Rev Left Radio - White Supremacy in the Confederacy: Monuments of Anti-Blackness

Episode Date: October 9, 2017

Tanesha Hudson is an activist in Charlottesville, Virginia. She joins Brett to talk about Charlottesville, Confederate statues, her personal experiences with racism, the symbolism of Thomas Jefferson, being a parent of black children, and much more. Tanesha on FB: https://www.facebook.com/tanesha.hudson.9 Outro music from Mic Crenshaw with his song Toyi Toyi Ft. Mama C. https://soundcloud.com/miccrenshawofficial   Please support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio  and follow us on Twitter @RevLeftRadio  Follow us on FB at "Revolutionary Left Radio"

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Took it in and turn it up loud. Revolutionary Left Radio starts now. Hello everyone and welcome to Revolutionary Left Radio. I am your host and comrade, Brett O'Shea. And today we have on Tanisha Hudson to talk about white supremacy and the old Confederacy. Tanisha, would you like to introduce yourself and say a bit about your background? Sure. My name is Tanisha. I'm born and raised in Charlottesville. I'm a local activist.

I've been involved in a community for a very long time. I'm on the NAACP Executive Committee. I'm very active in community meetings. I'm at every town hall meeting, city council meeting. And I'm very well known for holding

our city government accountable for things that they are supposed to do and things that they promised to do when running for election. so and I was very well involved on August the 12th for the neo-Nazi right I don't know what you want to call it rally or murder right I don't know if I should call it a rally or murder but I was very well involved that day as well yeah and that's thanks oh go ahead thanks for having me yeah absolutely I'm really looking forward to it. That's actually how I found out about you was that, and we'll get into this in a bit, but that mini documentary that Vice did about what happened in Charlottesville, I saw your little interview on that, and I reached out to you immediately. And I follow you on Facebook, and yeah, you're very, very active, so you're doing a lot of good work down there, and I think everybody appreciates it.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Absolutely. So before we get into the questions, I always ask my guest this just for my listeners to be able to orient themselves. How do you identify politically and maybe how has growing up black in the South impacted your political development? Well, I think politically we've been lied to. I think politically we believe that Democrats are for black people. And I think that people shouldn't identify with either party. I think you need to identify based on what you believe in and what you feel is important. And I think both Republican and Democrat have both kind of gotten away from our independent rights. And so, you know, I would say that I'm more so an independent person than Democrat or Republican because I really do believe in our constitutional rights.

I really do believe in our unalienated freedoms that we have. You know, and I don't think that anybody's freedom should be taken away. So let's make this clear. You know, I absolutely believe that they had the constitutional right to protest. What I don't believe in is that you have the constitutional right to protest and also incite riots. There's a difference. So I think that people really need to do homework and listen. to what people are promising them

and hold them accountable before you say I'm a Republican or a Democrat because we've been allowed to I mean I know the last probably seven campaigns here in Charlottesville and even on a state and a federal level the last couple campaigns

of all candidates have all been you know we're going to work on affordable housing where we've been working on affordable housing going on 25 years we still don't have it so you know we have to pay attention to that type of stuff and you know we we have to start you know making these people be accountable for what they promise us when we don't get it yeah absolutely and um so let's just go ahead and dive into the questions in because i was touching on this a little bit in the intro but

you did come to our attention through your appearance on that vice mini documentary about charlottesville um can you please summarize what happened in charlottesville this summer and how you were involved sure so um it really wasn't this summer this has been a span of over about a year and a half and this It publicly got out this summer, but nationwide, I mean, well, worldwide. I'll say worldwide, because it's news from all over the world that I've done interviews with. But this has been an issue for going on a year and a half. Kristen Stacoast is a local city councilor here in Charlottesville. She requested for the statute to be removed a while ago.

Another young lady, a 17-year-old at the time, a 16-year-old Charlottesville high school student, got a petition going to actually get the Confederate statues removed. So society, I'm going to say society, I'm not going to point individual fingers, but society thought that at the time, Vice Mayor West Bellamy, was the one that actually initiated for the Confederate statues to be removed. That was a lie. West had nothing to do with it. West spoke on it after the Charleston shootings. They asked West, how did he feel about South Carolina removing Confederate flags from in front of the courthouse? And he spoke on it and gave his opinion. And they immediately kind of threw everything on West Bellamy.

And, you know, from that moment on, I think that's what the racial issues have always been in Charlottesville. But I think that was the start of the huge development. that we're seeing here and why the neo-Nazis and art rights actually came about and wanted to kind of march on the presence of the city. I think the message conveyed by the white Nazis is that they want people to know and understand that this is the heart of Confederacy. Like, this is, it's not a lie that this isn't the heart of Confederacy. Like, it's absolutely the truth.

Like, Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner. He raped his slave. and he impregnated, you know, Sally Hemings and had, you know, biracial kids. So this is real history. And I think that we've been, you know, so, you know, misled through history and misttaught and miseducated that, you know, when we hear the harsh truth, sometimes, you know, it makes certain people turn their nose up and it makes certain people, you know, feel like it's a lie. you know and we we've kind of been dealing with a history that's been whitewashed for so long and that's why Charlottesville ended up being a worldwide you know conversation if you were to ask somebody two weeks before the July 8th KKK raleigh nobody knew where Charlottesville was if you would have asked somebody two weeks before August of 12 nobody knew where Charlottesville was you would say

say, oh, I'm from Charlotte to Virginia, and they would say, oh, Charlotte, North Carolina, and you'd be like, no, I'm Charlotte to Virginia. You know, UVA, you know, people didn't know about the city until this happened. And it's been outcribes of issues for a while now, but the news caught the very tail end of it. Yeah, and when you talk about the history and how it's been whitewashed, when they marched with torches, that was hearkening back to a very long history of white supremacists, clansmen, et cetera, marching in the south. It harkens back to lynchings that took place in the south. And that was a purposeful aesthetic that the white nationalist chose to use precisely because it harkened back to that horrible southern history.

