does something else. He forgives it all. So what I am saying right now is the same way you analyze,

the way people in your community is treating each other, that don't stop when you get inside that building. It don't. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And even though this was funny, there was at the end where he goes, I, Drew, the, Drusky something different. Drusky and Trey Rags, Ben the Don, all of these people, like, they're something different.

I don't know, I don't know how they're, they're more like, I don't understand it, but they're geniuses in a way, they're more like social critics. almost in the way that they can do what the fuck did they do. When he's in the phantom and the guy comes up and his whole demeanor has totally changed. Yes.

His whole demeanor has totally changed. He's like, he's like, hey man, fuck off my ride, man. Fuck around me. And he pulls off. That's the part that it would really hurt if he was too entrenched into that lifestyle. That's the part because that's the part that's like a direct criticism, right?

And the money counter and all of that stuff. But I think if y'all want to hear somebody really be honest on this that's really entrenched in the church. Go listen to La Cray. I tried to get La Cray to come on the show. He's scared of it. But he did a whole thing on it.

He was that. Yeah. La Crayta man. But if you want to hear somebody really talk intelligently about it and also sophisticatedly about it and from a standpoint of what I feel like is real self-evaluation.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, was great. Yeah. All right. Do you care about Jay Cole drop? and he's about the job. You care about that? I mean, I care about it. I'm, I care about it because it's his last album. He's retiring. So, I mean, I care about it.

Y'all still falling for the bullshit. Who recently has said they were retiring and didn't retire? Cizza. Jay Cole will rap again. Jay Cole will return. Well, I hope you. Leave it there. Leave it there. Leave it there. Leave it there. Leave it there. It's too good. It's too good. But I just need this. I need this music. For 2026,

Did you hear the song? For 2026, there's not a rapper that we need more than Jay Cole right now. Man, if you heard the first song that he dropped, I just, he said he's been working on this, what, for 10 years. I just love the message behind the fall off. I just, I love it all, you know? He's going to fall off before y'all, y'all, y'all tell him he fell off. And then he will return.

You, Jay Cole will return. The light skin nigger will rap again. But I can't wait for it to come. out. Could be a big year in hip hop. Cold dropping, Drake dropping. I'm hearing about some other major surprise drops that might happen. Well, you already said one. Kanye will return. Kanye will return. But I'm hearing about other people who might not be able to stay away. Hearing about stuff. Who went away that, that, who? It's a big year in hip hop. This is going to be the year where the big dogs come back and put out of it.

a lot of shit. Where the big dogs come back and put out a lot of shit. There's other people that might not be able to stay away when everybody else is having they say. I'm hearing some things. I'm hearing things. Okay. Hearing stuff.

All right. People might not be able to stay away. All right. Oh, man. We're going to get to to hus benign a second to talk about Iran so you guys have all the information that you need. but we have to talk about,

ICE is at war with the American people. It's a fact. Like, ICE is at war with the American people. I hope you guys that are listening to this and watching this are taking stock of the moment that you are in right now. You are in a moment of history where a rogue federal organization is taking aim at the American people, Donnie. Yeah, a 21-year-old Caden Rumler was hit in the face with a projectile

that was fired by a federal officer at close, range at a protest in Southern California, leaving him with some serious injuries. And this comes weeks after Keith Porter, who was a 43-year-old father of two, was reportedly shot and killed by an off-duty ice agent on New Year's Eve. That happened after Porter fired celebratory gunshots in the air to celebrate the holiday. And an ice agent who lived nearby heard the gunshots and says that he thought that there was an active shooter nearby and took action. Yeah. This also, there's another shooting in Minneapolis that just happened. This was reported yesterday. Law enforcement and demonstrators clashed where a federal agent

shot and injured a man after he allegedly assaulted the agent. During a struggle, DHS said two people came out of a nearby apartment and attacked the officer with a snow shovel and a broom handle. After Sussebek got loose and joined the attack, the officer fired defensive shots. DHS said, striking the man in the lake. Tensions are very high in Minnesota and Minneapolis, should I say. Minneapolis, once again, it's not fucking around with ice.

They are not fucking around with ice. Okay? They're not. And the response, what the response should be, first off, we all know that this shouldn't be happening at all. as you introduce this topic, talking about how ICE is at war with the American people. And you would think from a government or from our government, the response would be people are dying. American citizens are being attacked.

They're being harassed. They're being watched. They're being questioned. And you would think, okay, let's figure out how to calm things down in the city. But no, the response from the government is we're going to send. more federal agents to your city. We're going to rile things up even more to your city. And then you have to ask yourself what the purpose is.

And not only are they putting more agents into the city to not die down what's happening, to ratchet it up even more, to cause more of a hostile environment, then you have these federal agents emboldened, taking advice from somebody who is not a lawyer, who is not in Congress, who is not,

In any, I mean, works in the Trump administration who is empowering you even more by saying, hey, guys, when you go into these cities, just know that it doesn't matter if it's a citizen, if it's a state official, if it's a local official, you have absolute immunity. You are protected. This is what Stephen Miller is telling. This is what he is arming these federal agents with. So you wonder why they feel as if they can do absolutely anything. They don't just have the backing from the Trump administration.

They are told that they are going to be immune from anything as long as they are performing their duties. And I'm using air quotes when it comes to whatever they're doing in Minnesota. That's even more scary. And then you ask yourself, what is all this leading to? Trump said it yesterday. He's already talking about the Insurrection Act, which we've talked about that before on this podcast. When we talked about ICE coming into Los Angeles and some of these other citizens, cities. And then things, that kind of talk died down. But here we are again. This is where we're leading to. We're leading to the Insurrection Act, which will eventually probably won't stop Trump and it'll lead to martial law. This is where he wants to go to within these cities and within the country.

So there's a growing battle inside the left. And it's the same battle that always gets fought. and it's abolishment versus reform. There is an article. Thirdway.org, this was sent to me by the great Dorei McKesson. I've always called them McKelson and people don't like that. That's not saying. You laugh at it? It's not saying.

Remember when Lekeith was on here and I kept calling him Lakeith Stansfield? Yeah, and he did like that. He went, this is why I liked about Keith in that situation. way she goes, it's Lekeith Stanfield. I like it when people do stuff like that. Stanfield. Stanvan.

This on thoroughway dot org, a little homework for you guys. Democrats colon abolish ICE abuses not ICE. So when everyone to be up on the conversation about whether or not ice should exist in what way ice should exist,

All that stuff. You have to be concentrated on the long sort of tale of understanding how the politicians that you elect are looking at this issue so that you know how you want them to talk about ICE and organizations like ICE moving forward. So there is going to be, at the end of this, of course, a debate about whether you get rid of ice or whether or not ICE is something that. we need and you reform it or whatever, whatever. There is one House Democrat. Sri Thandar is making a push to dismantle ice. Says that ice is beyond reform. I want people to be aware of that there's a conversation about how to fix ice.

