The Daily Zeitgeist - SCOTUS Does Good? National Pride? 6.16.20

Episode Date: June 16, 2020

In episode 652, Miles and guest host Jamie Loftus are joined by Alex Schmidt to discuss the Supreme Court's decision when it comes to LGBTQIA job discrimination, government officials still not getting it when it comes to police abolition, a new poll letting us know Americans are not happy with America, what to replace racist statues with, and more!FOOTNOTES: Justices rule LGBT people protected from job discrimination Transgender Health Protections Reversed By Trump Administration Black Lives Matter activist Oluwatoyin Salau found dead ‘You Don’t Need to Protest’: Cuomo Declares Victory After Passage of Police Reform Package Gallup: Pride in the US falls to new low Dolly Parton statue may replace KKK leader memorial at Tennessee Capitol Tennessee Just Voted to Keep a Racist Statue of a KKK 'Grand Wizard' Creator of popular petition to replace Confederate statues with Britney Spears tributes says singer 'means more to us than most of the historic figures we've learned about in history class' Gwar back campaign to replace Robert E. Lee statue with monument of frontman Oderus Ungerus Replace All the Racist Statues. Literally Anything Would Be Better. A petition to replace the Christopher Columbus statue with the Route 1 orange dinosaur is gaining steam, sort of Roots and Racism: The Tale of Doctor Jack WATCH: Dirty Art Club - Arctic Garden Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, hello, the internet. Let me just wheel in my TV media cart with VHS player here. We will be watching bloopers. The substitute teacher is in it. It is season 138, episode 2 of the Daily Zeitgeist, a production of iHeartRadio. Look, you already know what time it is.

What do we do here? We take America's skull, rip it open, look in there, get revolted, try and convince other people to look inside here and say, y'all seeing this too. Okay, we know better, then we need to do better okay and off the rip freak on their skull you know what it is fuck the coke brothers fuck fox news fuck rosh limbaugh fuck buck sexton fuck these turf ass authors and anybody who's not about inclusivity and equality fuck them all we don't have time for you well maybe we do uh and also a shout out to

yet another karen whose career was ruined uh by confronting someone who's merely uh writing black lives matter in chalk on their own property uh it's tuesday june 16th my name is miles gray no aka today because i am thrilled to be joined by my co-host, the wonderful, the icy, the talented, the thing that makes the ice smooth between periods, and I'm talking about in hockey, Lil' Zam herself, Jamie Loftus. Hi. It's so nice to talk to you.

I know. Jamie. It's been a bit. It's been a bit. It's been a bit. It's been some change. I've got a little AKA

It's from Christy Yamaguchi And it made me laugh That's all we really want Cops shun When the protesting Is done Oh girls We wanna defund.

Oh. Yeah. See? See, I was like, okay, this expresses how I, you know, so a shout out to Crispy Meme Donut. Yes. On that one. Yeah. And, you know, I hear something in this third window pane of this Zoom call.

I believe it is our guest. I believe it is someone who is so legendary. Jack failed to fill his shoes when he hired me to co-host with him. I believe that this man is called the wonderful,

one of the kindest human beings I have met, Mr. Alex Schmidt. Welcome, Alex. Holy have met, Mr. Alex Schmidt. Welcome, Alex. Holy cow, that intro. Thank you. It's great to be here. It's also very difficult to stay silent during that bop of an AK.

What a great song with its heart in the right place. Really into it. How are you doing, Alex? I'm all right. I have recently come into some free time. I'm no longer doing the Cracked podcast. Tweeted about it. People can go see it.

