Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang - Black Lives Matter

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

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friendship circle to you. Listen to Call It What It Is on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everyone. This is Bowen. And this is Matt. We are obviously going to do things a little differently this week. Just because, you know, Matt and I had a quick discussion today. We didn't want to be a culture podcast without addressing the very obvious circumstances that are going on right now around the world. So that's it. So that's sort of the intention we're bringing to this episode. And I think that first and foremost, let's get one thing absolutely 100% straight for anyone that's listening to this, which is Black Lives Matter. That needs to be said at the top of everyone's lungs. And I personally, I want to apologize for not being as loud about this and not being as angry about this. I think I've always been angry. You know, this is an incredibly intense moment where I think the world is at a tipping point and we need to be just as angry. We need to be more angry. I think that this,

that what's happening out on the streets right now and what's happening in this country is a long time coming because this is just, we are, it's sick what's going on. I have a protest outside my window. I just came from a vigil today. It is, you know, there's a groundswell happening. And today, we're recording this on June 1st. You know, there's little, little, little openings of something happening. Keith Ellison being appointed to investigate what happened in Minneapolis is sort of a slightly positive development. Someone who has a really extensive background in civil rights cases.

And the independent investigation on George Floyd's murder coming through and saying this absolutely was a homicide. And just to speak to the first result, which kind of blamed his death on pre-existing conditions. I just want everyone to really try to understand how insane that is. Because what that actually is saying is that had he been walking down the street, he could have died of those pre-existing conditions. Like the net, like the knee on his neck actually didn't have as much to do with it. It's,

um, a really flagrant sort of display of, uh, like a specific kind of racism, which is biological racism, which is putting forward the notion that the reason for racial inequities are because are the cause or the, that there are these physiological inequities among different racial groups.

And that is what causes racial inequities, right? So basically what that sort of, what that autopsy implied was that George Floyd died because he had these preexisting conditions that are coincidentally prevalent among Black Americans. So it's saying that this death was not at the hands of police,

that it was sort of, he was genetically predisposed even, let's say, which is, I mean, think about that. Think about how completely horrid that is. The reason, like racial inequities are causing these biological, these physiological inequities. I mean, I hope people understand that. I hope people understand that. It's just, it's a way to try to get these cops off the hook, you guys. And it's crazy. And I really hope that we can just see black and white, just to use a phrase, this is wrong. And then an independent investigation comes in and says,

no, it was absolutely a homicide, which is what it was. And I also just want to speak very quickly because there is still a lot of hesitance amongst white people to say the words black lives matter and i still feel like i'm still seeing responses on social media to the hashtag black lives matter which is no all lives matter this is why it's important to say that black lives matter. Black lives matter. No, no qualification. You don't qualify that statement ever, ever, ever, ever. It's just, of course, every human life does matter. But when you fail to say that black lives matter, there is a base sort of experience in this country, which is that

we are just so desensitized to these black lives just being lost and these black lives being taken. So we need to say black lives matter because they have not mattered in the past. But in saying black lives matter, we're not saying only Black Lives Matter, which is, it's crazy that you would think that's the case. We're saying that Black Lives Matter just as much as any other life and we need to change the way

that this country has been behaving as if that they don't. That's what we're saying. We're saying now we have to really start shouting from the rooftops that this is unacceptable. This pattern of behavior is unacceptable. Police brutality is not acceptable.

The system is broken. Yes, yes. Of course, Matt and I are very sort of, I would say, upfront about the ways that we've been anti-Black on the show multiple times. I mean, but just the ways that our biases have informed a lot of the ways that we talk sort of socially or even on a recorded podcast like this, where we sort of will appeal

to like auditory Blackface in some ways, like the ways that you and I will like trade in sort of, you know, casual racism, racism. It's not even, which, which, which is not even a real thing.

I mean, like the term microaggression isn't even like really applicable, but applicable anymore. Microaggressions are sort of used as this term in quote unquote, post-racial America for us to talk about race in a more nuanced way. But I mean, there isn't any nuance to racism is kind of what we're all learning, right? It's like, in a lot of anti-racist reading that I think everyone's doing right now, I think we're all seeing that the terms institutional racism, systemic racism,

structural racism are redundant because all racism is inherently institutional, structural, systemic. I hope everyone just takes this time to examine the ways that they've been racist before and do not deny because denial is built into racism itself. For you to say that you're not racist is you telling on yourself that you are because we all are. We all are racist. And it's not a have-been-were. We are all racist. And the way that Ibram X. Kendi writes about it in his book, racism and anti-racism are identities that we can peel off and put on ourselves like sort of hello, my name is name tags. It's like one moment we can behave racistly, and another moment we can behave anti-racistly. We have to redistribute the ratio so that it is overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly we're wearing the anti-racism identity in our lives more often than we are

the racist one. I hope people sort of try to use that as a guide. I don't know. It's hard to make broad sort of suggestions and guidances as to non-black people. But that's sort of kind of what I'm taking away from a lot of my reading and my absorption right now. Yeah. I think a lot of people in this country are in shock right now because of how big this moment feels to them. And I think that we all, to a certain extent, really have forgotten or blocked out exactly how America came to be what it is, which is important to say. You know, America is, there is no America without black people because America or the white peoplerican people from their land and brought them here

enslaved them forced them to build this country and then i think because there are serious gaps in education we think that oh well it ended when slavery ended and then it was still bad for 100 years or so until the Civil Rights Movement, and then it was fixed again. There are so many gaps, and there's so much to learn, and there's so much to examine about why we have arrived at this moment in time yeah and i think that people are very resistant to really examine that and i think that we all because because if we really examined it we would feel crazy amounts of pain and understand that those crazy amounts of pain are felt every single day by people who are afraid to leave their homes because they might be murdered because of the color of their skin it's gotten to the point where if you are watching the news and this amount of pain shocks you that are this this