I'm not asking you to engage into that conversation right now, but I want you to be aware that it is happening. and let me tell you why I want you to be aware of it. You can't get into it right now. If you are a freedom-loving America, American, you can't get into that conversation right now because I have to be real with you. We're past that point. That's a conversation for politicians

that you need to be aware of. But right now, resistance of ice from you as an American citizen is non-negotiable. if you care about not even the freedom of people that are here undocumented. If you care about your freedom, you have got to resist ICE. You have to. You don't have a choice. But to resist ICE intellectually in protest and demonstration, no matter what way it is, you have no choice but to resist them.

ICE is representative of an organization that can be used with impunity to stamp on and stamp out every right that you have. ICE is representative of the United States government to tell you how you can move, to tell you where you can go. But most importantly, ICE is representative of the American government. flexing its muscle and telling you who you can protect, who you can stand up for, who you can vouch for, your ability to say, hey, don't do that. Your ability to say, hey, that's wrong. If you don't have that, you're not a citizen.

If you can't say you can't talk to me like that, you're not a citizen. If you can't say you can't talk to her like that, you're not a citizen. If you can't say, I'm standing right here to protect this person, you're not a citizen. You're a subject. And those are two different things. Now, if you are okay with being a subject, as long as being a subject comes along with an interest rate that you like, as long as being a subject comes along with you.

As long as being a subject comes along with preferential treatment for you. As long as being a subject comes along with you, your table is right here and waiting for you. If you're okay with being a subject for that, fine. Go along with it. If you're not okay with being a subject, you're not okay with ice. Binary, over, done, period. The question is, what are you prepared to do? Because they're showing you right now what they're prepared to do.

They're showing you what they're prepared to do. They're prepared to take a gun out of a holster, stick it through the window of your car, and execute you. That's how serious they are. How serious are you? And serious doesn't mean that you have to go about it the way everybody else does. Everybody has different jobs. But I'm telling you one thing that you cannot do.

And that is not no. You can't not know. You can't. I would rather disagree with you than meet you in ignorance at this point. Because even if I disagree with you, I would look at you as powerful. But anybody at look at you, listen to themselves as a subject right now, we ain't got no conversation.

Because that's how far along we are right now. And that's what's got, and we knew this was going to happen. Yeah. So the question is, what are you prepared to do? Even if the only thing you're prepared to do is read up on it.

I can't tell y'all that that's, man, somebody's listening to my voice right now and they're going, man, you know, I got a job, I got a family, I got all of this stuff right. I mean, I know, I know, I know you do. you can't get off work to go protest. Black Lives Matterer was talking about that,

and you guys fucked them up. They were talking about how we need to readjust and re-look at the family and bigger unit so that if you go read the mission statement of Black Lives Matter, they talk about the fact that there needs to be somebody to watch your kids when you take the street and they talked about all of that stuff, but we got hung up on houses and that's what happened.

That's fine. That's fine. My opinion, look at Rachel Rohan. That's fine, my opinion. But I know that you can't. get off work to go protest. You can't put yourselves, but what you can do is arm yourself with the most important weapon, which is knowledge of this subject, what your rights are, how they're encroaching upon your rights, how this has happened in other places and what that means. You can read 20 minutes a day. You can stay up on it. You can understand the difference

between a politician who says they want to abolish ICE and reform ICE. You owe that to yourself. You have to do it or else you are a subject. You can fund people through mutual aid who are out in the street. You can, whatever you can do, whatever you can do. But I'm telling you right now, coming from Van, you're flawed, super fucked up, crazy ADHD big brother. You probably need to do something. Well said.

Only thing I'm going to add is when you get that knowledge, and you take it all in and you learn about what's happening and you learn about the injustices and maybe even learn about how we got here, then take that knowledge and vote against that. Vote against it. You got to. Like, you're right. Not everybody has a platform. Not everybody has a big social media presence.

Not everybody can take off a work. But you can go out and you can vote against this so it can stop happening. Well said. All right. Now we're talking about Iran. We're going geopolitically. We're going geopolitical. I've been, were you aware of my Iran face?

I feel like I learned like Layla told me because, like maybe through Layla and Kalika, like it started with you looking at a picture and then from there your curiosity just expanded, something like that? Is that right? Let me tell you when it started. It started when Tucker Carlson

was on with or it wasn't Ted Cruz was on with Tucker Carlson and Tucker Carlson asked Ted Cruz how many people there were in Iran and Tucker Carlson couldn't answer the I mean Ted Cruz couldn't answer the question

couldn't answer the question and he asked what do you know about the people of Iran and he couldn't really answer he had no answer he was a policy maker had no answer you know what I asked myself I was like

what do I know I'm talking so much about the region, about the Palestinian people, about Israeli domestic and foreign policy, about American power projection in that region. It's the second hour of a podcast and my speech is falling apart. Like we're talking all about that stuff. What do I know? Yeah.

And I started to dig in. Read a couple of books, watched a couple of docs, went to Layla's house for Thanksgiving, and talk to her people, listen to them talk. I started to read stuff, started to ask more questions, the guys I play basketball with. Like, I'll be at the gym playing ball.

I'd be like, hey, man, is that Farsi you're speaking? And they're like, yeah, yeah, it's Farsi. I was like, can I talk to you for like five years? You know when it was for me, and this is the connection that we have. Shaheen. Oh.

Shaheen's black and Persian. He's black and Persian, okay. So that was back at high school. Yeah. So if you follow that story, you kind of understand how we get to where we are right now, not the ancient history of Iran, but the history of Iran from the standpoint of its relationship to Western power last century, how we talked to us about this, how Iran's, goals of defining itself as a country and as a producer existed at the same time as it was being split into different spheres of influence. The Russians took apart. The British took

apart. The British felt like they were losing control. They roped in the Americans. The Americans had it for a little while. kicked out this really popular cleric that went to live in France. That guy ended up becoming the guy that would be the focal point for the overthrow of the Shah in the late 70s. That along with the Iranian embassy and all of that, even how the war between Iran and Iraq led to that regime, probably solidifying itself over that time. It's a lot of stuff to talk about, but it all has to do with Western power and how a nation of people see themselves. And that's kind of, in my opinion, at least, a core question about what's going on

right now. But there is no core question to me that is more important right now than what actually is best for the people of Iran inside that country and the diaspora of people, Iranians and Persians all over the place. Absolutely. The only thing I'll add is it's not just how they see themselves. It's also because of all the things that you name, how we also. see them. And it's shaped that. So a very interesting conversation with Professor Benai. And I

really hope you guys stay around to listen to it. Husbanai. If you want to be the smartest person at your cocktail party about Iran, or if you actually care about geopolitics, then maybe stick around for this. We're going to get to

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break okay um if you are paying attention to the news in any way shape or form you are aware of mass protests that are happening in iran right now protests that some believe threatened to destabilize the regime that is running the country right now some say uh the protests will destabilize the regime some say what we're witnessing right now in iran is full on regime change that might be instituted from within or maybe from outside. We want to talk to you guys about this, make sure that you are educated on it. So we brought in a little help. Husband I is an associate professor of international studies at the Hamilton Lugar School

of Global and International Studies. At Indiana University, the Hoosiers, that next week, if we're talking about something insignificant, are playing for an NCAA. championship, well, not quite an NCAA championship. The NCAA doesn't really award a championship in football, but they're playing for a national championship, college football playoff national championship. We're going to talk about that a little bit later, too.