So how did this event reveal or amplify the white supremacy inherent in that area? Did racism become more obvious? Did it increase? Did nothing change? What has happened since then as far as that goes? Well, I think the racism has always been here. The racism is just hidden in policies and, you know, the way we're paid, not being promoted at work, or, you know, black kids getting, you know, suspended five times more than any other race

or, you know, African-American men getting stopped and frisk. Like, we've been dealing with racial issues here in Charlottesville for quite some time. I don't think it amplified it. I think it allowed more people eyes to open up. I think a lot of people were in denial about it. You know, it's like, hey, us black people have been complaining for quite some time, letting you know that this stuff has been happening and going on, but nobody's been paying attention

and now people are starting to pay attention I think having a president that acknowledges this type of behavior because we have to be honest with ourselves he actually acknowledges and embraces this type of behavior he does nothing to actually shut it down he curves his answers

towards what they do and he makes sure that he brings in the other side as if the other side has agitated these men to do that And that's how white privilege works, right? I mean, that's part of having privilege. Having privilege means that you can curve and create any type of image in your mind that you believe is right.

And see, as a black person, we could never do that because we don't own or we don't, we didn't create any of these policies to be able to say, hey, listen, this is the way it is. This is the way it's supposed to be. We have to blame them. like we're basically following a chain of commands that's been passed down from one white person to another white person to another white person like we didn't create the policy of bank lending rules and regulations you know we don't we don't create the education system that's definitely whitewashed and created by you know our founding fathers uh the the law was created by our founding fathers and we're people have to understand is that 65 years ago, black people were still not even considered citizens. So, you know, 65 years ago, my mother and my father technically did not qualify to be a citizen of the United States. They were treated as second class citizens. So basically like an immigrant.

Yeah, absolutely. Even though our ancestors, you know, built parts of this entire world, you know, but we were still treated as immigrants, and we're all immigrants. And so, you know, I just think that people getting the truth and hearing the truth and then actually seeing it. Because you have to remember, we're in 2017, so we're years and years and years away from Jim Crow, but to actually stand there that day

and experience what felt like a replay of Jim Crow, I think was enough to open everybody's eyes to see that we do have serious racial issues still here in America. Yeah, definitely. A black feminist radical thinker who I'm going to have on in a few weeks, Zoe Sam Duzzi, she wrote an article and in it she says that black people are not and never have been citizens of the United States. They've always been residents in. And that kind of harkens back to your notion of being immigrants here never really. fully being embraced by the mainstream culture. But, you know, that event in Charlottesville was horrifying.

As you say, you know, the entire world was shocked by it. But what has happened since then in your city? And how have you been working to help citizens move forward? So since then, we're just really trying to get the city to take accountability. You know, we still haven't gotten up. I'm sorry, you know, we haven't gotten up. We failed our citizens. nobody has taken full blame for what occurred or what happened

what I've been doing is I have I'm in the process of forming a citizens committee so there's this independent event let me give you a little detail of some things that are that some things that are like kind of pipelining that are about to happen there's an independent review being done by a guy named Tim Hafey who was a West Endish federal prosecutor for the federal court here in Charlottesville and he's supposed to be doing

an independent investigation of what occurred August 11th and August 12th well he the initial the way the news put it out initially is that that that they had chose him to do this but then in a FOIA request the FOIA proved that Tim Haffey reached out to the city and said, hey, here's what I can do to help you. Let me do this. So he basically offered to do the review. So I have a huge issue with that. And I've embraced, you know, speaking to several different people. Like I have no cut cards on who I tell it to. It's been all over the news. It's been all over the radio. It's been in the Washington Post. I mean, any major media that you can think of, I voice my opinion, that he should not be in charge of this

investigation. He's had close relationships with the Charlottesville Police Department, with the Charlottesville Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, with the city government, with the J.Tass Force, which is a Jefferson area drug enforcement group of police officers that lock guys up for selling drugs. He was also responsible for a RICO charge where a group of young men, they all grew up together from dirt, all went to school together, you know, basically played in the sandbox together. He charged them with the racketeering Influenced Criminal Organization charged. That's a charge that people like, you know, John Gotti, people in the mob are actually charged with. These are a group of young black boys, poor, no money, didn't

have any pay lawyers or anything. They got charged with this charge right here in Charlottesville. One guy received 20 years. He's still incarcerated. Another guy received two, two life sentences in 10 years. And so this man is guarantee in the city, the people like myself and everyone else, that he's going to find out the facts. Well,

I'm a person. I know that white people and rich people and Chinese people and Japanese, most business people of all races like to see things in black and white and they like numbers. And so I'm a numbers person and I'm a person that do things in black and white.

And so by him saying that he wants to find out the facts of what occurred on August 11th and August 12th in the city of Charlotte's still I'm one to tell him what do you feel like you went off the facts in the RICO case because you went merely off allegations these young men are in jail because someone told information it wasn't factual information because anybody can say anything about you it doesn't mean that it's true right and so this man said that he felt like Like, he did the right thing by giving those young men. I mean, we're talking young men in their 20s at the time, like 20-year-old guys at the time, this much time for nonviolent drug offenses. And, you know, this is who we have to be responsible for doing this independent investigation. Wow.

Also, we learned in the FOIA request that the city of Charlottesville was notified by the liability insurance. that if they were found at fault, the liability insurance is going to drop them. So, you know, I'm, again, I have no filter. I have no cut cards. I feel the city has not been transparent with us. I feel the city has been misleading the people. I feel like the city is doing whatever they have to do

to cover themselves to make it look good on behalf of the city. The city is not concerned about the police failing to protect and provide equal protections. to the citizens that had counter permits to protest that day. So they're doing everything to make the city look good. Like right now, everything is about the city and nothing is about the people. And it should be reversed. It should be about the people and not about the city.