whatever however you want to if the protests surprise you or shock you, if the fact that sometimes they get violent, if that shocks you or surprises you, this has been existing for centuries. We are at a breaking point because it cannot continue. And a lot of people are sitting at their homes getting really upset about people who point this out. And I do think that this is why, for example, someone like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she earned so much hatred for trying to do this the quote-unquote right way or speaking to these issues in public and how dare she. But this is what life is like and so now when people have tried and tried and tried to do things the quote unquote right way you cannot condemn what is happening in this out in america right now you can't police or tone police the way that people are demanding that their lives be protected or not ripped away from them. And I'm very aware of the fact that this isn't coming

out as eloquently. No, it doesn't. That's not what anyone's asking of really anyone, right? I mean, what I'm noticing is everyone is having a similar emotional response to this, hopefully. I'm basically saying that we're all catching up to a certain baseline vocabulary. That is what's happening. That is the reckoning. That is part of the reckoning in terms of as a culture, the way that we talk about this. We're all being brought up to speed on what the vocabulary is. And white people need to be coddled too much about this owning up to the privilege of it all.

And I think that we've made some progress in terms of understanding that privilege is not something that you're told you have and it means that you are a bad person. It just means that we all have to own up to the amount of privilege that we have and understand that that protects us in a racist society, which we have a racist society. And we have a society that runs with certain systems in place that protect

white people and do not protect black people. Yes. Um, white people and do not protect black people. Yes. If you or someone you know is struggling with a basic grasp of this, the way that you can explain this to someone, hopefully in terms that they can understand are that racism is just a set of personal biases, personal prejudices, and that gets scaled up to misuse and abuse of power and then i mean this is this is the way uh this is the way that i saw someone explain this to their

parents is that um someone was someone's parents were like very anti-looting um and then uh this person was like well mom what would make you so angry that you would want to smash a window in? And she was like, well, if they hurt my family or my children or if my livelihood was taken away, then that a majority of these sort of agitating events of looting happening or whatever. I mean, that's just assuming that it's all being sort of orchestrated by the protesters themselves when, I mean, we're seeing now. It's not the case. It's not the case and it's people who are being opportunistic either either on the far right

or people who are just like oh I'm just or just like some fucking idiot white dude who like goes into a surf shop that's been broken into and takes the fucking surfboard out like there's just like a million different reasons for people to act horrendously right now and none of that can be lumped together in a way that is,

uh, uh, neatly filed away into certain people's mind. And, um, another thing is, you know, I,

I had a conversation with someone close to me and the, this was the first thing they said, you know, I, I, we began the conversation. It was, well,

this is not how you get the point across. And just, if you have that conversation with someone in your life, try to redirect that conversation to why this is happening. And this is happening because there is a violent, murderous pattern in this country that has to do with police killing black people, innocent black people. That is what we should be as a nation most furious about. And try to make the people in your life understand when someone is using their voice and that voice is a minority person, you must listen to that voice. That's why when people say believe women, women have everything to lose when they step forward and they say, I was assaulted by this person powerful or not that's why you listen to that person the the weaker person in the argument because logically they they step forward with everything to lose because we can see historically that the the accused in this situation, which, you know, let's say whoever it is, like white man, man, however, these are people that historically get away with this.

And there's a record of this. It's a tale as old as time. So when black people take to the streets and they say, stop killing us, that person is taking a risk doing that. They're risking their life. They don't do this lightly. Do you think that every protester in America woke up today and said, you know what I'd like to do? Risk my life screaming in the streets. No, they don't want to do that. They want to be treated fairly. They want to live. They want to be able to go to work, live their life, raise their family, live in their own apartment, do basic things that everyone else is able to do. But they're not because they have to see on the news all the time explicitly why they

can't do that or why they should be afraid they have to watch a video of amy cooper who should be in jail by the way yeah knowingly yeah call attempting to call the police then calling the police and saying there is an african-amerAmerican male threatening my life because a birder said leash your dog because she was breaking. She was violating. She was the law. She was breaking the law, weaponizing police brutality in a way that was she was so aware of it. And with malicious intent, she called the police on christian cooper and we should point out that her apology quote unquote was also um forget it well it also just had that trademark line of i'm

not racist yeah um denial is built into racism you cannot deny this applies for everyone us including just everyone everyone denial is built into racism anytime we have been racist we have at one point or another i'll speak for myself have had the instinct to deny it but absolutely that's an that's an instinct you have to kill immediately because in the recent discourse of racism like this is where you get your i mean the reason why your richard spencer's say shit like racism went from being um a descriptive word to a pejorative word it's not you cannot frame it around it being this word that like is condemning i mean it's obviously a condemning word but it's not a word that is um out to you're not gonna go to jail for being called that you're not gonna die for being called

that no what what you're doing what's happening is you're being called out. And in that call out, truly, like literally, what is the worst thing that's going to happen? Like, you know what? You have to use that as an opportunity to grow. And I think that because there is so much reactionary people are people are afraid that they're going to lose everything or look bad by being called out because of the things that they've done and said that is unfortunately something you're going to have to shoulder yeah and it is where no one is saying fuck you like you're done forever we're just saying these are patterns of behavior that we

as a human race have to change as as white people as non-black people we have to understand these ways that we demean black people knowingly and unknowingly and even worse than demean degrade dehumanize murder kill i want to because i know that we are also dealing with this in the middle of a pandemic so many people are not comfortable taking to the streets, and that is understandable. And let's just say to everyone, not all forms of activism are for everyone. Not all forms of protest are for everyone. I would like to read some organizations right now, some good organizations that you can donate your money to, and I want to implore you to send money to these organizations. And I'm not even going to do the thing of, if you can give, you can all give. Some of you can give $5. Some of you can give $500. And there are thousands of people that listen to this podcast.