I also got my hair cut yesterday by my wonderful partner who does not cut hair and just like stepped up and did it. So now my head is like... It looks great. She did an amazing job and there was three months of weird hair on there. It really took some doing. What did you look... What were you before the

cut, the trim? Were you a little hippie style, shaggy-do? See, what I do, I thought I would just have long, flowing, endless hair. But what it turns out my hair does is it gets to season one Jim Halpert. It's pretty shaggy. But then instead of continuing, it just starts doing flips in some places and curly Qs in some other places. And it looks like I have a crazy belief

of what hairstyling should be. It's the weirdest thing in the world. Yeah, I like that. All kinds of little details. It was dog whistling, right-wing conspiracy tapes. Your hair was doing it all. It's like post office, Jim. At least it was Jim halpert hair and not jack

ryan hair you know it's like you want your hair on the right side of history generally in terms of john kaczynski characters that hair right that style of like i don't i feel like in la i would always hear my friends call that the douche flip um of like when your hair like got so long and that was just sort of your vibe and i don't know what was the were people rocking that like because they wanted to have that hair or was that just sort of like an aesthetic of someone who wasn't really like into getting their hair cut so it's gonna look like this like do you get your hair cut to look like that i'm very ignorant somebody answer well i feel i feel okay my my take on it is it's i i hope that no one is doing it on purpose

it would be a really weird choice to be making intentionally my interpretation of that hairstyle has always been like yeah i don't really know like what to do with my hair it is what it is i'm more worried about like reading books and flirting like it's oh right right right someone's like i don't give a fuck you know you're just like all right do you think it was like you could get a haircut it was like non-committal metrosexual like when that whole thing was going on it's like you know i don't like care but like i'm gonna look pretty chill at the same time i don't even know the mid-2000s were such a cursed time in every single way i don't know i wouldn't put anything past a mid-2000s John Krasinski.

I was probably the worst person I was up until the year 2007. I think 2007 is when I began to just rethink everything I thought was real as a human being. Yeah. We were all processing George W. Bush the ways we could. And yeah, it was tough. Yeah. When you go to Europe during the Iraq war and someone's like, are you American? And you're like, what? And I'm like, oh, no, no, no, not me, Japanese.

Alex, we're going to get to know you even better, even more, more details about your life that people may not have heard yet on this. But we're going to talk a little bit. Let's give people a little bit of a preview. Some good news, actually. some bad news and some good news and i think we're going to tell you that's what the today's episode is going to be i think from a great decision from the supreme court to another terrible decision from the supreme court to a more tragic loss and just some maybe some ideas on what to do with some of these racist statues. What do we replace them with? I think that's a good discussion.

And my first suggestion would be not white people. Yeah. Hey, imagine that. First step. Step one. But hey, we're doing this in phases, America. There has been nothing more satisfying to me than, did you both see that screenshot of the Christopher Columbus statue on Google Maps? And it was just like pinging a location in the middle of a body of water.

It was so funny. Oh, I know the Bristol one. The statue that came down in Bristol had the thing like tagged in the bay rather than like where. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You'd love to see it. But hey, again, please, let's not mix up these symbols coming down for the actual structural changes we seek. I think that is the thing that we're trying to move out of as America. Our consciousness typically lets it end with the box ticking of thoughts, prayers, some piece of legislation that's milquetoast.

And then we go talk about Aunt Becky. Can you believe she bribed those people to get her daughter into college? And look, we were all guilty of that. But now I think this is a different era, or at least for a lot of us, it is. So, Alex. For a second, I thought you said

we were all guilty of bribery to get into a college. And I was like, no, what? What? Is this being recorded? No, don't do it. No, no, no. Got in purely off of those killer SAT scores. What were you better, math or verbal, Alex?

You seem like a verbal guy. Yeah, verbal. Had you pegged a verbal guy. Alex, what's some from your search history that's revealing about who thou art? The latest search thing I've got is it's SROs. It's the acronym SRO and then plural. And it's because we went,

I'm in Durham, North Carolina, and we went to a protest held by like Durham school students. And it was a protest about defunding the police, but specifically getting what are called school resource officers out of the schools. Because it turns out- Oh, I thought you meant single room occupancy, like affordable housing.

Okay, so we're all- I thought you meant standing room only. I was- SRO, so we're all- I thought you meant standing room only. I was- SRO is so hot right now. Okay. SRO. Right. There's a spectrum of SRO.