Because it doesn't matter which media that you look at, the media shows that they actually failed. They did not do their job. They neglected the people. There was only protection for one side, which was the side of the neon. Nazis. The police were in barricaded in with Jason Kessler, Richard Spencer, and whatever

right wing, all right, I don't know what you want to call them, but to me, they're a hate-influenced criminal organization, and I feel like there should be policies built on hate-influenced criminal organizations to target men or women that do crimes based off of hate, based on color, the same way they created policies for war or drugs that affected the black communities. And so that's something that I've been actively working on

and wanting to get out there is that this is what people should really focus on. We need this to be considered a terrorist act. We need them to be charged as a gang or group, just like they charge a group of young black men that grow up

together, that went to the same school together, that actually lived in the same neighborhoods together, but sold drugs and were treated as gang members and see how we can break down the comparisons of the two is that the guys from the Rico charge are a group of guys that actually know each other. These guys came from different states, came from different, you know, backgrounds, universities. They have no real connection to each other. So if it's so quick for the government to make policies to charge

people in a gang or a group as African Americans, then we need the same thing for white America. And this is where it's going to be really important or on privilege because the Department of Justice is supposed to be coming in saying if this is a terrorist act or not, which I don't think it'll turn out that way. That's just my opinion. I feel like this is all, it's pretty, it was written from the gate. I mean, we have to listen to the person in office. We have to listen to how he talk and then you have his people that he appointed that's actually in charge of this case i don't think that we're going to be successful getting what we what we want but i think we can be successful in getting what we want if we actually put the work in to protest to not support the city if the

city if we feel the city is loud but we shouldn't be supporting the city at all like i'm not won't support big you know business to continue to grow and people to continue to come here and want to lavish on the downtown mall like the reality is just like i said in the vice video racism has always been in charlottesville the downtown mall if you walk downtown you don't have any type of cultural balance it's one face that you're going to see down there and that's white America. It's not a place for black people. Outside looking in, if I had to look at the city, being a young African-American woman, nothing would bring me to the city being black. There's nothing thriving for the black community. Black people are actually struggling here.

They're struggling to make it. They're being pushed out. The numbers have dwindled down from 28% we're down to about 18 or 19% black. And it's continuously going down year by year. So it's nothing great about this city being the capital or resistance or standing for love or wanting unity. Because if they did, we would have affordable housing. We wouldn't have stopping risk issues. We wouldn't have a mass number of young African-American men going to jail for non-balanced drug charges and sitting in jail because they can't get bonds. So it's so many issues that have happened with this city. And now people are really starting to pay close attention to mass.

incarceration to education reform to banking discriminations like I can't go to the bank and say hey I need a mortgage loan and I want to live here they're going to say hey you only qualify for X amount of money and they're going to put me in an environment that I don't want to live in so I mean these are issues that the city is continuously blowing off and putting to the side and not paying attention to and this is what we've been crying about for 25 years and And now the reflection of them kind of blowing off the citizens, we're still getting the same treatment even throughout this.

I mean, as I stated when I first started speaking, for this question, we haven't even gotten an apology. There's been no accountability at all. Yeah, and I hope that we can help kind of bring attention to this fact in the sense that everybody around the world heard about Charlottesville, but then the mainstream media moves on, and you don't hear about the fights that are still taking place. in that city as you're at the forefront of and so I hope that we can kind of bring a spotlight

to that and this fight is still ongoing and people are still suffering in that city and still trying to hold these fucking people accountable for what happened in that vice documentary which you mentioned you said this really powerful line it brought me to tears and it's what prompted me to reach out to you you said quote you can't stand in any corner of this city and not see the master sitting atop Monticello he looks down on us he's been looking down on this city for God knows how long. This is Charlottesville. The master is clearly a reference to Thomas Jefferson, but can you please elaborate on that statement? What is it like as a person of color to not only live in the shadows of people like Jefferson, but to have them

praised as heroes all over the country? I think it's just blatant disrespect. I think that, you know, as I stated before, history has been so whitewashed. I didn't learn about Matt Turner until actually reading birth of a nation so until I read the book I knew nothing about him I was never taught that in school I feel like education only teaches us

about the African Americans that were resistant and the ones that were obedient and the ones that were calm and the ones that wouldn't fight back and the ones that didn't value their freedom you know we don't learn the fullness of Malcolm X we don't learn about the Nat Turner's

we don't learn about the people who were powerful and bold who stood out and spoke out and knew that they were being treated wrong and actually did something about it. We don't learn about that. And that's the feeling of a black person being in Charlottesville right now is that we don't know who we are as people. And that is our biggest downfall is that we're the only culture that has to feel bad for wanting to be proud, to be bad.

black. Like if you were in a room full of Jews, you wouldn't say anything disrespectful or bring up Hitler. Right. If you were in a room full of Japanese people, you wouldn't bring up anything disrespectful about who oppressed the Japanese. Like, you know, we're the only ones that have to blatantly deal with the disrespect being thrown in our face 24-7 all the time. All throughout the South we have to see these statues. We know the Civil War was about slavery. We know it was about ending slavery. We know that Robert Lee lost the war. We've never praised anybody for making second place. If that's the case, then LeBron is great to me for not winning the finals last year. You know, he should be awesome, even though he didn't get a championship

last year, you know, like second place has never gotten any type of relevancy or has never been significant on, on, on a level of being praised. And we continue to do that

with white supremacy. We continue to do that with, with Robert Lee and anybody in his Confederate Union. You know, we continue to praise these people and they lost the war. Continue to praise them and they wanted to oppress people. And I tell people all the time, you can't be a right is right, wrong is wrong type of person

and then say, I believe in the Confederacy. Because to me, that's blatant disrespect. And if you call yourself any type of religious person, because I mean, we all have different religious backgrounds, but if you are any type of religious person, nowhere would God punish somebody and have them oppressed. That's not a godly thing to do. We're talking about a God being a forgiven God and never wanting to cause or