We're at a point now where we have to ask ourselves if we're willing to be uncomfortable in every kind of way. And that includes financially. I mean, you have to, have to, have to. You have to. By whatever degree you want to define it by, I sound like I'm saying nothing, but what I mean is you have to decide

how uncomfortable you're willing to be in order to make things better, or not even better, just do right by people. That's all it is. Look, this is not comfortable for Bowen and I to discuss flat out. I don't think either of us are in our element doing this, but that is part of the work. Part of that is part of the work part of this is we are stopped for this episode we are stopping this the podcast as it exists because we have to

address what is going on bowen and i are comedians we but we also have a platform here and i'm i was really sick of just being a tweet and an instagram story with a swipe up yeah i just would feel really sick if like we look back at this moment and didn't do everything that we could with this platform and i know that because i i know it i know there are people that listen to this podcast. Maybe there aren't thousands of people that listen to this podcast, but there are a lot of people that listen to this podcast who have expressed that they think politically differently than we do. I implore you to understand.

I hope that maybe our change in tone just gets across to you how strongly we are taking this. And I want to read these organizations that I have donated to, that I'm sure Bowen has donated to, and I want you to consider sending money. Black Lives Matter Global Network, Reclaim the Block, National Bailout, the Black Visions Collective, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The National Police Accountability Project. Color of Change Education Fund. Unicorn Riot.

Campaign Zero. Advancement Project. The Marshall Project. The George Floyd Memorial Fund. Color of Change. Equal Justice Initiative. And I also want to call attention to all of the bailout funds that you can go to actblue.com and help out because that is something that I'm really passionate about during this time is making sure that these

protesters who are often unfairly put in jail, and I want everyone i understand that we're all on different twitter bubbles but what i am seeing is too many instances of peaceful protesters being arrested by the police because the police feel quote-unquote agitated by the nature of that protest but they are peaceful and they are non-violent and they're being put in prison during a pandemic and so i would like everyone to really, if you're thinking about all these organizations, really consider the bailout funds because people are being put in jail

and those jails are cesspools for COVID-19. And a disease that already, mind you, disproportionately affects communities of color. Already. Because of the systems in place that don't allow people of color to receive the same medical care, to receive the same attention in their communities. So that's something that I would like to call particular attention to. Yeah, those are great organizations. There is also, I think, maybe an important intersectional element to this where a lot of trans advocacy groups, black trans advocacy groups,

are, I'm sure, eager to get some funding. Trans Lifeline. Trans Lifeline, TGI Justice Project, the OCRA Project, which is New York-based. It's combating food insecurity among Black trans folks doing really important work. There was a representative today

at Sheridan Square. They have sort of two different memorial funds for Nina Pop and Tony McDade for mental health resources for Black trans folks. And anything you can do to support the OKRA Project and TGI Justice Project are very important. And understand too, this is redundant to say at this point, this is something that we as human

beings in America, as Americans, as allies are going to have to do ourselves because there is not leadership in this country. We have a president who is only focusing on his passionate base at this point. The lights are off in the White House, literally. He's a coward. he's a fucking joke but unfortunately it's not a joke he actually is the president of the united states and it's redundant to say but local leaders as well and i live in los angeles and not for nothing but garcetti you didn't care before either i've lived here a little bit over a year and the homeless situation is out of fucking control and everyone knows it and de blasio de blasio number as well de blasio i think it's so so upsetting for someone to run on a campaign of police reform and to use his son as a prop,

essentially. I mean, Dante, I mean, I don't mean to speak on that relationship, but there is a window of fairness to call that sort of a prop performance, to use your son as a way to emotionally hit a nerve among New Yorkers, among people who would end up voting for you. It's so manipulative. And the cops already fucking hate you. NYPD already fucking turned your back on you at some damn function. What's defunding them a little bit more going to do what's not setting a curfew that you very easily instated within hours even though i don't know during the uh peak of the covid19 outbreak you just very casually we're gonna call for a lockdown not really care i mean it's like it's so transparent the ways that we are the ways that our leaders

are flexing their their their power for specific specific circumstantial things i mean uh same goes for cuomo i mean to be honest i i i hope everyone's boner for cuomo is shrinking in a major way. It's just so upsetting. Everyone, if you're listening in New York, look up ways to repeal 50A. That is the civil rights measure that basically destroys all police transparency in New York State. Look up ways to call your assembly person, your state senator, any representative who can help bring this to the floor and repeal it. Demand New York budget justice

to reallocate funds. That's what Reclaim the Block and a lot of these great organizations in Minnesota are doing. It's about budget reallocation. It's about changing and dismantling racist policy, because that's kind of what we're dealing with. That is the source of the problem here. Racist policy. And that includes police. Modern policing is racist policy. It has never been

about community empowerment. It has never been about ensuring the safety of their communities that they claim to protect. It is a tool for social control, i.e. white supremacy. So everyone, please, as people know now, End of Policing is a free ebook that people can download. I am looking forward to really getting into it once I finish up some other reading. And to speak about Los Angeles, right before i

got on here garcetti addressed the city i don't say this as a compliment to him at all i think he's doing the best he can and it's not good enough no because and he needs to go he needs to go and we really need to get our shit together when we vote okay because this is this is beyond unacceptable notifications that we're getting on our phone that call for curfews at 6 p.m what they're sending that out at 5 15 p.m then people are confused whether that's a city whether that's a city mandate or a county mandate today they call they say it's at 6 p.m then we get one that says it's 5 p.m then he has to issue a correction what the fuck is going on are you serious and then he has the nerve to get up there and address and say i know it's confusing it shouldn't be confusing it should be clear because it's the job of a leader it has to be clear this it's brass tacks this is what leadership is a leader makes clear decisions your decisions are unclear