I know that's a hard term from talking about what's going on in Iran. But thank you for joining us on higher learning right now. We have so many questions for you, man. My pleasure to be with you. I'm excited to both reflect alongside with you about the situation in Iran and also my Hoosier. Okay. So let's start from zero. Let's say two people are at a cocktail party. Yeah. One person asked the other person, what exactly is going on in Iran right now? What's the most intelligent way to answer that question? Well, there is always with countries such as Iran, there is the kind of immediate thing that happened and the larger context within which that immediate thing is taking place. So the immediate thing is that On December 28th, Iran's currency basically collapsed against the dollar.

Already was in a horrendously bad shape. And that led to a series of shop closings in Iran's bazaar. Bazaar is the kind of the old merchant classes that have been kind of the foundation of Iran's political economy going back 100 years. What's also significant about the bazaar merchants is that they are a core constituency of this particular regime in charge. They are devout. They're not necessarily politically aligned with the regime, but they are kind of devout Muslims. They're the ones that are always far more cautious, hesitant to take to the streets for social reasons.

Let's say the headscarf, the hijab, or, you know, university students protesting for speech rights, etc. So the fact that it spread from this sector and quickly joined by university students, writers, artists, journalists, then other shops, other businesses closing, it all of a sudden spread like wildfire. And the chance quickly went from, you know, we want better management of the economy that to this regime has stolen the ordinary people's taxes. It has implemented a bunch of very corrupt policies that really benefit its inner security establishment, the revolutionary guards that are kind of like the, if you will, not so much private anymore, but the kind of exclusive guard meant to protect the integrity of the regime from within, many of whose sons and daughters have taken these vast sums of money bought apartments in London and parents. and rumors of owning given private highways in Toronto, Canada, etc. So they're seeing the lives of these regime elements get better while the Iranian economy is collapsing.

And so it turned violent very quickly. And then after about a week and a half of sustained public demonstrations that grew larger and larger, initially it started in Tehran and Mashad, the two kind of main cities. It spread to over 87 cities and with massive amounts of numbers of people. Then the diaspora outside of Iran got galvanized, then started to organize and hold public rallies on Saturdays in Western capitals as well.

And then about now five, almost six days ago, the government crackdown set in. They shut down the internet and the ability to be able to phone outside of the country. And we're just beginning to see through the fog what was committed in that period. There are estimates I've seen anywhere from 2,500 to 4,000 to 12,000 at the largest extent of protesters just machine gunned down on the street. streets. You hear witness testimony of people saying that their bodies just littered everywhere. And we're seeing a first wave of people who have left Iran and they say they knew at least one family who had lost someone in this. So we fear that the numbers are going to be really great indeed. But the regime has really clapped down. It's showing a great determination to really brutally

repress and kill in a manner that it has not done in the 47 years. that it's been in power since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. I want to talk about protests because obviously Iran is no stranger to protest going way, way, way, way back. And when we talk about protests in Iran, why is it important to see them as part of a longer historical pattern rather than an isolated or isolated events? Yeah, very good question. I mean, this is the larger context, right? So you're absolutely right that process against the regime have been fairly routine, especially in the last 25 years with the advent of the reform movement inside of the regime.

And they first began really as a series of kind of fairly localized protests meant to really push the regime to reform from within itself. So they were led oftentimes by they always almost always certainly started with, on university campuses. Students who said, basically we want a better future. We're the best than the brightest in the country, and yet there are no jobs waiting.

And oftentimes there are just multiple levels of nepotism, people who have, or the children of the well-to-do or the elite who get positions ahead of those who are really the best and the brightest of what they do. Then, you know, you have waves of those waves of political protests being complimented by waves of protests that had to do with the

mismanagement and rampant corruption of Iran's economy. As the Revolutionary Guards became bigger and bigger and involved in the management of Iran's political economy, large thanks, I should say, because of the invasion of Iraq next door to Iran in 2003, because it removed Iran's main nemesis in the region and allowed for the guards to then expand to the rest of the region and try to fund and advance their own proxies. But along those routes, they built, you know, businesses, cultivated networks of patronage. And most of the taxation collected in the state was going toward that. And that obviously also beget Western sanctions on Iran. which made the economic situation even more dire.

And then the third category of protests had to do with social policies of the state. And here, women really have been the driving force of these protests, the most famous of which, or infamous, I should say, was the 2022 protests, the Massa and Mini protests, or the so-called Women Life Freedom protests, that really sprung up after the beating that resulted in the killing of a Kurdish woman, Masa Amini, from the provinces who was visiting Tehran

because her hijab wasn't quite right. The morality police sort of went after her. And after that, the regime really took a step back. They dissolved the morality police. They kind of went softer. But it was very clear at that point that economic issues, social issues, political issues have all kind of really now been piled on top of each other. And it's really a tender box.

To that point, what specifically are the protesters asking for right now? And does the Iranian regime even have the capability to meet those demands? Well, this specific set of protests are the first time in a very long time that is not about a particular issue. They won the regime gone. I mean, it's anti-regime. They are chanting, you know, death to the dictator, which is a euphemism for Ayatollah Khomeini, the supreme leader to go away, and openly asking for democratic constitutional government. And that's what the regime cannot tolerate. And, you know, in the past, they try to kind of throw little bones here and there. So actually, five days within these protests, the government announced the plan that they would basically send a check

amounting to $7 to every household in Iran to be able to, you know, as one Iranian said, that would only cover the cost of buying one bottle of vegetable oil, cooking oil. So that was kind of seen as an insult that they were kind of throwing this back. But the government is also bankrupt. I mean, they are under the most severe regime of. of sanctions. It can't really give much more than that. So they're really in a corner on that. One quick follow up. From your purview, do you see, and there are just a litany of opinions about this, depending on who you ask, do you see the regime as being in actual trouble?

Meaning, you know, a lot of people say that they're really well entrenched and there are levels to the amount of power that they have. When Muhammad Regis Shah was overthrown in the late 70s, it was actually the failure of the military to protect him. The military class abandoned him, and that's what led to him being vulnerable to that. A lot of people are saying that's not happening yet in Iran, and it would take some tremendous leaps for that to happen.