endure pain on anybody, but yet you're saying that I should have a master to look up to when this man can beat me or rape me whenever he feels like it or can talk down on me as if I'm scum of the earth and feed me when he feels like feeding me

when knowing a human needs to eat to survive. Like we're the only culture that's constantly beat down all the time. We're the only culture that never got reparations. We're the only culture that was promised something that didn't get anything. And that is the reality. And that's always been Charlottesville as like a lot of places. But it really felt like home to me because there's so many African American people

that work right at the University of Virginia, whether it's the school or the hospital. and they're barely making ends meet. They can't afford this city. A average one-bedroom apartment is $1,200 a month, and you have jobs at UVA that's still paying minimum wage. And so, you know, just like I stated in the video, like this is the reality, like slavery never left. Like, he's reminding you up on that hill every day

that I'm still in charge, that what I created is still deeply, embedded and rooted in this community and it'll never go anywhere. And that is probably the answer to this next question at least in part, but what is what's the importance of these Confederate statues coming down in the south? What do all these

statues represent for black folks? And what does tearing them down represent? Clearly they mean they're a reminder of who was in charge at one point. I think it was I think they were only put up to invoke fear. We have to remember

remember the Jim Crow era was when blacks and whites were separated. And I think as communities, we were both thriving communities. I think the black culture was actually thriving better in segregated times than when everything was desegregated. So once segregation actually occurred, and once everything was integrated, you know, I think that's when the black community started to kind of die down. But when we, when we, when we, when, when we, We only had ourselves, we were thriving. And so those statues were a reminder that while you're thriving in your black community, you're still going to look at me.

You have to remember these statues, I know in Charlottesville anyway, I can't really speak. I've only done the history for Charlottesville so far in areas around me. They were put in the heart of black communities. The Lee statue was put in the heart of Vinegar Hill. So that was a thriving black community. So it was put in Vinegar Hill. It was only put in Vinegar Hill around black people. To remind black people, we are still in charge to mock the thought and the ideologies of slavery.

And that's why they're put up all throughout the South. The South is continuing to remind us of what the South stood for. And what people need to understand, and I think I had to learn this for myself through studying, Virginia is more the heart of the South than most states in the South. You know, we tend to think that North Carolina, South Carolina, you know, Mississippi, Alabama, you know, parts of Florida, you know, parts of those southern states, you know, Tennessee and other places, we tend to think that those places are the deep south. And people need to remember that Brown versus the Board of Education was in 1954. Virginia didn't integrate schools until 1959

so they took five more years to still be segregated so this state has always done what it wanted to do Roots was made in Virginia based on a plantation in Virginia it's one of the first movies I think a lot of younger people in my generation

have actually watched to learn and get the you know the ideologies of slavery and and you know of Kuntikente and the things that he went through as a slave. That was based on a Virginia plantation. And then here we

have hidden figures that came out. We had three young, smart African American women that actually helped the first spaceship take off. And we're just learning about that in 2016. You know, these are things that

taking those monuments down means unveiling and unmasking the illusion that we've all been taught. And that's a slogan for Nakaya Walker, who's running for city council here. You know, I think unmasking the illusion is the right thing to use because we've all been lied to. And so we all have this pre-made story that we've been told, right? It's like a, it's like a fable that's been passed down from generation to generation to generation. It's like the telephone game. If you tell it to the whole classroom, by the time it gets to the last

person is flipped around 20 times, the story has been flipped around so many times that we've actually lost the real truth. And I think to get to the actual truth and to get to the house and the wise and the what we need to do to change it, we have to go back to the beginning. And so that means going back to these original policies and revamping them for everyone. Because when the preamble was written and the constitution was written, black people were nobody. So that didn't really apply to us. And we all know now from 14th, the documentary, the 14th Amendment didn't help us. It hurt us. And it put us right back into slavery, and they created a system that actually created convict labor, the convict labor system, which then turned into jails and

prisons, which is now mass incarceration, the African Americans rule the prison system. And so we have to go back and revamp these policies. And in order to revamp these policies, we need policymakers that understand environments. So we can't continue to have rich policy makers making and creating policies for low-income environments. You don't know anything about the

low-income environments, nor do you understand their way of living or their struggles. And so it has to be incorporated, meaning people from all walks of life need to play a part and creating these policies. And

I think going back and doing that along with removing the statues along with revamping the history of the Confederacy in the South that that will make the difference and we will all have a mutual respect for one another you can't respect black people

if you know nothing about black people and their struggles if you think that black history started with slavery then you're going to always feel like black people are only good for manual labor and that's it pay them a couple of dollars they're going to work they can pay

their bills and that's all they're good for. And I think that's the reality that a lot of people have with black people is that we're hard workers, we're athletes, but we're nothing else. Right. Yeah, and for anybody that doesn't know, you referenced the 13th Amendment and I urge

people to go and read that. It's very short. It's like two sentences. But the caveat is literally they abolish slavery, but they say, except in cases where somebody is tried and convicted of a crime. So what that basically does is leave open the door for basically prison slavery. And then you have this huge carceral state and the

war on drugs and this targeted attack of black communities to put them in prisons and then exploit free labor from them. So in some ways, slavery is still going on in this society. It is not over with. It's still happening. And I personally fucking look so forward to the day when every Confederate statue is reduced to a pile of crumbs. But I think what you said is, extremely important in that tearing down these statues is the physical act, but the mental act is revisiting the history, understanding what these things represent, understanding the history of black folks in this country. And so it's not just about taking statues down and shuffling them off to the side, but it's

about rethinking about that whole history. And I think so far this has been very successful in bringing up those questions, bringing up those conversations. I do want to switch gears a little bit here. I think it's important to bring these issues down to the level of personal experience. This is something I've wanted to do on this show for a long time, but I haven't had the chance to. Can you please tell us some stories of racism that you have personally experienced in your life? Absolutely. So I used to work for a company downtown on the mall in Charlottesville called Silverchair Learning System.