and they're messy and they're confusing the populace and they panic people. And that's what you've done to this city. You've panicked everyone. For what? Because you were uncomfortable with the nature of some of the protesting? I've seen the videos. I have firsthand accounts of people who are at protests in LA that say cops are shooting rubber bullets at peaceful protesters. While we're on the subject, let's talk about the rubber bullets at peaceful protesters while we're on the subject let's talk about

the rubber bullets of it all if you think that a rubber bullet can't kill you're sorely mistaken because if a rubber bullet is taken to the head fatal it can have serious it can do serious damage people have lost their eyes, their eyesight, based on actions by the police. We're already getting some stories of folks dying at protests. James Scurlock in Omaha, Nebraska, shot and killed by a racist homophobic club owner while James was protesting. And this business owner, David McAfee in Louisville,

unarmed, shot dead by Louisville police. I mean, the blood sacrifice is still happening. I mean, maybe that's a way to frame it too. It's like... Well, y'all, hands up, don't shoot isn't a meme. It's begging for mercy. And the fact that it's popular is because it happens all the time. Oh my god. These words

aren't on signs because they're memes. These words are on signs because they are begging the police to not shoot them. Whoever's using them as memes. I mean. Well, I'm saying, I guess what I'm saying. No, no, no, no, no.

Oh, yeah. They're not like slogans. They're not slogans. Yeah, this isn't like. Oh, so think about if it was. What the fuck? The fact that you see it so much should speak to the tragedy of the situation. We are in a tragic situation.

We need huge, massive change. And we need to not just think about the presidential election. And that's another thing I want to say. You got a lot of people out there that are confused and sort of spellbound by the fact that this is happening because you really thought racism died with Obama. Racism did not die with obama you know america was not made great again by trump and the soul of america will not be healed by joe biden okay what's going to need to happen is we are going to need to elect people who will protect and respect all americans on every level of government. The DA, on the state level, on the local level. We have to really be putting as much energy into the big event, into the small events. That feels small.

They're not small. What I'm saying is they felt small in the past. You think because it's not a big seat, because that person isn't going to become famous, that that person is not very important. This is another opportunity for everyone to get really granular with who represents you. There are resources

online for that, obviously. And look up who is running in your districts this election. If your primary hasn't happened yet, especially. Also, I mean, we're not endorsing any particular thing, but people-powered politics, I mean, has always done me right

or always goes well with my value system. So maybe it might drive with yours too. Also, look up what your ballot is going to be before you get to the ballot box you guys because oftentimes i'll i will not be sure to say i'll arrive with the best intentions to the ballots and then i'll get to some of the less publicized races and they'll be you know five six democrats running on the ballot but i won't know which one to choose because i did not do my due diligence in finding out which of those quote-unquote democrats actually have progressive policies and i think that that's something that

needs to be talked about a little bit more is understanding every single race that you're going to be voting for and and the candidates that are running in those races because let me tell you the harsh truth is that d next to that candidate's name doesn't mean shit not anymore maybe it doesn't mean shit real we need to start getting real about what it means to be truly progressive. I think, hopefully, the takeaway in recent days is that whoever you're electing into a DA or a prosecutor or a judge

appointment into any of those offices, those are basically the people who have all the power in terms of what's happening in Minneapolis. Those are the people who have power in charging and prosecuting anybody who happens to have murdered a black person. I mean, if that shifts sort of your enthusiasm

over certain races, I hope that sort of, yeah, I hope that might be a readjustment in your view of things. And these progressive candidates who are running for DA, that's, you know, these are people who have tried cases in the system and they see firsthand. That's why they're running is because they see firsthand the injustice. And that is what it is. It's injustice, the sort of very white idea that well

can't wait for november when this can be over no guess what you didn't we did not choose the candidate where this is going to be over in november we chose a candidate that will have the ear of progressives hopefully that's what we have done but that's not a guarantee either it's what that's what i'm saying hopefully hopefully the democratic candidate for president joe biden who has been a part of this government that has failed us for decades let's just say that and of course i will support him in 2020 this year of course i'll support him in november but. Of course I'll support him in November. But it's going to be work.

And the work does continue. And I'm not disparaging him. But I am saying he has work to do. And if you think that it's this thing of don't talk to me about him until after he's elected, no. No. him until after he's elected? No, no. We have to get this to a place where this is actually going to enact change. We need real, definite, concrete, quick change. So it's not about November 3rd comes and we elect Biden, hopefully, and things all get peachy. I can't even invest anything in that outcome either. I mean, like, not now. It'll be day one. That's when the work will start is when he gets elected.

This is not going to be one day you wake up and you're healed of the wound. This is going to be a long healing process. Hopefully. Everyone with a conscience around this, which I can't imagine if you don't, you have to commit yourself to doing this work every day. It doesn't matter what the scale is. I mean, it matters, sure, but it's like as much as you can take on on a day-to-day level of just examining and self-reflecting as much as you can and then transmuting that into action to dismantle racist policy, that is what will get you out of this feeling. That's something that you should be prioritizing within yourself. You don't have to broadcast that out. I mean, like I am catching myself just like shutting myself up and like just, I mean,

unless it's of use and of service to people and it's about donating even on a baseline level, it's like there's no reason to really vocalize and like sort of, there's no need for your individual pathos in this. Let's just all work towards a common goal. Yes, yeah. That's really, I think think what you just said right there

is true this is not about a personal journey you it's about us it's about us all together changing the way we spoke about it a few episodes ago about the way we discuss women's bodies

we have to make an active decision to change going forward. And it is hard. You know what I mean? And it's hard because that's what conditioning is. You know what I mean? This is just psychology. We were born into a racist world.