It's blowing up. I'm trying to buzz market it. No, we went to this thing and yeah, it turns out, and I didn't have a high school like this, but a lot of people have a high school or a middle school or a grade school where there's a full-time police officer in the building. And they more often than not tend to react the way police are reacting to everything, which is not the environment you want to have growing up as a kid in a school. So it was a really specific and well-run protest by like 17-year-olds, 18-year-olds, a few college kids who are home for the summer. It was awesome. Yeah. Amazing. Shout out to the youth.

I don't know. Thank you for educating me on what that SRO is too. I genuinely didn't know. Google first said single room occupancy and I was like, that can't be what the kids are mad about. Well, because I know like it's a big thing in talking about how we deal with the unhoused too of building more facilities that are just using this model to get people in stable homes to have an address

so they can actually begin to have shelter and apply for jobs and get out of the spiral of poverty. But yeah, like I said, SROs, a lot of buzz going around. But I think for a lot of people who were confused about these school resource officers, I mean, since the advent of the camera phone at least i always remember there being constant footage of like police officers roughing up 12 and 13 year old kids for like talking back and you're like what the yeah yeah stuff that it's

anyone listening i would encourage you to check out out on a local level, what is the school police force? Because it does vary so wildly. I didn't even realize until recently how overly prevalent it was in LA. There's an entire branch of the police force in my hometown that is dedicated to just harassing high schoolers. But it's different everywhere and it's yeah learn about what's going on in your neighborhood because it's i would guarantee more than you think oh yeah absolutely yeah uh and also i think poking around i was

poking around new york times had a write-up of the latest study is 2013-14 school year and they said that two-thirds of high school students 45 of middle schoolers and 19 of elementary school students uh were attending a school then that had a full-time police officer like like one-fifth of grade school kids have a cop watching them like what for what are they gonna are they gonna sharpen their pencil too much like i don't get it it's crazy because it's a contract for the police that they can basically use funds that were meant for education to then go back into these systems of oppression. And then we can act those out on our children to begin a cycle of trauma that they can, you know, just have the awful privilege of knowing very early. Yeah, that almost sounds bad.

Yeah, yeah. It's weird. Like, the shift rhetorically that I feel like we're having in the country is like people used to just say shit like the truth out loud like it was a joke and now people like that is true even though he said it with a bit a little bit of charisma that's interesting the educational budget is being siphoned off to then further fund this oppressive force of the police to act out. Oh, that's not a joke. Oh, let's.

OK. Hey, everybody. If we know better, let's do better. Alex, what is something underrated? Something underrated. Avatar, The Last Airbender. Holy cow. Like, I know people know it's good, but I had never seen it.

It pops up on Netflix. We ripped through it uh just like just one an adventure it's for all ages uh it's very creative and thoughtful I also I'm very very big on bison as an animal I don't know if people know that I have like a mini podcast about it and uh it's probably the most prominent bison character I have ever seen even though it's a fantastical one with six legs and it flies. It's a great show. People should check it out. Okay.

So I know, Jamie, you watched it when we were doing a Netflix review. Your eyes were open to the truth of airbending. I was blown away. I have since, I'm almost done. I got to get in. I know. You'll love it. You'll love it. I know because I have a program of watching things to distract myself from the horrors of

our current reality. And I think a good cartoon. But not just because it's cartoonish, but I think based on how everyone speaks about the series and what the message is and all that, sounds... I'm here for it. It's beautiful. Also, if people

are looking for a show to watch, I'd also, if people are looking for a show to watch, I'd also recommend I May Destroy You, the new HBO show with Michaela Cole, who is like, I got on board back when she released her first show, but it is just like unbelievably good. It's so good. Everyone should watch it.

It's heavy. They just had the second episode yeah it's just the same it's only two episodes deep and then if you love it you can go back and watch her first series chewing gum which i think might still be on netflix i haven't re-watched it in a bit but amazing amazing work she's the best uh okay well how something, even though she is not overrated, Alex, what is something that is? So if this brings people joy, like, go nuts. But I think baking your own bread is, like, it's not something you need to do. Like, you can buy really nice bread at the store pretty easily and not spend all that time on it.

I don't think people need to do it. Walk us through this. What happened? Did you arrive at this take through experience? Did you get radicalized by the anti-bread lobby? What happened? What happened? Short answer?