Is there an actual chance for the people in Iran right now that are protesting to change the regime? Very, another very good question. I think the balance of coercion or force it clearly favors the government. And if they've demonstrated, if these numbers are correct

and the worst of them especially are correct, 12,000 people killed in a matter of, you know, three days. To put it in context, the number of civilian killed in the Russia-Ukraine war over three years is 15,000,

1-5 of civilians. So if it's 12,000 in just five days, it tells you what this government is signaling in terms of the lengths to which they're willing to go. This is also the same regime that had propped up Bashar al-Assad in Syria for a very long time

since the Arab Spring from 2010 all the way to his recent downfall. Hezbollah and southern Lebanon. And although they've been kicked out of those theaters now due to Israel's war and very successful pushback campaign against Iran and just this last summer, those networks just don't melt. They've come all at home. So in terms of raw military and willingness to be able to mow down people, I'm afraid it favors them. Now, the will to what links they want to go with this is an open question. It's also an

open question whether the United States or Israel, if they targeted senior leadership, whether this regime would be able to hold much longer. In the case of the Shah that you cited, he voluntarily left. Once he saw the tea leaves, he flew out of the country and fled. Asad left the country, right, in Syria. There are leaders who stay and fight to the last man, and it's usually a very brutal aftermath. Libya, think with Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein. until his capture. And then there are those who flee. The ones who flee allow for a smoother transition.

But I don't see this. They also have somewhere to go. They also have somewhere to go. Yeah, some of them don't have anywhere to see. Some of it's been hard for Saddam Hussein. They have those leaders have somewhere to go sometimes. Either a miracle or in the case of Assad, you can go to Russia. Yeah, exactly.

Russia would be host to this regime, by the way, the senior leadership. They are one of their backers. But I don't see right now that they're that scared or they think they're being targeted by the U.S. or Israel. President Trump's back and forth on this notwithstanding, obviously. When you were talking about the deaths that we're seeing and you said the number is being reported from 2,500 to 4,000 to as high as 12,000, I want our listeners to understand why there's such a leap from 2,500 to 12,000. And if you could talk about the blackout that's going on right now and how you're, you know, you're getting information word of mouth or, you know, maybe in an underground way.

But because of the internet restrictions, if you could just paint what the daily life is like right now for people in Iran amid the protests, the crackdowns and the internet restrictions. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right. The part of the reason why we're getting such wildly different numbers is because the very little information is coming out of Iran. There are very few Western journalists inside Iran, almost none, actually, to the extent there are. They're not being able to broadcast their material out.

And everything is anecdotal. When there's a blackout, the best estimate, can come usually from morgues and hospitals. Those locations are all heavily guarded by the Revolutionary Guard, so they're not allowing for civilian journalists to go and publish preliminary numbers. There's no question that the 2,500 number is the one that the government itself has provided initially. That was like about three or four years ago. It was three or four days ago.

And so those estimates are always way more lower than what they'll end up being. And there's no verification of it. I mean, I've heard also, and I've seen some pictures online being circulated of bodies piles on top of each other at the backs of 18 wheelers, about 25 to 30 18 wheelers that are dropping off these body bags at this major facility in north of Tehran. And then family members are going. and to try to identify who's who. And what you're kind of hearing and reading on social media are just like horrific scenes. And I don't know to what extent also that a lot of this is unverified, obviously,

and various outlets have their own agendas with certain things. But there was one particular graphic accounting that, you know, a bunch of parents were going to see if their kids were among the dead. And once they identified them, the government then asked the equivalent of $80 per bullet that was in their kids' bodies and then had them sign an affidavit that said their kid was martyred by Israel. So, you know, you hear these things. Some of them ring true. A lot of them ring true because in the past the government has done this in bits and pieces. but we'll have the fuller picture maybe probably in a week or two when Starlink or through some other, you know, satellite networks will get better information. Husk, can I talk about attention with you? Sure, please.

That I feel, not that I feel, that I am sensing here. So I have a lot of Iranian friends out here, Persian friends out here. I live here in Los Angeles. Terrangelois. Terrangeles, yes. Terrangeles, okay? So a lot of Persian friends. Okay, the Persian friends that I have are, obviously,

the people that were forced to leave when the late 70s revolution happened, right? Yeah. And Khomeini took over and established Shia, Islam, Sharia law in Iran. Okay. They are delighted, not delighted. That is the wrong term to you. use. They are hopeful. Yes. That there is a change in Iran.

Yes. They are hopeful that there is a change in Iran because they represent people who have seen so many of their loved ones killed people that had to leave Iran and start all over someplace new because of political upheaval. Here's the thing, though. There's another contingent of people. These people aren't really Persian who look. at Iran and what's happening there, what has happened there, as being the result of two things that have always been competing with each other. One is Iran's ability to govern itself, whether that's oil nationalization from Mossadegh or a constitutional revolution that happens early in the 19th century, right? Yeah, yeah.

with Western meddling. Western meddling in installing the Poplar of the dynasty in the first place. Yeah, yeah. Getting rid of the first father, putting it in the sun, then the United States and Britain getting together after the oil nationalization that happened in the early 50s and really becoming, establishing Western hegemony in Iran, right? For oil and other purposes, right?

That's right. There are a lot of people who look at what's happening now as the West, the United States, Israel, whom else ever, reestablishing or looking to reestablish that imperialism and that hegemony in Iran. And the tension is between supporting people who are in their country or from their country that are fighting for freedom and autonomy and democracy and their dignity and their dignity. against what might happen, which if it's the installation of Rezlopovalevi, who is right now living in Maryland, the son of, just so people know what I'm talking about, the son of the depot Shah lives in the United States right now. And he has become sort of a symbol of Iranian freedom for the people that are protesting right now. However, that dad was kind of an asshole.

Yeah, just just to let people know An authoritarian, secret police, the whole nine, a U.S. Western puppet. So I guess for somebody who has close personal ties with people who are hoping that their country gets to determine its own future. Yeah. And a person that is against imperialism or U.S. hegemony in the region. what are you supposed to think? Yeah. Like, how are you supposed to look at this situation in a way that is supportive of what is actually best for the Iranian diaspora?