Yeah. And we were born into a racist world. And we were born, and a lot of people have internalized things that they don't realize that they've internalized. And it's time to accept that that's true and not just say, that's a shame that that happened to that person. That's a shame that happened to that person, and what an evil person that did that. Yeah. to that person that's a shame that happened to that person and what an evil person that did that no we it's it's because because in a macro sense it's not a person that did that it's a system that did that yeah it's a culture that did that and it's heartbreaking yeah but i want everyone that feels really tired every time they turn on the news that you're tired of hearing about this stuff you know you're you're exhausted by it black people have been tired and exhausted for a long

time because this is energy they have to put in every single day that is the psychic toll that all this takes on a person on an individual level and then on a communal level where this is okay i i mean i post this everyone's kind of seeing the Jane Elliott blue eye, brown eyes exercise maybe, but she basically rounds up people and she tells people with blue eyes to put on this dumb little poncho, go in a separate room. Then she explains to people with brown eyes, hey, in this room, these are the social rules that we are going to engage and we're going to belittle them. We're going to tell them, like there's posters all around the room that say, blue eyes are only good if they're like the brown eyes or a blue eye

should aspire to be like a brown eye. All these signals that are psychologically taxing on someone with blue eyes who is, you know, by virtue of the melanin levels in their eyes and on their skin are white or white passing. So she gets all these people in, they are so thrown off by being mistreated, even in a closed system as like a classroom somewhere. And inevitably, she talks about how inevitably like two people break down in tears, one person storms off. And in this particular exercise that was recorded like back in the 90s, she starts berating this girl. She doesn't really berate her, but this girl sort of breaks down in tears at one point. And then Jane goes back to her and she goes,

you're upset, aren't you? She goes, yes. She goes, why are you upset? Because I'm made to feel devalued. And why are you looking at me? Because I'm afraid I'll get even more upset. And does it take energy for you to not look at me? Yes. It must be pretty bad, huh? And what if you had to spend that energy every single day to not look at me

so you don't get angrier? Would your heart rate go up? She goes, yes. Yeah, right. And if you thought about this, the. Would your heart rate go up? She goes, yes. Yeah, right. And if you thought about this, the way that your kids experience the same thing every day, that your parents experience the same thing every day, this is the toll that it takes on a whole group of people. This is a pathos that is happening on a worldwide level. White supremacy is the great tragedy of the world because it has led to capitalism, which has then basically plundered our natural resources.

It's destroying the world. Race is a construct invented by some Portuguese fucking prince in the 1400s. And then later on categorized by Carl Linnaeus himself, the guy who fucking does the homo sapiens, you know, binomial taxonomy, whatever the fuck it's called. But just don't ever use that. Don't ever term animals that way anymore. Just once you realize that like

the father of racial hierarchies also invented animal hierarchies, it doesn't matter. Just don't buy into it. Anyway, I'm saying that this is a communal pain we're experiencing. And Matt has touched on that in a very eloquent way too. Again, we're not the best people to talk about this. We are not black, but we are taking this time to reiterate our solidarity, our action among our Black siblings. You know, that all being said, Black people have been saying this. Yes, of course. And that's why

I think, like, mostly, I guess, the message that I want to get out right now is to the white people that are listening to this podcast, and there are a ton of you, it's time to engage with two things, yourself and everything that you might be cultured to believe, think, really start asking yourself questions about the way that you, where you came from from the way you lived your life here's something

have you never left your town it's fine if you haven't but understand that you have a very limited scope of the world try to try to think about who are the voices that you're hearing from that are screaming out that there's a problem. Yeah. Have they, what have they experienced more than just the small town you live in? Then they probably know something that you don't. And I'm not saying that I'm not saying like, this is not about educated people are better. This is not about, you know, people who live in cities are better. It's about the fact that by nature of exposing yourself to more than just a small world, you do learn more and you do gain that empathy

and you do gain that knowledge. Yeah. And it's okay if you are the kind of person who has always lived where you've lived, but understand that that is not the world. That's not the world. And the second thing you need to engage with is not just yourself and not just ask yourself those hard questions.

Engage with those relatives of yours. It's really difficult, but not just the relatives. Engage with what you see, other people, external people that are in your life that say that fucked up thing, that say that racist thing, that do that racist thing, that do that racist thing, that indicate that racist behavior. Tell them, you will lose me if you continue to behave this way. I have had it. I personally, me, Matt Rogers, have had it. I am not dealing with that racist behavior anymore.

It is dead to me. I mean, we're just, I think in thinking that statement, I think we're, I think hopefully people can understand that we're just asking for our listeners to hold themselves accountable, hold their loved ones accountable. And we promise we will hold ourselves accountable to you and to this movement and to mutual aid and to the greater good of this moment.

I mean, I hate to use the word greater good because the people who use that word often end up being hegemonic white people who like to go back to the good old days or whatever, but it's like, we promise to do better, to call each other in slash out when, if, and when, and they will, and if, and when sort of these instances happen again. You know, I'm thinking about how quickly and comfortably and nimbly we've sort of like kind of bartered in like black female language. And you know, I, this is just, I know this is an uncomfortable thing for us to talk about, Matt, but it's like, this is just something that I've thought about between you and I. And it's just like, and I'm sorry to air this out publicly, but it's like, that's something that you and I have to keep an awareness for and i i'm just i'm just sort of

saying this to you now as a way to hold each other accountable to everybody everybody it's important yeah also when you speak of the good old days let's just say right now that that they were there were never good old days they were good old days for for you the white person you know what i mean like they were good old days for you the ignorant non-black person you know what i mean like this is this is not and that's another thing is a lot of people are they they think that this has come out of nowhere this is not going out of nowhere this is just it's i mean it's will smith said it's like racism is not getting worse it's getting filmed it's getting filmed yeah i saw that that's you know that's that's where this comes from in regard to the way that we behave behave what i would say is i think that there is a lot there's a lot to being queer and trying to

find identity yeah and trying to find the way that you want to express yourself and sometimes the prism through which we refract that identity is an established vocabulary one that seems one that seems very fun and very exciting um and very like adaptive and cool and dynamic and it always changes and there's always something new but we have to but i'm you know we have to recognize that that is not something that is for us is for us or i mean except for except for the times when it's like you know a catchphrase that matt himself will come up truly independently and it's beautiful but like you know whenever matt goes let's go i said like that's like i don't know as opposed to like other times when it's like i mean i'm just i'm thinking about digital blackface where people just use gifs of

like neemee leaks and shit like a white person will use a gif of NeNe Leakes to like eyebrow raise or something. I'm just like, oh yeah, like that is a seemingly innocuous microaggression, let's say to like unearth a term that we just eulogized 20 minutes ago. But it's like, but now we're just realizing that none of that is nuanced. None of that is actually innocuous or harmless. It's all harmful.