Yes. Are you crushed by big bread? I have seen people, especially tweeting lately, the basic idea that a month ago everyone was posting their sourdough starters and now it's entirely posting the need for social change and like keep it up but also like i think i think ever the the country was kind of on a phase of we're gonna spend may like needing like we're just gonna do that and then we're gonna make our own breads at home and we're not gonna shop for them but uh i think cooking cooking takes a lot out of me but also i enjoy doing it for like a big entire meal or like a whole elaborate dessert it takes a lot out of me, but also I enjoy doing it for like a big

entire meal or like a whole elaborate dessert or something. What do you mean it takes a lot out of you? Like a vampire that's been in the sun too long? Like you have to be like, I truly shouldn't be doing this anymore. Like what do you, what's the process for you? Because I like cooking. I do. I like it.

I think maybe whether it's the cookbook or the meal prep thing, like I see the amount of time it's supposed to take and then I judge myself. Like it says, oh, it'll only be like 15 minutes of active effort. And then I'm chopping for 45 and I'm like, why is, why am I already a couple Avatar episodes in this crazy, you know? Alex, this is the meanest thing I've ever heard you say. Yeah. When you said, what the heck is this?

I think those recipes, though, those are for people who, I can barely get a recipe done in time that says on a thing. But you have to let that go because your knife skills have to be so on point. You got to be doing so many things simultaneously to really have your shit together to do it. i just right i'm all about the ride baby you know it's just all about the ride that makes sense i'm with you i'm i've i'm never and again it's like it comes from a place of self-loathing self-loathing for me i'm like i'm never gonna be able to do it well or correctly and so i'm just i'm just like oh you can make your own bread fuck you i am stupid

and i can't so what's something have you have you made have you baked any have you made any food at home that you are that you have been impressed by with your own you know skills alex yeah um i'm excited about uh we made a red chicken curry recently that I feel good about. Been making like some cornbreads that I think are nice. Some pastas there are nice. Been learning how zucchini work. Turns out they're, you know,

very easy to make at home. I always thought that was kind of restaurant stuff. You're speaking to someone who is an ignoramus, but is doing their best. I just love that. Figuring out how zucchini works. Zucchini. You guys told me about this stuff before.

Can I hear about the zucchini? Wait, and you said you're in North Carolina? Yeah, yeah. So wait, because you were in LA, right? I don't know where you had gone with pandemic and all that. Take us on a journey. Yeah. Yeah, my wonderful partner Brenda lives here in Durham, and then I've been here often.

And then ever since the pandemic started, I've been sheltering here because it's great. How's Durham? How do you like Durham compared to the big city? Durham is awesome. If people don't know the research triangle, like Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, they're all really great small cities that are full of colleges and friendly people. And we're right near the Durham Bulls baseball team stuff. They're not playing, but it's a nice thing. I had a Durham Bulls fitted hat only because I remember at the house very early on, we had the Kevin Costner film, Bull Durham,

on our shelf and I recognized the logo and then I bought the hat and I had no idea what it meant until someone I went to school with who was from North Carolina was like, you know Durham? I'm like, I don't fucking know. I know this VHS tape that was on my wall um and you bought it on the strength of the cover like i mean i think it's

just like one of those things you know like when you're a kid and you try and like make consumer decisions but you have no fucking life purpose or fucking experience you're like trying to be trippy to the other kids at the champs you know or footlocker be like this head is cool man because i know this from that movie and they're like what i'm like i don't know dude i'm i'm nothing it's i spent all middle school like saving up allowance and like babysitting money to get a jack skellington hoodie although i had never seen the movie i did not know what it was about i just knew that like i wanted to pop for the goths and that was the way to do it wait so did you end up getting that hoodie

when you pulled all your babysitting money eventually it was kind of like I sort of missed the boat fashion wise for it but eventually they started to go on clearance and I got them and I wore them outside and like you know it didn't end up working out