Yeah. Very excellent question. And, I mean, what you're pointing to is a burden that's carried by a lot of formerly colonized or semi-colonized countries around the world. And it's a burden carried also in a domestic analogy by marginalized communities. When you've been subject of domination, there's always this kind of pregnant question of, to what extent are we setting ourselves up for further domination, or the changes that might happen might favor this other group that always has exploited us in the past, right? Or to what extent are we going to go so native that we'll be repressed by people from within

who just want power and glory and, you know, riches, et cetera. And this tension exists by all, I think, marginalized communities and in the world of international politics, semi-colonized, formerly colonized countries have this. I've written a book about this. It's called Hidden Liberalism, a burdened vision of progress on Iran. And it's about, and it's from the constitutional period all the way to the present moment. And one of my arguments is specifically this, is that progressive, liberal democratic movements in Iran have always suffered because they've been sandwiched between those who say, you are making a country vulnerable to further imperial exploitation with your Western ideas of human rights and democracy, et cetera. And those who say, really, there is a

kind of a puritanical, indigenous view of governance. And only I know how to do it. Only I know how to implemented. And so, you know, regular ordinary folks are stuck between a rock and a hard place in this way. And I think right now, those questions at the end of every protest episode, when I do media interviews, this comes up, you know, who is this going to favor? Isn't it, you know, isn't pro-Israel lobbies, aren't they behind this line of argument as well or not? And I, my response has always been listen to the content of what people who are at the forefront of struggling against the thing they would like to see removed first saying, who's nourishing them, who's funding them?

If there are indigenous movements that are truly independent, people generally gravitate toward them. We've seen this in various pro-democratic movements across the Western world and non-Western world as well. People are not stupid. They can tell if so-and-so is being funded by, you know, countries that have extra interests in Iran. Interventions that have been brought about as a result of diaspora groups that are directly funded, Iraq being most recently, right? Ahmad Chalibi Iraqi National Congress nurtured by U.S. neoconservatives.

And then, you know, they go back to, they're rootless inside their own country. and it takes them in a matter of six months, they're all non-players, right? And what happens is that you get these Shia sectarian political parties winning elections and taking over the country. So it's a very difficult question. I also, having lived in Los Angeles, my first job was at Occidental College in L.A. I know that community well. I have family members in that community.

And I think the Iranian diaspora, what we should kind of, take away from this moment is that it is very pluralistic. It has unsettled questions among itself. There's not a singular figure. Reza Pallavi has a lot of supporters in that part, but there are also other groups that are very suspicious out in the diaspora of what might happen if he goes back, given the fact that we've had also leaders in the diaspora who said very fine, nice things in the diaspora, but the minute they went back and they give them power is. is an entirely different story. Khomeini being the most notorious.

I mean, he said, I just want to come back and go to the seminary, be a moral guide. The government should be independent, secular even, and constitutional. And the minute his plane lands in Tehran, he sees these masses. Oh, you can also see it because the videos are available.

And his expression just changes. It's kind of like, wow, I'm really powerful. And he says, I will appoint the first government, and then I will slap him the face if they don't listen to what the people want. And then he became the people, right? So that tension is there. We should not kid ourselves that the real fight is really figuring out how to represent

the interests of the country. And constitutional democracy is the only way to go. Trump is being vocal about Iran. And I guess generally my question to you is, how should the international community understand its responsibility or even its limits when responding to events? in Iran. And then I guess the second part to that is, what do you think outsiders most often misunderstand about Iranian protest and their goals? Yeah, very good. Again, excellent. We were asking all the easy questions today. In terms of outsiders' role, I'm one of those people, and I should

qualify this because I think it's important to be honest. I don't think transitions in of power in Iran can happen without some sort of outside help or interference. That has been the case. That has been the case in the history of modern Iran. I mean, Van, you just recounted it very accurately throughout the 20th century. From the time of the constitutional revolution from late 19th century all the way to the 1979 Revolution, the U.S. or the Brits or the Russians have in one way or another been a part of the geopolitics that allowed for those transitions to take place, either as parties that, you know, they saw their person go or as the instigating party that brought the person in. So given the

very sensitive geopolitics of this country, if Iran's biggest exports to the rest of the world where apples and oranges, we wouldn't be talking about U.S. involvement. The fact is that this is one of the most resource-rich countries that sits in a very sensitive geopolitical spot on the world map. And sandwich between American interests, Israeli interests, Russian interests, Chinese interests. And so the question is, what the outside, powers, what their plan is for the future Iranian transition. Do they want a client state,

or do they just want to help get rid of a regime that is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity? And I've always believed in these kinds of situations, internationalizing that coalition of powers is the best way to go. And it's still not a great necessarily outcome that outcomes that come out of it because interests are always there. But that means that, you know, holding their feet to the fire, constantly questioning what their involvement is. If they're going to help with Starlink connection, for instance, that's very important and useful. If they're going to help kind of jam the electronic communications of revolutionary guards that are mowing people down on the streets, that's very helpful. Bombing the country, I don't think what that, I don't know what that accomplishes when it's not it.

We're not talking about a security threat at that level. Leadership targets is something that has come up. What happens if the United States assassinations Ayatollah Khomeini? That's a hard one. I mean, he's kind of giving orders, right? But at the same time, if you're doing it, you own it. If you go for the leadership, then you're in, you know, you're in charge of that thing. And so it's fraught and difficult, but I don't think it's something that is, we can say very clearly

they can get involved or not. Your second question, remind me. Oh, well, the first part was about the international community being involved. And then the second part, or the limits. And the second part was, what do you think outsiders most often misunderstand about the Iranian protests and its goals? Or protesters, I should say, in its goals. I think it is, again, I'll go back to the earlier frame that I have.

had with respect to the second question of the burdens carried by marginalized communities, whether in global politics or in domestic politics. And the misunderstanding often is that there is a kind of a black and white monolith on either side of this, right? That the people are a monolith, and then the government is a monolith. And they're not. They are just bundles of various different passions and beliefs and half-based. ideas and you have to really discriminate, listen and discriminate between what people are saying

and how they're acting. Because, you know, nice words are easy to say. But, you know, actions oftentimes speak are louder than words and whether someone has been able to build a coalition of, you know, people who otherwise disagree about other things but have, you know, a singular project in mind, the way that South Africans did against apartheid, for instance, the patchwork of groups that don't necessarily agree on all public policy facets, but their goal was to end apartheid. Until you see something like that that actually represents multiplicity and diversity and interest toward a single goal, you should be skeptical that someone speaks on behalf of a people necessarily. So I think,

as much as possible, moving away from monolithic representations is very important. You know, what you said interesting, what you said about the international community earlier is interesting to me because, or the conversation around that is interesting because it's at the most precarious time for that. There's almost zero, there seems to be zero international consensus on almost anything, particularly the way the Trump administration is acting, they act unilaterally in almost every regard. And one issue kind of gets me to thinking about this. And the things that I say right now,