And I think that there's going to be a lot of people that listen to this right now, this conversation, and think, okay, they are overdoing it. That is actually part of the way you get better at this, everyone, is you have to overanalyze this type of thing. You have to really analyze your behavior to bring it to a place of acceptability. And maybe you don't, maybe you, Matt Rogers don't 100% agree with me on this point that I'm raising, but it's like, but that's the thing that we're,

we're sort of negotiating too, right? It's like, I might be overcorrecting in a way, but it's, it's, it's better to overcorrect. Yeah.

Because you're at least, at least then you're getting into a place where it's correct. Dad, do you know what I mean? Sure. Like better to err on the side of empathy and responsibility and accountability yeah then allowing it to you know it's kind of the thing of like when someone tweets something and it gets likes well it must have been good or useful not true no and when you say something and it gets laughs then that must have been funny or useful or good not true no and so that's why i do

believe there is a lot of validity in what you're saying about you know take doing that hard work of really deeply analyzing where you got something, why you're doing the thing that you're doing. There's a, there's a lot to examine there and what you're saying for sure. The conversation between you and I as friends is like somewhat engaging and productive as far as building towards accountability. Right. Ultimately what we really just need, I think, and what I've really looked inward about and what I've been talking about is just, of course, I want to live in a world where people are allowed to protest, get their feelings out there, make people understand, make people heard. And I think that there's a force coming back at us right now, which is a lot of people in this country and the systems in this country that are in place that are stopping that from happening. And I think that on this podcast today, right here, right now, what's important for us to say, and I hope this is clear, is that we do hear you and we are furious alongside you and Black Lives Matter and that we are going to be part of that change and we are going to be part of the work and it will change no matter what.

And it's not lost on us as queer people as we are. This is the first episode we're going to be doing in Pride Month that the reason why we even have rights to begin with is because there was a brick throne. So let's not pretend like, you know, something that's, you know, I bet Pride Month is celebrated in elementary school classrooms nowadays. So let's not pretend that that didn't start in a quote-unquote violent way or a physical way because it did. It did not start as a parade. It started as a riot. And started by people who ended up being marginalized again with to this day by black trans women but just in turn in the way that we've talked about queer

issues after marriage equality it's like somehow it re-centered on cisgender white men well yeah it became you know gay rights was spoken about by white gays the face of gay rights were white gays or um you know gorgeous white lesbians you know what i mean like and that i think has a lot to do with the fact that gay rights had to be marketed yes to white men yes and who are white men gonna listen to white men and i think that's why we have the sort of rollout of rights the way we've had you know what i mean like or the visibility that has rolled out the way it has like it took years and years. Like when people started talking about gay rights, they were not talking about,

like, I mean, even in 2007, 2008, whenever it was, when we were at the end of high school and there started to be some kids in class that were like, actually,

I think gay people should get married. I mean, so you could say that same kid who was in support of gay rights. What about trans? And that, that kid would be like, no, no, no, and that that kid would be like no no no no no no no you know what i mean it's work that we have to constantly be doing because it doesn't make sense that you would say that but you do you did say that and we did say that yeah because that's what we were conditioned to do and it's about unlearning that and understanding the hypocrisy in that. And there's so much to unlearn

because so much is static in this particular conversation today is that we're having echoes of protests that happened 50 years ago, that happened 20 years ago. It's just... It gets taken for granted. That it's thematically, that it's just repetitive, that it's just a mad lib at this point. Yeah. I just want to emphasize that we are not at all interested in any sort of optical version of allyship. I mean, we realize that

we're aware of this platform and that's what we're sort of intent and that's what we're putting our intention behind right now with this episode. But this is, this, this is earnest. We're, we're, we're, we're talking about action here. So we're talking about accountability. We're talking about, um, um, holding ourselves accountable. So I hope, I hope everyone can join us. And by all means, if you turn this off an hour ago to go listen to a black voice speak on this issue good please oh my god and i also want to really encourage everyone that is sharing things on social media share share a black voice amplify a black voice don't retweet whoever don't retweet ellen don't retweet you know amplify black voices during this time and i i just it's let's you know let's really think about the things that we're consuming

where they're coming from because there's agendas all over the place oh yeah i mean in the media is a mess and that's a whole other issue the media is a mess and has interest has interest in other places than just your knowledge yeah oh yeah and that is that is another system that is broken and this is what i mean when i say it has to start with us because you can't look to anyone in mainstream news really and really trust where that is coming from. You certainly can't look to our elected leaders, not all of them, and trust that they don't have their hands tied up in something. We have to do this ourselves based on what is right and what is wrong. That's really important, I think. Don't wait to be told what to do. You know what's right and wrong. Yeah. Go with yourself, but be receptive to other people guiding you along that journey. So at about this time in the podcast, we would do I Don't Think So, Honey, and we're not going

to do that. I think that instead, what I would encourage everyone to do is to take the next two minutes that Bowen and I would ordinarily take to do I Don't Think So Honey and donate however much you can to one of those organizations that I listed before, those groups that I listed before. Take that time. When do we ever pretend to not be who we are? You know what I mean? Yeah. yeah everyone lose the ego yeah lose the ego yep yep yep um okay well that this is this this is filling in about two minutes of time anyway so well here how about this What? George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Samuel DuBose, Sandra Bland, Walter Scott, Terrence Crutcher.