And on December 17, 2009, I remember being called into the office. And I'm thinking they're doing yearly reviews because we're about to get a bonus. And I was so excited. I remember walking through the hallway, like, super excited thinking I was going to get me a raise. Thinking like, oh, my God, I'm going to make more money. What am I going to do? Like, I'm going to set some goals for myself because I'm going to be making more money now. and I remember walking into the office

I was in the HR office and it was my boss Patrick he was my direct supervisor my vice president Michael and the HR representative Faye at the time and my boss Patrick was always this like super cool guy

great personality I loved him to death never had any type of problems with Patrick at all and I walked in and they're all white and I'm black it was only two black people in the whole entire company anyway, myself and another gentleman. And I remember walking in, and I remember Patrick's face just being like, just red as fire. Just like his body lenders was just so off and I knew something was wrong.

And so Patrick didn't say anything to me. He really couldn't even give me eye contact or anything, which was even more of a reason why I knew something was wrong. And Michael started to talk. And Michael said, well, you know, Tanisha, you do a great job here. You know, we have no complaints about your work. However, you don't fit into the group here, and today is your last day of work here. But don't worry, we'll give you and your family enough money to get through the holidays. We just need you to sign the severance agreement.

And so the first thing on the severance agreement, I never forget. I actually still have a copy of it somewhere in my house. I saved a copy just to keep from my record. the original copy of the severance agreement said civil chair learning systems and Tanisha Hudson agree on such and such day to terminate her employment however upon taking this severance of X amount of money

she agrees to not file a Title VII class action lawsuit or discrimination claim that was the first paragraph and so in my mind I've never been fired from a job that was actually going to pay me, right? Like most of the time when you fire, you did something wrong, but I knew I hadn't done anything wrong. And the fact that he used the term,

you don't fit into the group. I knew that they were just discriminating on me. It was no, I mean, it was point blank. It was just, I mean, it was written in bold print, underlined, italicized, it was exclamation points. It's all behind it. I mean, it was blatant discrimination, like literally. And I remember telling them, you know, well, I'm not going to sign this right away.

I'm just going to read over, and then I'll bring it back to you tomorrow. And so I ran over to Dr. Turner, Dr. Emrick Turner, he was the former president of the NAACP here in Charlottesville. And I had Dr. Turner look at over, and Dr. Turner said, it seems to me they're paying you to shut up. And so, you know, I fought that. that company. It took me a long time. I didn't have a lawyer represent me or anything. And they ended up selling the company. And when they sold the company, I saw the, um, I saw I run on the local news that they had sold it and I had reached out to the new company. Like, do you guys know you have a discrimination claim? Did they tell you that? And, you know, we ended up settling. But, you know,

that was that, that right there. Like, that was my turning point. I had never been through anything like that a day in my life. Um, but, you know, it was a, it was a learning experience. for me and it made me open my eyes even more because I have two young sons and I know that my boys are going to have it ten times worse than me. If not, you know, maybe not on their job, but they're definitely going to have it with the police, you know, interactions with the police. And so going through that helped me, you know, get more involved and play more of a vital role and pay attention to stuff and call out stuff as I see it because if a whole entire company can allow you to be mistreated and and basically discriminated like that and they know

that what they're doing is wrong and nobody wants to stand up and speak out then we don't know what else is happening in the world I just was a bold individual to speak up on it and take the stand and when I decided to fight them they offered me my job back or they offer me more severance money but you know it was just it was so it was like to go through that and experience that like I can't like and I still see these people sometimes today like they're walking right here in Charlottesville probably a new boss somewhere else probably doing the same thing to somebody else that looks like me and so you know these are things though that you know people have to know that you have to speak up on this even if you think nobody's listening or paying attention you need to report it you need to keep records. You need to keep records. of it you need to write stuff down you need to keep a history and i am one i keep every handbook from every job that i've ever worked and so i knew that they were wrong because they didn't even follow their handbook on why they terminate people i hadn't had any attendance issues i didn't have any work issues you know it was no type of insubordination like they didn't follow

anything that was there you know i feel like a handbook is like the constitution of a job and you're supposed to follow those guidelines in that handbook and when you go outside those boundaries of that handbook then you yourself are at fault for not following the rules and that's what they did they they didn't think it over before they did it and they definitely fooled with the wrong little black girl at the time yeah well i'm i mean i'm so fucking sorry that that happened to you and it uh it fucking breaks my heart to think of you just like walking into the office like excited about getting a raise and then having that fucking bullshit thrown on your lap like it fucking is disgusting so i'm really sorry you had to go through that um you mentioned you have

sons what what are some things that black parents have to do with their children that white parents like myself don't ever have to worry about like what are the unique fears and challenges of being a parent of black children in a society so dedicated to their oppression well you have to um oh we have to i'm sorry we have to sit our kids down at our early age and um you know have conversations with them about belief and um have conversations with them about how to act in public you know that they're viewed in a different light blackness is going to be an issue for a lot of people in this world, especially being men.

And see, I'm a woman teaching two boys about this world. And so, you know, it's a different conversation coming from their fathers, you know. It's totally different coming from a black man, but from a black woman, I have to sit my sons down and say, son, you know, when you walk out here, if you run into any type of altercation and the police is involved, just do as they say. Make sure you call somebody to come to the scene and just cooperate and comply as best as you can. Because as you know, from watching things on TV, you may not make it home if you don't.

You know, you always have to tell your kids, you know, love who you love, but understand that sometimes when you love other people of other races, that if you decide to walk away from that, you have to worry about lies being told. You know, we do know that sometimes when black guys date outside of their race, those can holl of rape at any moment. and they're going to go to jail, even if it was consensual. We've seen multiple stories of that. Yeah.