but it was worth a shot and then i didn't see the movie for like still like 10 years after that damn wait so then you saw the so you saw the film in the last seven years uh yeah no i saw i saw the movie like two years ago and what do you think now that you now you're putting together the jack sallyton iconography with the film i didn't enjoy it that much honestly i didn't like it i was just like i just knew like you know there was such a like resurgence of like there was like an emo lyric that was like i want to be the jack to your sally and i was just like i don't know what that means but i like like the people that are saying it so probably i would like this

sweatshirt i don't like the movie though it's beautiful but the story kind of is is trash yeah i can't i just remember seeing it like live at the hollywood bowl they were doing like nightmare before christmas and i always just i don't know i didn't i wasn't a fan of like the claymation stuff at the time i mean i knew it was popular but i i was so ignorant to how much of a phenomenon it was because then i go there what the fuck are all these people doing here man people like really go all out for nightmare yeah christmas stuff and you're like it's kind of just about like a a skeleton that appropriates christmas like it's kind of best

part is like it had Danny Elfman. He was singing like it was like a lot of like people from the voice cast. But Danny Elfman was doing the singing because he was he wrote the music for it. But it then turned into like the most masturbatory performance for Danny Elfman where he's like, y'all remember Oingo Boingo? And we're like, no, no, no, no, no, sir. We didn't come. People didn't come here for fucking Oingo Boingo.

People came for Nightmare Before Christmas. But I get it. You have a, no, sir, sir. People didn't come here for fucking Oingo Boingo. People came here for Nightmare Before Christmas, but I get it. You have a captive audience. Right, right. It's like, well, we are all technically trapped here, so I guess go off about Oingo Boingo again. Oh, man. All right, and Alex, finally, what's a myth?

Man, what's something people just, you know, just drop some truth on people, open their minds right now. What's a myth? I think I, and this is what I want to like yell at everyone I see. Like, I think there's a myth that we are past the beginning of coronavirus stuff. Like the people are like, we did the beginning. Okay.

And now we can start to go back out. Like the very early part happened. And like people like, we went to this protest on Saturday. And then as we were like leaving to go home, there were like the let's hit the bars crowds showing up with no masks. It was pretty upsetting. Really didn't like it as a social practice. Like I think there's kind of three stages.

Like there's the beginning where cases are going up and we don't have good systems. And then there's the middle where cases are back down and we have good systems. And then there's the middle where cases are back down and we have good systems. And then there's like a later date when we'll have a cure vaccine or something. And we're in the beginning still. Like people need to really be careful.

They need to stay home if they can. And I think people also too, like I was reading a few threads from medical professionals, some write-ups and things, just about like the idea of what it means to recover from COVID-19. And there are so many, yes, there is the version where it's just a flu. There are people also getting lung transplants and all these other severe, severe medical issues. So once I, you know, like early on when I was

reading about like when people were like, they don't tell you what it's like when you're even have to be on a ventilator, like what that means for you after. When I was like, yes, it was easier to feel strong when I was like, it could be a flu. But when you sort of look at what the risks are, it's really frightening. It's also so discouraging to see people like truly like give up on social distancing ostensibly out of boredom. Like it just seems like even people that were still like very on board and very like, no, we have to stick to this even a month ago are now just like, I think we're done. Like it just, because it's not like dominant in the conversation. People are just like, okay, so this is fine.

It's like, no no it's not fine i think opening opening reopening has you know eliminated it has brought fomo back because before it was easy to be like i'm not going out ain't shit open who gives a fuck i'm inside we have to do this but the second you start hearing wait you start seeing people partying over here or going out to eat over there some people who i guess are purely just driven by like this need to socialize or be out or consume or be served or whatever like all that stuff just goes straight out the window um and i wonder how it also shows like in la too right because i can only speak for what i see in this city and state but our cases are not going down and we're going up yeah i mean yeah all that to

mean they are going yeah they're like significantly still it's like yeah and we're reopening and i feel like every person this just shows how i don't know blindly i don't know now this is what i'm trying to figure out and i posit this to crew here, of is it a mixture of people just blindly believing that the state knows what's best, and that's why they're going out? Because they're like, well, why would they open stuff if we couldn't go out? Or is it – I'm trying to figure out what's motivating these people, because I'm sure there is a group of people who are just like, well, why would they open if it wasn't safe? Right. I'm sure there is a group of people who are just like, well, why would they open if it wasn't safe? But yeah, I think, I think it's exactly what you said,

miles. And then I think it's also, and I think it's especially Americans. We just have this mentality that like problems don't last. Like you hear about a problem. And then if you kind of stop hearing about the problem, it's probably over. And so it's fine.