Say their names it's I guarantee you it will sort of seal something in your soul once you say those names I mean if you haven't

I'm sure a lot of people have but um and learn their stories yeah and understand who they were that front page of the New York Times a couple weeks ago

that was um had listed all the deaths from COVID, that was beyond moving to me because it didn't say just the name and the age. It said name, age. It said had an easy laugh. Name, age, always said hello to everyone. These are human beings. These are human beings that deserve to be treated with the same respect and dignity and deserve safety and deserve to be able to live their life without worrying that they're going to have a police officer step on their neck for eight minutes

and the last things they hear are the people around them screaming at that person to stop. It's crazy. And you've seen it with your eyes. And you saw it years ago with Eric Garner. Nobody deserves this. This is a tragedy. We are living in the middle of a death, a nationwide death, and we have to save ourselves. We are gasping for breath because those people, they're us. We all have to

do this together. This is unacceptable, and you have to start looking for reasons to let yourself up the hook if you hear that person say well they shouldn't have been doing this well they shouldn't have been doing that really look that person in the eyes and say but they deserve to die for it for selling cigarettes on the street are you kidding are you? These people have murder in their hearts, these cops. It's sick. It's a very sick disease.

The way we address this is by fighting racist policy. And racist policy is a broad catch-all for any process or law, written

or unwritten, that endangers lives, creates inequity based on race. And this is the thing. Police are a tool to enforce social control. And it's not just about not participating in these things. Loudly

denounce. Loudly call out. Shut it down. Shut it down. Whatever your personal stakes are amount to absolutely nothing compared to what is being fought for on the streets right now. Absolutely. Think about that.

Just think in those terms. If you can. I hope you can. Absolutely. Think about that. Just think in those terms, if you can. I hope you can. Absolutely. And to everyone out there who needs to hear this, we have your back 100%. And I apologize deeply and profoundly that it has taken me this long to get this upset and this angry but know that i am and i am committed to the change 100 and you can know that and i really did like i said before i'm sure you felt the same way bowen i just did not want to be a tweet anymore. But this is the thing. It's a cumulative thing because I fucking lost it, lost it, lost it when Eric Garner died. Marched in downtown Manhattan that night.

One of the nights, I should say. And just thinking, I remember thinking like, I just remember feeling helpless back then. But it's all cumulative because nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. And this is my, this is part of like what's calcified like mentally for me is like, okay, we need to like really, really, really focus on the problem, which is policy. So this is my thing. It's like the fact that de Blasio did not lift a fucking finger. I mean,

and the officer who was fired, by the way, wasn't even fired by de Blasio. It was just the precinct sort of, whoever led the precinct just made the decision like fucking what, four years later, last August, to let him go after he wasn't convicted of anything.

It's like, to be honest with you, it's like, this is the thing. The people who enforce, enact, generate policy, racist policy are the ones that we should hold accountable. Like, that is the problem here. I mean, obviously, we're all sort of making sure we're all on the same page behaviorally as like citizens and as people, as like accomplices and allies in the movement. We direct our attention. It's like I'm kind of already speaking for myself.

I'm not really concerned with calling out someone's behavior on social media. They're not posting enough. They're not, you know, doing this. They're not doing that. It's like that person is not responsible necessarily for racism on the same scale that someone like de Blas let's just say at least as a new yorker like let's say like de blasio is that we should be directing our energy at people and things and institutions that are generating racist policy i i have constant flashbacks to to eric to eric garner it's like nothing's nothing's changed it's been no i mean we watched it we watched it repeat

we watched it happen again it just instead of instead of a hand around someone's neck it was a foot a knee no it's a fucking knee it's a fucking knee something that you can completely control your center of gravity on whatever i don't even want to fucking talk about it. It makes me sick. I was saying to Jared before, I was like, the evil in someone's heart that you have to have to put your knee on the neck of another human being, it's the depths of evil I cannot even understand.

It's the darkest evil and the people that would support and encourage a system and yes i'll say amy cooper again white women like that who would clutch their pearls and allow a system like that? Some white Hillary Clinton supporter who thinks they're better than that? That's the denial that's built into racism. That's the denial that's built into racism. I'm not racist. How could it be me, but I do all these things.

I do this, that, the other thing. It is you. It's us. You want to know something fascinating? At the start of COVID, when there was kind of a spike in, this is not to center the conversation on another racial group, but this is just a point. The point I'm making is this.

Statistically, most of the perpetrators of Asian hate crimes during the beginnings of COVID and probably still, um, were, uh, white women. White women were the ones like spitting in people's faces, in Asian people's faces. And like,

God, there's so many clips out of Australia and shit of like these insane, insane, satanic 17 yearold fucking girls screaming, spewing fucking invective at Asian people. And it's like, oh, okay, yeah, you can actually completely, completely, so cleanly draw a straight line from that instance to just a general white supremacy, just a general mentality of colonialism where it's about- Disgusting.