You know, even being a young black girl, you know, you still have this come. My mom had that conversation with me as a child. When you go out here, you have to know, always be on your best behavior and understand if you run into any altercations with the police. These are just passed down stories. I'm giving my kids what my mother gave me, and she gave me what her mother gave her. and then her mother was giving her what she got from her mother. This is stuff that has been passed down.

And, you know, my grandfather, God rest his soul, he passed away, but my grandfather used to always tell me growing up, even as a small child, make sure that there's things that you know how to do for yourself and that you don't depend on anybody else to do it. Because if the world ever reverted back to how it used to be, you need to have ways to make money. so that you can provide and survive for you and your children.

And so my grandfather was really, really big on working for yourself and creating your own wealth any way that you can. You know, whether it be go out here and clean up a house or, you know, any type of trade that you had put it to use and keep up with it because if we ever got back to hard times and this world crashed again and we couldn't do the type of work that we were used to doing

or company started to close down that we had a way to make money. Yeah, it's like there's generational trauma there and there's a certain sort of survival mode or certain sort of psychologies of survival that are passed down generationally in communities that are marginalized and oppressed for so long.

So it's heartbreaking to think that, you know, parents of color have to sit down with with their children and have those conversations and white parents, you know, don't. It's something that we don't ever have to worry about. So that asymmetry is just fucking heartbreaking again. What would you like to see non-black people like myself do more of to help in the struggle for black liberation? And what are some things that you see white activists doing currently that you find to be unhelpful or counterpillar? hopeful or counterproductive? I think we need people speaking up more on wanting to change these policies.

I think we need to hold our local, state, and federal government accountable for making these necessary changes. I think we all need to continue to, I think boycotts is going to help. I think we need to boycott a lot of spending, you know, prime example, like the situation with the NFL, like that whole entire situation really bothers me because the league is 73% black and so if all the black guys pulled out of the league there would be no football. But again, you know, generational curses

we're dealing with black people and even though they're making a lot of money, let's understand that they could be making a ton of money but they could have horrible spending habits. And so what it boils down to is nobody will pull out and be like Kaepernick because financially they can't afford it and they need their paycheck.

And so that's why we don't have more people like Kaepernick that's willing to just say, look, I'm not for it. This is what I stand for. And you can take my job, have my job, but I'm going to stand behind what I stand behind. And that's black people not being treated fairly and people being killed with no indictment. And so, you know, we got to understand the power of the dollar

Like, black people are the largest spenders in this world. We spend the most money, yet we own nothing. You know, education is important. I think white people would do great with showing black people the roads of generational wealth. You know, we lack with that. We don't have that. And if we do have it, we're selling it off to other white developers that want land in black neighborhoods. So, the understanding money and how money works and how to make money work for you, understanding credit and how to make credit work and making it work for you, understanding owning and having, you know, thinking for the future.

I think every other culture is not a white or a black thing. This is every culture other than the black culture. Every other culture is living for the future. They know I need property and I need something to lead to my family. Black people kind of don't have that same concept. But again, we're the way we are because of years and years of oppression and years and years of systemic policies put into place to keep us complacent. And so, you know, sometimes you can say, oh, hey, black people go read a book, learn how to invest.

But it's not that simple when you don't have anything to invest. The Washington Post just posted that black people are still making the same amount of money as they were in 2000. That was 17 years ago. So economically, we're just behind. We're not moving in the right direction on an equity level. Like, we're not equitable as a culture, like every other culture. And, you know, if you really want to help somebody, and I'm going to say this from personal experience,

because I've came up with a ton of ideas, and I've spoken to certain people, you know, I think that what I said earlier, we're viewed as workers. Like, we're not viewed as people that can be entrepreneurs that can run businesses ourselves. So I took an idea to someone and I talked to them about it and everything was fine. But it went from me telling him what I wanted to do to work for myself into how I could help him flourish his idea. And so, see, we're always viewed as workers. like no even if someone say that they're going to help you they're only saying that they're going to help you to hear your ideas to steal your train process or want you to benefit them in a different way and it's like if i can be your project manager and i can run your whole program or your whole idea then why wouldn't i do it for myself um and then you know the big the big the big money ones like the rich folks out here if you

really, really want to give back and somebody has a great business plan, why not invest in them? Like, it's so many rich people out here that if all rich people gave all poor people $5,000 to get them ahead and invest in, even if you did it and just, you know, even if you just gave them $5,000 in stocks and they couldn't touch it for 10 years, you're giving them a head start to be more equitable for their family. You're giving them more. More or in advance economically, then you know. So, you know, it's just, it's little things that people can do, but nobody's thinking in that format.

Like, if all the rich people in this world gave all the poor people $5,000 in stocks that they couldn't touch for 10 years, right? It will put them ahead for a little while. And they can't touch it for 10 years. So that money, that $5,000 is going to grow in 10 years. And that, like, to me, like that, doing something that's showing the initiative to want change if all of these developers know that the cost of living has gotten tremendously high and people

can't afford to live in certain places then why not make a community that's that's that's affordable for everyone why would you not have for every two developments that they put up one of the two should be affordable and one should be just for rich people. But instead we've had all rich developments put up so I mean it's strategic thinking but nobody wants to think strategically or logically

because everybody's greedy. So see like we, no matter what we say like we're all chasing ultimately at the end of the day we all have the same common goal. We want to make money to provide for our families and some of us are

making more money than others. Absolutely. However, you don't have to continue you to beat down the ones that are struggling to make it. Like, you could leave room for them and still do your thing. Like, go somewhere else. Like, why don't they go develop in the Midwest

where it's still rows and rows and rows of cornfields and and, you know, other farmland? Right. They won't do that because they're not see, those people are going to allow them to do that. But then you have other rich people that run cities like