Even though like a problem can just keep going, you know, or like, like I, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a scientist, but like there was news I read when this started and it said X things were happening with cases and I was like, time to stay home. And then I read the news now and it's like the same stories. I think I should keep staying home. Like that's all I know. I'm just a guy who has Twitter, but that's what i see some of it does feel like social media brain of just like if people aren't seeing it in their feeds constantly they're just like oh i guess i guess that's done which is applies to many situations right now um but it's also i i don't know some of it is just it seems like just straight up willful

arrogance where like i had a family friend back in massachusetts still like throw her daughter a graduation party and her reasoning was that like well we understand social distancing at this point like we we like the vibe was very like we get it it'll be safe and it's like if you're bringing people into your home it's not safe like and there were old people there it's just yeah i think the assumption of like okay i know how to socially distance and and feeling like you you know no one knows how to deal with this correctly so so going in with that mentality is just like bound to be a disaster it feels like well and even to your point alex like america has this habit of entering a period of self-examination or awareness around something

and there's definitely a threshold for pain that you know the collective consciousness of america is willing to sort of endure and once that we get get past that, it's like, okay, do we really have to keep talking about this anymore? Because I think for coronavirus, it was, you know, people just sort of got to the point where now their discomfort around having to deal with the truth is just too much. And it's just a rejection of reality, it seems like. And I think just even to what you're saying about ignoring problems that persist, whether that's systemic racism, homophobia, transphobia, genocide of indigenous people, whatever it is, people are willing to look at it to a point.

And then when it becomes too uncomfortable, it's like, OK, can we really just please stop? Can we stop, actually? Like, I get it. I get it. Just to your point, even, too, Jamie, about this person saying, yeah, we get it. We get it. It's not like, no, no, no. It's not that no no it's

not that we just the point was you for you to agree that social distancing is needed and there's coronavirus go a step further and understand what the risks are to you and other people much in the same way with people coming having this you know aha moment with racism in the country go a step further now and understand what that is experientially not just just sort of like, right, I get it. I get it. Yeah. Right. These things aren't happening for you to have you get it. Right. It's that that's not how events work. That's not how the world works. And it just yeah. Yeah. And I think but I guess even I guess to go deeper when you look at even how we're educated, right, we're even in our own history, we're shown like this thing of like, then there was this problem and that went away. And then there was this thing and then that went away.

And then there was Hitler and then Nazis went away. And then there was this. And it's too, it completely robs people of the ability to parse through the nuances of how any given event unfolds and then how that event echoes into eternity if there isn't a reckoning with it yeah and i think a tendency i've been trying to like reflect on this more recently of just like how it's very it seems very common in the way where it taught history especially it's

like there was a gigantic systemic problem and it was solved by one or two people and then the problem hasn't existed since where like i've been because my mom's a second grade teacher and i've been talking to her about like well what do you teach your kids and like you know what broad lies are still being taught to kids and it's still like in a lot of schools, it's basically taught that like Martin Luther King solved racism basically single-handedly and now great and now it's gone. A real textbook should say Martin Luther King was assassinated when he began to connect the dots for people between capitalism and oppression. Shockingly, the books do not reflect that.

shockingly the books do not reflect that that would be a burn your eyebrows off level of truth coming out of that textbook but that's but even then it's like not even hot because that's just the grim reality of it but we it's like well don't say that it's like don't say what the truth because it's so dark imagine teaching capitalism as a concept at all as a part of history like never came up in a class that I took in high school. No. Well, but that's what the schools are. We're also taught like through this process of academia to become workers also. Like that's our training first.