I want everyone to take these things in and understand what I am saying. And I'm not in any way lending support for any one group or any group. Okay. But there's a reality here that we're talking about this and most of the most of the units and organizations

that Iran has relied on, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, all of them have been basically wiped out, not wiped out, but they've been significantly, significantly deteriorated by U.S. and Israeli action since October 3rd, right? Not only that, but you had the 12-day war, which everybody talks about the United States' involvement,

but there was a significant decapitation of the military intelligentsia of Iran during then. They got the guard good during that point. They killed a lot of senior leadership. So Iran is at a way. weakness in terms of its ability to project power in the region like it has before using those organizations and with stuff that, you know, exists inside the country. The reason why I bring that up is because as inconvenient as this fact is, there are people who believe that Iran represents

the only force in the region that is dedicated to repelling and rebelling against Israeli force and action in the region, along with United States force. And they also look at that as sort of if Iran falls, the Palestinian people are done for it. That if that regime is gone and it is replaced with a pro-Western regime, a pro-Israel, pro-United States regime, what people are really trying to say is, despite the fact that you have terrorist organizations that are operating on behalf of Iran and Iran is supporting those terrorist organizations

that if you institute or if you put in another pro-West organization or pro-West ruling faction in Iran that would doom the Palestinian people to whatever the whims of the U.S. and Israel are. And the reason

why that's so difficult to say and I fumbled around with it is because if you say that, it seems as if you're saying, I support the Houthis Hezbollah and you know what I mean? And Hamas. Which I'm saying right now, don't, don't

like, I'm not I'm not saying that, all right? We could talk about the historical like complexity of all of this stuff. I'm not saying that. But what I'm saying is a lot of people think that the Iranians, for all of the problems and everything that was going on there, represented one of the only forces in the region that was capable of stopping a complete takeover and thus dooming the Palestinian people. Long-winded way. Sure, I'll get my ass kicked of asking that question.

But is that fair to connect those two issues together? Is that fair? And is it even decent to do it? Yeah. I think, so my perspective on this is the inverse of it almost in that you could also argue that the reason by the Palestinians have been, their Palestinian plight has so massively deteriorated since the Second Intifada at the end of the 20th century. Remember that famous Camp David Accord that didn't go anywhere with Bill Clinton still in office, right? Since then, the Palestinian situation has gotten worse and worse, far worse than it ever was. And in the last 25 years, yes, Iran has been the key champion of the Palestinians. So they fare much better when the Islamic Republic was not their number one cheerleader. The reason why I can understand and sympathize, frankly, to some level, the people who see the Iranian government at least as the only one that has not been hypocritical in its defense of the Palestinian cause.

That all the Arab states talk a big game and they are all in cahoots. Some of them have normalized relationships with the Israeli government, right? The Abraham Accords, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia now sitting on the fence, but you're not. Everyone knows that they're, you know, in cahoots with Jared Kushner and, you know, Israeli commercial interests over there. So I understand the criticism that, you know, this government at least has walked a walk. But the question there, the secondary question ought to be that, yes, they've walked a walk, but look at the kind of regime that they are.

They have been championing and propping up autocratic movements and leaders while they did this. Bashar al-Assad, Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah, Shia factions, some of which make al-Qaeda look like a cosmopolitan, you know, liberal movement. building this vast network of, you know, recruits from Afghanistan and Central Asia, kids as young as 15 and 16 being recruited to go and die in Western Iraq and Eastern Syria, fighting, you know, Sunni factions, et cetera. They've set the region of ablaze along sectarian lines. So once you do the accounting, you see that. A, you don't want a champion of the Palestinian people that is so viscerally against human rights, basic dignity of individuals, they don't practice it at home.

And second, resistance with a bigger partner like this only invites further misery. It has given Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli political class all the license that they wanted to go. and conquer more land and to inflict the devastation that we've seen in Gaza. It makes their cause even more just when a regime like this is a backer of Hamas. So that's the way I've looked at this. I'm fully acknowledging I'm obviously a scholar of Iran. I've seen, I'm very familiar with the crimes of this regime. But I think on balance, the qualitative the Islamic Republic is not a champion that you want. I'm going to go back to something you said.

I love the conversation you were having around Iranian people not being a monolith. Yeah. And it would be remiss of me to not talk about the Iranian women. And so I want to make sure that I have a question that focuses around them because I feel like Western media often frames Iranian women solely as victims when we're talking about a monolith. And I would love for you to talk about why that framing is not only incomplete. but misleading, and then talk about what the Iranian women want the world to know about their agency,

about their resilience, and about their goals. Yeah. Thank you for that opportunity to talk about that, because I think one of the facts that oftentimes overlooked when it comes to not just countries that are under the sway of theocracies, Obviously, the feocry has the control of women as its number one objective. It's a hierarchy of genders and sexes. You know, that has been true in the Christian theocratic mold and the Jewish theocratic mold, and it's certainly the case in the Islamic feocratic mold.

But setting aside even that, in the context of a country that has experienced multiple wars, remember, Iran and Iraq fought the longest conventional interstate conflict of the 20th century. And that's a century that saw two world wars, eight-year war between two countries, the longest in the 20th century. And Iranian women during that war not only were the kind of the center of production of Iran's economy, because they were at home and the men were in the front, they managed in all sorts of, of quiet and possible ways to assert their agency to create spaces for women, not only as passive caretakers, but as executives, as running various civil society organizations that have been so absolutely key to that post-war landscape that we've seen reformist, more liberal movements spring out of. If it were not for the agency of Iranian female university students,

who comprise, by the way, almost 75% of university graduates in Iran. Women are far more educated in Iran than men are. A lot of these social spaces where protests start begin to culminate would not be possible if women had not built and safeguarded those positions. And then the issue of the hijab, which is the, you know, kind of the symbolic if you will, avatar of Islamic governance. You know, I remember growing up in Iran,

I lived in Iran until I was 15, so well into the revolution, post-revolution of Iran, I grew up there. You know, my mom, my aunts, my sister, they all find different ways of always subverting the public laws for how you wear your hijab. It will always been very adept at it. And little by little, they chipped at it

until the Massa-a-Many protests and after, when they all just took it off and the government stopped enforcing it. One of the most remarkable, underreported, facts has been that since the June 12-day war, the Iranian government basically decided that we're going to lay off the public. And women took their hijabs off when they went to the street, and the government just stopped enforcing it. So you see all these videos of women without hair, wearing makeup and everyone just like, you know, there are a, kind of the equivalent of those kind of mob flash dances at Iranian malls going on, etc. And it's always been very quiet, very subversive, and very, very successful. And in this latest round, what I'm seeing, again, is, you know, that women are at the front lines confronting Revolutionary Guard thugs that are shooting and killing. You just see them in video after video.

And so the backbone of, I think, that burdened progress that I talked about earlier has been very gendered and it's female. It is one of those things that has made, you know, the Persian poetry and music and song that has come out of the last 47 years. The ones that are especially biting are the one by the women because this is the kind of government that is meant to make women disappear. You know, we know Ayatelah Khomeini. No one knows the name of his wife. No, any of them. I mean, the leadership, I mean, it's just that's such a male-dominated system. So it is very powerful when you have the exact opposite of it that really shows the, what the fabric of the diverse multiplicity of Iranian society.