Charlottesville. Charlottesville is a predominant rich city. It's a lot of old retired people that live here that got a lot of money. It's a lot of wealth here in Albemar County as well. And money likes money. So money invites money in to redevelop it based on money because the money is everybody that has the money, they're benefiting from the work that's being done. So everybody has their hand in the pot. But they don't care about the little ones that they're affecting with it. So those are ways that I feel that people could help. And it doesn't really, you don't have to be white. You could be Chinese, Japanese, you know, black. It's rich black people too. It's a very small percentage, but it's rich

black people too. But if everybody just tried to do something to benefit a poor person, then I think that we, even if you were just educating them the right way, then I think we would be a much better world. And I definitely think that history plays a big part. And I'm doing some education reform and working on getting, um, an interactive website going for people to go on and learn more about African American history at their own pace, because we need to know about each other. I think if history was blended and we were all taught about each other culturally, if we learned about the Jews, the Mexicans, Hispanics, whatever you want to label, you know, I feel like we just need to learn about everybody. because I don't like we're the only place that's

like culturally divided like even when we apply for jobs they want to know if you're black or white even though it's optional to answer they still want to know if you're male or female they want to know if you're black or white they want to know if you're disabled or not like we're so divided here and none of that should

matter at all when applying for a job or applying for school or anything like race gender creed religion none of that should matter and I feel like having it on application it just helps us stay divided even more and like I think that whole entire all of that should be gone because again it's just another form of division and if we're about unity and we're about coming together and we're about you know blending the fact that

America is a is a cultural pot melting pot then we're We need to display that, and we need to stop being divided. We need to stop having schools driven teaching just one side of history. We have a whole African-American history museum, and I'll be honest, I've been twice, and it's way more people in there that don't look like me than it is people that look like me. People want to know about black people, and that's why they're going to that museum. And if we can have a whole museum with information, why do we not have stuff in the history books? Yeah. And that's what's so difficult is that all the current concentrations of wealth are rooted in history.

And the way that that wealth has been produced and distributed over time cannot be separated from racism, from white supremacy, from slavery, from Jim Crow, from the genocide of Native Americans, from this long history of systemic exclusion of certain people from the ability to make and build well. wealth. And then all of a sudden we're sitting in the 21st century and a small handful of white people own all the shit and everybody else is struggling over crumbs. It's like, well, you can't separate that from this long history of brutal racism and racial hierarchies. So there's something very deep in the history of the economic system in this country that perpetuates this problem and it's extremely hard to address in a full way. But I like a lot of the suggestions that you made as steps in the right direction. I absolutely agree. So we're bumping up against an hour here, so this is a final question.

I like to ask all my guests, and I'm especially interested to hear your perspective on this. Are you optimistic about the future? I am. I think we'll get there. I may not live to see it. Hopefully my boys do. I think that more people are waking up to realize the issues that we're experiencing. out here

and I bring again I want all white people to understand that we wouldn't have made it this far without white people you know you guys have played a massive part all the way back

to the Underground Railroad so we do need white people to understand we're not just coming for white people saying it's all your fault because it's it's bad apples in every bunch you know

doesn't matter where race you are is good It's good white people, it's bad white people, as good black people, it's bad black people. So we don't want people to feel that we're trying to separate ourselves from, you, no, because all people have to come together. And, you know, that goes for Japanese, Chinese, Latino, whatever, whatever culture you claim, we all have to come together.

And I am optimistic. I think more people are well. waking up and understanding, you know, what's happening out here in America and everywhere in the world is just, I think it's just more, it's, the issues are more deeper in America than anywhere else because I've been to a lot of different places that I've never experienced racism like I have here in America. And so I am very optimistic. I think that, you know, we're making progress and we'll see where it goes. I mean, we just need people to, we need the right people getting in these offices to revamp these policies for one we need more people to vote and we definitely got to vote for the right people and as I stated at the beginning of the conversation we got to stop falling for the lives like we've been lied to I know I'm only 35 years old and I've been lied to I remember doing a mock election when Bill Clinton was running in high school I'm sorry in grade school I was in grade school this was Bill Clinton first term and

and I mean they lied then so if I knew that back then then I know people got to see it now in 2017 absolutely so but before we close are there any organizations that you want to plug and do you have any recommendations for anyone who wants to learn more about anything we've discussed tonight

so I would encourage people to go and listen to Nakaya Walker check her out on Facebook she's an independent candidate running for city council her point of view, her viewpoints on things in the city of Charlottesville, I mean, you'll love it. She did a great job at the forum. If I could find a link, I'll send it to you.

Search, standing up for racial justice. They do a lot of great work, protesting, supporting African Americans being held in prison, you know, with no bond for non-violent offenses. the NAACP is always there helping people with racial issues and employment or any type of issues, education issues. I mean, I just encourage people to get involved anywhere you fit in. There's a new group that started this year called Epic. It's evolving in the local community, you know, so that we can, you know, become more equitable as a whole instead of just one side, becoming equitable so epic has done um quite a bit here in charlottesville i'm actually doing my own documentary on the black experience on charlottesville based on august of 12th but i'm doing it from

the black experience most people are doing documentaries but they're doing it on the events that occur and i'm doing the i'm getting in depth with it and i'm going with the black experience i want the black people to explain how they feel about the least at you so i'm working on my documentary i'm also reform of education. I just applied for my nonprofit. Eventually, what we want to do is, as I stated earlier, we want to do kind of like a course learning program. It's going to be a software program where you can go online and learn any history that you want. Eventually, we'll have all cultures, but we're starting with African American culture. And it will be free, like kind of like course era, where you can kind of teach yourself how to do any type of program. And

This is just for history, and we're going to start with African American history, and then we'll move all the way through, through all cultures, eventually once we get some funding going, and eventually we want to build a new textbook that's blended with all history. And so you follow me on Facebook. I'll keep you up to date with everything that I'm doing as far as Facebook. And the last thing that I want to say is that people need to just stay, you know, get engaged, stay informed, make sure you go out of. and vote, and always remember sometimes doing the right thing is not always the popular choice. We know that Kaepernick did what he did.