It's about dominating and subordinating another culture. That's it. Disgusting. Just disgusting. We're dealing with the same thing here. That's all I'm saying. It's obviously different scale. It's obviously a different scale so yeah i could not stop i could not stop thinking about the amy cooper thing i was like she really might as well have been charged with

attempted murder it was an attempted murder in in my opinion that is what that was she had malicious attempt she weaponized her privilege she weaponized that the call she knew what the call meant yep and knowingly vocalized it disgusting the most disgusting person I've seen

in quite some time now in wrapping up yeah hopefully by now you've donated to something um I hope that you have

and again I just would like to highlight actblue.com you know you can go there and if you forward slash donate, you can find many different bail funds to support. And I do think that that is something we should be taking an extra look at because again, we are in the middle of this pandemic and that is this could turn out to be a even bigger tragedy please i i know that i'm giving this isn't this is not a pat on my back either but i'm giving more than i have been comfortable giving because that's that is yep what we must do we we owe more than that. Yeah, yeah. So much more than that. I absolutely agree. ActBlue is a good sort of venue for that. I think BailSplit, if you Google BailSplit, one word,

I think you are able to make one donation and then split that amount to various bail funds throughout the country, if that's also of interest. Bowen and I have a lot of love in our hearts and we want to, we're sending all that love out with the message that we are working hard. Yeah. For what it's worth. We have a lot of,

we have a lot of love in our hearts. For whatever it's worth. For whatever it's worth. I'm not, and I'm not saying that to minimize what you just said, Matt, but I'm saying like, you know,

that's something that it's, it's an element of what we're, it's worth i'm not and i'm not saying that to minimize what you just said matt but i'm saying like you know that's something that um it's an element of what we're it's the um fuel for our motivation it's the fuel for our intention sorry god i'm like i'm just like all my words are blending together at this no i mean like look i don't like this wasn't a thing where we before this episode got together and we're like, here's the right thing to say. No, no, no. You know what I mean? Like we got on here and we're speaking from our hearts and we're speaking from our position and our perspective. And what we're saying is we know that things listen to us to really consider this and give this the thought and the consideration that it deserves, which is all of your thought and consideration and your resources. I've been sent a link to donation resources. These have more.

The Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter, we said, look, we'll even, I think when we release this episode, obviously we'll be posting links to all of these organizations. So thank you to our EP, Anna, for sending that link to us. And we will be sure to signal boost all of those. And this

is not the new tone of the podcast. No, no, no. But understand that this is the, this is in a way that we can protest. In a way. Absolutely. And it's necessary. It's absolutely necessary that we talk about this. Because this needs to be shut down and changed. And we will come back and

we will be the Las Culturistas that you know and love. And we had a really fun episode planned today where we were going to talk a lot about drag race and you know what shout out to jada essence hall shout out to jada because you did that and you were the only winner of that show and it deserves and i'm so happy that you won and you deserved it someone who brought their work ethic and led with that the entire time. And she said something beautiful about how, you know, her portrayal on the show, it kind of would almost appear

like she was just only a pageant queen. Like she just wears beautiful dresses, but she said beautifully that where she comes from, those things are something that she never would have had access to she had to make nice things for herself it's it's all about it's a beautiful story about sort of self starting and then on the finale now when she talks about just her grandma and the movies that they would watch and her grandma introducing her to like liz taylor and judy garland and it's like

and how the clothes that jada wears now are an homage to those to those experiences she shared with her grandma I mean you can't beat that you can't beat two narratives like that

and those narratives were left out of the show until the very end yes and so we're very proud of Jada S. and Tal and we salute ya

rooted for her from day fucking one. She was the only winner. She was the only winner. The only winner. We'll talk about this more in depth, absolutely. Yeah, and we'll be back, y'all. It's just this is a necessary moment in time.

Please change the way that you have interacted with this moment in time. I know it feels far away from you because it's on television, it's online. It's not. It's inside you. And we have to, this sucks. We have to be the change.

Yeah, yeah. Well, we love you very much. We do. And feel free to reach out if you have thoughts, concerns. We will do our best to respond. I opened up DMs at the beginning of the outbreak to talk about Asian-specific stuff, East Asian-specific stuff. I obviously don't have as much to contribute to this conversation in the way of personal experience

when it comes to Black experiences, but I'm happy to talk about stuff if you heard something on this episode and want to talk it out likewise to it to an extent i mean i'm not gonna bitch no i get it i get it the dms can get nuts but of course of course willing to engage and get better and grow from this because what we have said is guaranteed not perfect no of course not but don't don't get what i'm saying is don't get in my dms and say hashtag team crystal get the fuck out oh no no no we don't want any of that i don't care like i tell you i don't care i don't care also if if what this is what i'll say if i don't think so honey, if, if, if what, this is what I'll say. If I don't think so,

honey, if the one thing you got from this conversation is, is no, nevermind. If it's no actually hashtag team crystal, go fuck yourself. Oh yeah. If you're going to come in,

if you're going to come at us with hashtag team crystal after all of this, no, you're done. You're done. We'll be back. Y'all just take this moment. Let's reflect. Let's examine that.

Examine that. We love you. We love you. Let's reflect. Let's examine that. Examine that. We love you. We love you. Bye. Bye. I'm Julian Edelman. I'm Rob Gronkowski. And we are super excited to tell you about our new show, Dudes on Dudes. We're spilling all the behind-scenes stories, crazy details,

and honestly, just having a blast talking football. Every week, we're discussing our favorite players of all times, from legends to our buddies to current stars. We're finally answering the age-old question, what kind of dudes are these dudes? We're going to find out, Jules. New episodes drop every Thursday during the NFL season. Listen to Dudes on Dudes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Oh, hey, it's Teresa back from the dead again. Just wanted to pop in and let you know that Haunting is back on October 22nd. Spooky season? I own spooky season. We're serving up some killer stories, literally, and a few that might make you question whether you really locked the door before getting into bed. So cancel your lame Halloween plans. Haunted houses? Overdone. Candy corn? Honestly, who eats that? Your new tradition? Listening to me. Listen to Haunting starting on October 22nd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, friends. I'm Jessica Capshaw. And this is Camilla Luddington. And we have a new podcast, Call It What It Is. You may know us from Graceland Memorial, but did you know that we are actually besties in real life? And as all besties do, we navigate the highs and lows of life together. Big or small, we're there. And now here we are, opening up the friendship circle to you. Listen to Call It What It Is on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. What is wrong with me? A show about the ways that mental illness is shaped by not just biology.

Swaps of different meds, but by culture and society. By looking closely at the conditions that cause mental distress, I find out why so many of us are struggling to feel sane, what we can do about it, and why we should care. Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.