And then we enter the workforce where we've been fully indoctrinated and inoculated and know how to be like, yep, you do this and then you get that. And that's how it works. I do this. I do my homework. I get a grade. I do my work. I get work i get a paycheck it's all man there's a lot and then i prop up this yeah and then i prop up the system by telling people to depend on the man for bread when in fact they could make it themselves i'm a stooge guys don't listen to me yeah this has been a long call out for alex yeah yeah Big Bread, we'll get to you after this commercial break.

Guys, just hold tight. We'll be right back. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha Libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha Libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition.

It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of my Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts.

Hello, everyone. I am Lacey Lamar. And I'm Amber Ruffin, a better Lacey Lamar. Boo. Okay, everybody, we have exciting news to share. We're back with season two of the Amber and Lacey, Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network. You thought you had fun last season? Well, you were right. And you should tune in today for new fun segments like Sister Court and listening to Lacey's steamy DMs. We've got new and exciting guests like Michael Beach.

That's my husband. Daphne Spring. Daniel Thrasher. Peppermint, Morgan Jay, and more. You got to watch us. No, you mean you have to listen to us. I mean, you can still watch us, but you got to listen. Like, if you're watching us, you have to tell us. Like, if you're out the window, you have to say, hey, I'm watching you outside of the window. Just, you know what?

Listen to the Amber and Lacey, Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Renee Stubbs, and I'm obsessed with sports, especially tennis. On the Renee Stubbs Tennis Podcast, I get the chance to do what I love, talk about how tennis and other women's sports are growing and changing

and what the future holds. I think I just genuinely loved what I did. I loved this waking up, putting on my sports gear. I still believe it was so rewarding. Maybe you can relate to it as well. As a woman, I think it's a very powerful feeling to have a job at which you're able to see improvements in real time. On the show, we dissect everything going on in the game

straight from the biggest players in the world. Plus, serve up recaps of all the matches and headlines in the game, including a rundown of the US Open every Monday. Listen to the Renee Stubbs Tennis Podcast every Monday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Fantasy football fans, the NFL season is here and now is the time to get ready to dominate your leagues.

The best way to crush your opponents this season is to listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast. Come hang out with me, Marcus Grant, and my pal Michael F. Florio as we give you all the info you need to absolutely steamroll your fantasy league and bring home a championship. You don't need to spend hours each day

breaking down every stat and every stitch of game tape to set a winning lineup. That's our job. We'll provide all the insights you need to set the best lineups each week. All you need to do is listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast when it drops five times a week. If you're looking for a smart, fun, and entertaining path to dominating your fantasy leagues, then look no further than the show Straight From The Source at NFL Media.

Do it before it's too late. Subscribe now and listen to the NFL fantasy football podcast on the iHeartRadio app on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back and some good news from the Supreme Court they they have decided that Title VII actually does apply to LGBTQIA Americans, that you cannot be discriminated against or fired against

based on sex, and that has been upheld. Can you imagine? What? By the Supreme Court? Like the one we got right now? And Neil Gorsuch neil gorsuch wrote the opinion no his i mean his i mean i guess it was a lot of people could say like

because gorsuch you know he he he regards himself as a textualist of the laws and will own like he looks at the words and what the words mean and he could tell based off that he's like how could this not apply to trans people or gay people like back in the 60s he's a magician he's a word magician he can just look at words and make interpret them to mean things that they don't say yeah uh it was and then cut to uh who is it um alito uh I think he wrote the dissenting opinion and it was just, it was so I could barely, I mean I don't really like to read these opinions because they're so wordy but like this time I was kind of interested.

The dude's like head was on fire. Like it was so clear that this was just sort of like well what the heck, you know this is what they meant in the city, it's just about men and women. It's just like, well, what the heck? This is what they meant in the city. It's just about men and women. So a bit of- You got the dissent in an email forward. It's just all caps.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. I believe that it was at Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas were the other justices who voted against this, which is just- 6-3. That's not even, that's, it wasn't even a 5-4. It's. 6-3. That's not even, that's, it wasn't even a 5-4.