How's we're going to get you out of here? Look, before you go, you know, look, here's a deal. Indiana football, man. Okay. Are you rooting for us? Is that what you're trying to say? You know, you know what I'm rooting for? I work too up.

You're an LSU fan, aren't you? I am an LSU fan. I am an LSU fan. I'm rooting what I'm rooting for what I always root for, which is chaos and the destruction of contemporary hierarchy. So I like the fact that they are in it. Do I like the comparisons to my beautiful, perfect 2019 LSU team? I don't know. Yeah, yeah.

But I do like the fact that somebody else steps up and go, we can bust heads too. There you go. What does it feel like to be a Hoosier right now with everything that's going on? It's like a historic run. And they are just, they are dismantling people on the field. Yeah. I mean, I think it's what you said is very true. It's always, I think it's a universal.

I think human sentiment to appreciate when an unknown, unexpected, you know, phenomena takes place. And you're watching it and you're saying good for these kids, good for this coach, good for this program. You know, it is, I appreciate, I think sports is the last remaining meritocratic space in human social organization. You see the best, do their best. You know, other things, other things get in the way. Nepotism, you know, a chance opportunity, you know, all this kind of similar place. All this kind of things. There are structural forces at play.

But in sports, you see raw talent. The reason why we all love it, it's just raw talent, you know, meeting its destiny. Or if it falls, it tragedy is even beautiful because you just know how much it meant or, you know, all that kind of things. So to see a team that is a bunch of misfits. Unrecruited kids. I mean, I have to repeat all this stuff. You know, get... 27 years old. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Get to...

I said misfits. I said misfits. Get there. It's really great. And, you know, I... In Indiana, we haven't had much good news lately, so we'll take this one for sure. I thought it was interesting. I was watching the All-American game, and I can't remember the athlete. Yeah. But, you know, he... He was picking his, he had all the hats lined up. And it was like Alabama, Ole Miss, Indiana. And I can't remember who I was watching with.

And they were like, oh, they're going to pick Ole Miss. And I was like, no, he's going to pick Indiana. And he did. And he did. Exactly. I'm sorry. Did you make mean Ole Miss or LSU? Those two seem to be mixing.

Okay. Huss. I love it. Sorry. Huss. All right. That was husband. I.

He's done. He's all finished. I thoroughly enjoyed this with you guys. Thank you so much for having me on. Thank you for being here. We appreciate you for joining us. Absolutely. We're going to bring you back as we watch things unfold.

All right, that's enough. Shout out to Huss. He, Indiana has a chance. I mean, they have a chance to the fucking winning. They're probably going to win here. They have a chance to go down as one of the greatest teams in college football history. I'm sorry.

Above the Texas. Longhorns? The Texas Longhorns aren't. No, no, no. You said in history, you said in history. You can't deny the road when we were undefeated and then we knocked off USC. That is arguably the greatest. That's arguably the greatest college football.

No, no, no. Upset. Team. Team. Go ahead. No, they're not the greatest team. No one would say that. So you, let me ask you a question.

You can't tell me we're not in the argument for that. I don't think you're an argument. Okay. I think, I think, hold on. There's literally documentaries off of it. Hold on, hold on. It was so great. Okay, can I be, can I try to be?

Okay, I would say that maybe you guys are in the argument. Maybe you guys are in the argument. Greatest season, maybe. Okay. So team. Okay, would you say, okay, let's just, let's just, let's just play it out real quick. Not to hate on Texas because I remember when SC, everybody was like, because before that, everybody was saying SC was the greatest team of all time, right?

They were saying all kinds of shit. Yeah, because of the back to backs and all that. Yeah, yeah. Two hodge and trophy winners, all of that stuff. I remember saying You know, they got a game left Even then I was like It's like they got another game

And then they went out They fucking lost Vince went crazy That fourth and five is so crazy Go back and watch that play What was called? I want to ask that Somebody come on this

What did y'all call on fourth and five I want to break that play down Vince like sauntered Into the end zone It's Vince Young What was the call there? I got to go back and look at that I don't remember.

Because he takes a step back. He looks. I don't have it. I think if I remember correctly, maybe two guys got the assignments crossed up, there was no contain, and he just ran in, just strolled in.

But I mean, obviously, if you were looking at teams, right, you'd have to look at the fact that the Miami teams from even earlier in that decade is like far superior to the Texas team. We're talking about in the art, My thing was in the argument.

You just already declared this Indiana football team as the greatest football team. That's not what I said. I said they have the chance. Should they win, if they win, that is what will deem them the greatest team for you. That's not what I said, though. This is what happens to me. And I have nowhere to fucking talk about me. What did you mean when you said.

What I said was that if they win, they have a chance to be. considered the greatest college football team. They have a chance to be the greatest college football if they win they have a chance. So if they win what happens? What would stop them in Europe with that opinion what would stop them then from being it? Winning is what gets them there. Okay. Is this a question that I can answer? Yes. All right. Let's say they win by one. Okay. And let me tell you why that matters. Because for them, they are not. They are not not, at least in my opinion, going to have the type of roster

that's going to put people in the NFL to where you go back and you go, look at the makeup of that team. They had everyone. That Miami team had 15 first rounders on it. They shouldn't have been allowed to play. Yeah. Okay?

Yeah. They shouldn't have been allowed to play against other human beings. The team should have been deemed illegal. They had 15 first rounders on a football team. It's nuts, okay? It makes no sense. It's dumb.

All right? It's a stupid, it's stupid as fuck is what it is when you go back and look at that team. It's, it's absurd. I don't know why when you started talking it just made me think of that. Remember they got in trouble for the rap? It just made it. Yeah, the seven floor crew. Greg Olson.

Greg Olson in that bit spinning. It just made me think of that for some reason. Was it the seventh floor? I think it was a seven floor. It was a seven floor. Seven floor crew, man. They had, fucking, they're going crazy. Ed Reed.

They're going nuts. That team is nuts. That team is stupid. The thing about Indiana is, it's not just that. Indiana's not going to have that. You're not going to have 15 first rounders on Indiana. You might not even have a crazy amount of all pros from Indiana. You might not even have all of that.