He was the only one doing it at the time, and now everybody's doing it. So, you know, sometimes the person that starts it, you take a loss. Like, you put yourself on the line to create that change. And I feel like sometimes I'm that person here in Charlottesville. Like, I was just the one that was willing

to speak out and say things that people weren't going to say on August of 12. And, you know, me saying like this is the reality of Charlottesville. This is the reality of Charlottesville. What used to be an all-black thriving community is no longer a all-black-draving community. The faces of Charlottesville have changed.

Even at the Unity concert that we had, we had a unity concert last week, and we had a bunch of artists, co-play, Farrell Williams, The Roots, Justin Timberlake, Stevie Wonder, Ariana Grande. We had a whole bunch of artists. Dave Matthews Band.

We had a whole bunch of famous people here. and when you looked at the crowd out in that crowd there was no unity there because it was barely even any black people there honestly. Now if they really wanted to be a unified

if they wanted to make that a unified concert then they would have catered to all the people in Charlottesville and they didn't cater to all the people in Charlottesville because they could have the lineup would have been different so again even when they're trying to do the right things they're still kind of

washing it to one side instead of baking it for everybody because you have a lot of the older community that didn't even come out because they hit the fact that Stevie Wonder was going to be he was a surprised guest so they didn't bring him out

to the last minute and so I say all that to say this doing the right thing it's not always the popular choice but if you see something that's not done correctly or you know in your heart that it's not right

speak up on it sometimes even if you have to take a loss Even if your job is on the line or if that company really don't, you know, vibe with the work that you do outside of work, then that's not the place for you. And sometimes it's okay to take a loss when you're making a change because the people before us that paved the way for us have taken losses. Some of them lost their lives. Some of them lost their children. You know, four little girls died in Birmingham church. You know, you've taken a lot of losses over the years.

But those losses is what matters because that's the effect of the change. Like, that is the chain of commands for the change to happen. And so that's why I just encourage people to just, you know, stay engaged, get informed, and get involved and go to these meetings and be a part of your local community and changing your local community because it starts with us. The federal government won't get it until it starts changing on the bottom. and we have to change it on the bottom first within ourselves, and then it'll reach up to the federal government.

So I want to thank you guys, and I'm very optimistic. I think the more people that speak out and the more of you guys that kind of join along, and again, you've always been there, but more people are starting to come out. I think that we definitely can make the change that we want to see, even if we have to start shutting stuff down and stop supporting these businesses that don't support us.

Absolutely. And that was extremely well said. I'm going to keep an eye out for your documentary. And once it's finished, I'm going to do my best to make sure I see that and I'll post it on all of our pages and get it out there too. Thank you so much, Tanisha for coming on. You're inspiring. I view you as a fucking hero doing good work down there. I'm just honored to have you on the show and to amplify your voice because it needs amplification. So thank you so much for coming on. It's been an honest to God honor to talk to you. You are so very welcome. Thanks again. I really, really appreciate it.

Big up to a Hoodoo Network. Sounds to the South. M-1. Stick, man. O'B.A. Boona. Kim. Look, man. I've been around the world and back again.

International traveling. And I'm always want to go back to Zim. I did the map because I'm African. I heard the people took back the land. I have to understand. So I can know when overstand. I've been back a few times. If you notice, man, decolonize, I know we can.

Peacefully rise only if we plan. Land Uncle Sam and the Ku Klux Klan, Black liberation is contrafer. The contradiction of our condition, talk a lot of shit without a pot to fiss it. Without land or a plan on how they get it we don't stand a chance against a competition. I see my comrades dancing during the toy toy.

Toy toy! I see my people dancing in the streets. In the streets, in the years. People power, that's what they're doing. They do toy-toy Toi-Toy I see my people dancing in the streets They told me

That's the struggle Chimberanga, that's resistance Europeans brought their missions and their guns and ammunition Perversion and coercion that was clothed in their religion An economic system meant to benefit the British Before I ever visited Zimbabwe Listen to the lyrics of Bob Marley

Singing Africans will liberate them by way So what's the situation that we had today? I'm walking in the breeze under jaka in the trees I remember seeing that my people in the street were free from the disease of white supremacy But they still were under siege how economically Talk about freedom and democracy But we still got work to do domestically Let the people decide the destiny

If the West don't like it, then the West should leave. I see my comrades dancing during the toy toy. Toy, toy. I see my people dancing in the streets. In the streets, in the streets. People power, that's what they do. Toy toy. Toy, toy.

I see my people dancing in the streets. In the streets. A Luta Continua, the struggle don't stop. This is our culture and our music. It's bigger than hip hop. Who do it? Side, side. Freedom now.

A mind. A way to people power. All over the black diaspora. We gotta know that a home is Africa. Opportunity knocks, don't pass it up. But with the gas in the tank and a smash, bro. Get my ass on the plane, I'm a passenger. Over the Atlantic and it's massive.

But when I'm in ZIM, I'm across the planet, no GMOs, it's all organic. Sanctions make you take them. to give thanks for what you take to granted. The people's spirit won't be crushed. The river's rushed. The land is lush. African hip-hop caravan.

That's the reason I'm where I am. We got folks in the museum in South Africa. They're going to pass a torch and moving back and forth. I feel at home. Less distortion. Different influence is the right proportion. Inspiration. Life transforming, different space.

When I'm performing, it's going to hate because it can't be late. They feel threatening. They can't feel safe. Safari and the Rari, and we're having fun until the break the dawn. We'll see the sun. I see my people dancing in the street People power, that's what they do, toy toy. Toa!

I see my people dancing in the street I see my camera dancing doing the toy toy, Ta-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-I-Y. I see my people dancing in the streets. Dancing in the streets. People power, that's what they do, Toy-T-T-T-T-T-T. I see my people dancing in the streets. Dance a good time, hey.

Hey, yeah. Hmm, hey, hey, hey, and he, dance a toy, dance a, dance a, dance, toy,

yeah. To, toy, toy, That's a good job.