Even if I go back to the LSU squad, the LSU squad has Justin Jefferson, Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase all on the same squad, right? And then you got guys on the defense. You have real, real elite football talent on the team, right? You do. This team, this Indiana team, if they go out and they dominate, if they win this game by 20,

like they've been doing. If Miami runs the ball for 17 yards, then you have to go back and look at them in terms of going through a 12-team playoff and how they played the whole, year though. Year, they were pretty dominant as well. They had close games against Penn State. They had a semi-close game against Ohio State. But the run that they're on, if they go out and they crush like they crushed Bama, if they go out and crush like they crushed Oregon, you just got to

look back at them and go, they became unfuck-wittable. They became a team that nobody could even get on their same level. They reached a level of play. That's crazy. And I just got to be honest with you, that's the same thing that you say about 2019 LSU. It was Trevor Lawrence. It was Jalen Hertz. It was all of these guys that LSU played, and they creamed them all. Like, creamed them all. Could not be touched.

Texas gets the love because they were up against what people were said was the behemoth, unbeatable, unflappable, double-hisman trophy, stacked team of the USC Trojans, and they fucking beat them. They lost. Ha-ha, lost USC, ugly, disgusting. But to the point when you're like, if they were, like, if they were, win by one point. It's not the same type of dynamic.

Well, compared to the Texas team, what makes that game so great is that not just the talk before, it's that they were down and the way they came back. If Indiana is down, right? Let's just say they have a game like we saw the Bears and the Packers play, where they're down, what, 21 to 3, and in the fourth quarter, they walk it all the way up and end up fourth quarter and end up winning the whole thing. With that, that one point is different. Winning by that one point's different.

To me, when I'm looking at them, I'm factoring in the dominance. I'm factoring in the way that they're winning. I'm factoring in the dominance. The run is still going to be crazy. But if I will put them in the argument if they go out there and they just, with all of the 37-year-old guys that they have on their team, Actually, I'm not going to step on that joke because I made it. I'm not going to step on that joke.

Like, oh, I already made it. This is before the show. With all of the 42-year-old guys they have on their team, if they go out there and they really dominate, that's when I'll start to put them in that historic. They're still, they still made history. Okay. But to me, the margin of victory in this game, to me,

is going to be indicative of how I judge them and look at them as a team. We'll have more time to talk about it. Oh, no, we won't because it's Martin Luther King. Are we off from Martin Luther King? Not unless you want to be. Jay back there. Jay says she want to be off. Jay doing a thumbs up.

Jay don't want to come to work. I will be in Miami for the game. Right. Live reporting for you guys. You guys, here's attention right here. You want me to do this for the tailgate? I could be live reporter for the game for the tailgate. I would love to, I would love for you to do that.

Here's attention right here that we have to talk about when it comes to higher learning. A black podcast is the ringer. Is that niggas don't want to work, right? You hear them back. They don't want to come to work. I have to work on Monday. I said we were working. Right.

I have to work. It don't matter whether or not Jade and we call them lazy Bernard. It doesn't matter whether or not they, I have to come here. So I would podcast, but I'm going to leave it up to y'all because y'all want to go to the Martin Luther King Day parade in L.A. Do y'all want to work on Jade? Stop saying it's up to you. Man, you ain't trying to work. Donnie, what?

Oh, should we? Hey, you know what? How about this? This is what we'll do. We've never taken it off, right? Maybe we had an interview and said, maybe we did in the beginning. We used to, actually.

I'll tell you what Jay want to take it off, though, because you're, Jay said, now look at her. Now what she, Jay said, so listen, you heard what Jay just said? Jay just said, I've never taken it off since I work here. Now she's throwing grenades at the whole company. Now she wants to get a New York Times article going

about the black Martyrically Day and three. Jay and this is a lot. wait and this the way the article goes she turns around on us she goes you know when i started working for higher learning i thought maybe i would get martin lekeen day off into that nigga van see see this is the way that it goes we'll think about it we'll let the audience decide um whether or not we come back well like you guys vote i don't know where i will watch it i'm not gonna see it but like you guys vote and tell us whether or not you want a show on monday we should do a show on monday i think so yeah we should do a show on monday okay well fuck it we're doing the show

I apologize. Because then we make the CTs work. They, should they get our day? Should they get our day off? Why should C.T.? Why should C.T. Get the day off.

Get Martin Luther King day off. Donnie, what about you? We haven't asked you. What do you think? We've gone back and forth. We've taken it off before. We've worked it. Same with Juneteenth.

All the holidays. It's a grab bag. I was expecting to work because I always expect to work. And then if we don't, it's a pleasant surprise. But, you know, it is a pleasant surprise. But, you know, it is it is. what it is. Let's just see what happens.

Let's just see what happens in between. If there's no news, fine, but everybody planned to work on Monday. Everybody planned to work. I started this off disgruntled. You got everybody triggered. We disgruntled. We disgruntled.

Okay, before we leave, I want to say something. All right, just real quick. The dream with my dad is real. All of these dreams are real. But at the same time, I should have a part. apologize to you. And let me tell you why. Let me tell you why. Let me tell you why. Okay. Before you say, I don't need your apology, I'm an independent black woman. There's a way that I need to conduct myself on the podcast. Like, I'm, you guys, I'm highly

emotional. I'm a very emotional person. Very emotional. Like, I listen to songs and I full-on cry. People look at me in the car and they go, what's wrong with this nigga? And they go, oh, shit, is that the car you're a nigga? I'm like, I follow it. Um, um, But that has nothing to do with you, has nothing to do with anybody else that's on the team. The audience deserves better to. So there it was, I didn't even think to apologize, which is actually worse than the apology. The social appellate was talking about. Well, I was just about to say, I'd like to take this time and give a shout out to Dr.

Crossman. How many sessions you've been to? One or two. It's only been one. One session, guys, and look what happened. Dr. Crosman. Dr. Crosman is a miracle. worker. It's why I'm free.

He's also kind of like a mean therapist. No, no, no. He talks to, he meets you where you need to be met. Yeah. That's, that's what it is. He talks to you the way you need to be talked to. And I actually appreciate that. Yeah. Van,

Van, cut the shit. It's why I haven't been been back. Van, cut the shit. Hey, Van, you know the whole bullshit thing you do? You don't realize you can't do it to me, right? You can't do it to me. So let's just talk as if you respect me and you can't glamour. me. I'm like, well, shit, if I can't, if I can't use the smile, then what the fuck do I have now? You got strip all that. Strip all that. Thank you, though. Appreciate you. Yeah. What a nice way to end

the podcast. Rade it real quick before we go. What? Rate it. The apology. Oh, shoot. You're right. Man. Seeing how it took a few weeks, has it been weeks? Yeah. It was a great apology. It was completely disarming. I'm only going to dock you. for the time and then it took a dream and therapy for it to get there. We'll give it a five, which is one of my highest, which is one of my highest. Which is one of my highest. I'll take that. I'll take that.

I thought you said Reddit. You said Reddit. I did. I did too. I thought he said Reddit. Okay. When you said Reddit, I'll, my knee jerks is, fuck them. All right.

Take it to your caps off, but do not stop learning. I have Van Lathan Jr. I'm Rachel and Lindsay. Bye, guys. You know,