It's a 6-3. And they all decided to really be on that. Okay. It is, it is like, it is great progress. I feel like it's news

that is needed right now. Right. And so it's like, it's, I'm very excited about it. I'm glad that like kavanaugh especially is getting like rightfully lit up online for because he basically promised that this is how he was going to vote yeah there are there are a few uh things that are worth mentioning as a part of this so

this is you know like the lgbt plus community being granted a basic civil right um but i wanted to just my my friend and who's also a wonderful comedian you should follow her grace thomas uh pointed out based on her own experience um i'll just read a tweet of hers she says uh we've won the civil rights part of the fight now on to the labor part of the fight any state with right to work legislation is still effectively a state where employers can fire uh we've won the civil rights part of the fight now on to the labor part of the fight any state with right to work legislation is still effectively a state where employers can fire trans and queer employees for their identities and simply blame it on something else so as um incredible as this decision is and as in the right direction this decision is it it's frustrating in some ways because it mainly prevents mask off uh discriminatory

firings and that is not to say that queer people and that trans people are fired for other reasons right um and that's what it was oh no it wasn't about the mask is on you know and i and i know it wasn't about that because if it was about that, I wouldn't be able to fire them. Therefore, I will be smarter in my discriminatory practices and use the law to my advantage. Yeah, it's true because on one level, it's like we have these things that are granting people rights and it is making sure that certain forms of discrimination aren't being able to be still acted out. But yeah, I think I'm not sure how this also applies to housing. I think there still might be something involved with the housing act that may also, this may also need to be another, you know,

frontier that we have to also make sure that we're making progress on. But this also ties into that just horrific announcement on Friday from the Trump administration where health and human services was basically saying like we're gonna fuck we're rolling back all the protections for lgbtq people when it comes to health care and health insurance on the anniversary of the pulse nightclub shooting during pride month uh and everyone was thinking like what if they're really they're going for it they just want to inflict maximum pain and trauma on these people. And our neighbors are coworkers. And when you look at, a lot of people were suggesting that this was just them trying to signal what their position was before

the Supreme Court ruled on this. Because this would have, I'm not completely sure, but I have a feeling this would also affect people discriminating based on sex in any kind of medical context as well. That's my understanding of it. I'm still trying to figure out the exact ramifications that, like, if the Supreme Court decision affects what was announced on Friday at all. From what I can tell, it most likely doesn't. The ACLU did a post on it, on the decision and on the context of the decision that says that federal laws against sex discrimination cover housing, education, healthcare, jury service, and credit.

So it's unclear to me. I think that the ACLU is still pushing for the Equality Act, which is a way more inclusive, like across the board, equal rights act. I'm not quite sure if the Supreme Court decision affects this. Yeah, all this to say is that this isn't, we're not fully there either way, regardless of what this is,

because until we just make that the blanket law of the land that it does not matter who the fuck you are, if you need some, you will get help. You will get medical care. We don't. Are you OK? Do you have a heart and blood and you're human? OK, great. We will take care of you until we like really articulate those kinds of values as laws. This struggle will continue.

And I think this is part and parcel of how America does progress, right? The points are made, there's a tipping point of representation enough that people will be like, oh, okay, we have to acknowledge this group of people. Here are some reforms, definitely steps in the right direction. But I think always we're in the pursuit of like real real real real equality and when you think about how you know how um less likely some trans people might be to get you know treatment for covid because they don't want to be they don't want someone asking what their sex is and then being discriminated like being denied medical care possibly like that's an awful, awful situation to be in.

And this is, again, but this is basic shit that we're having to still, you know, do to make sure that everybody is, you know, included. Yeah. And I know people say with a lot of problems, they're like, be sure to vote. And we say the correct thing of like voting doesn't fix all of it. But with the specific thing of this, I like voting goes a long long way especially because like the supreme court sort of reactively handles the absolutely massive constitutional stuff and then like congress in particular and state legislatures will write all the the important laws for the other stuff so yeah you know know

who's running for senate house and your uh your weird state legislature know about and your city i shouldn't even call it weird. It's thrilling. Does that excite you? I hope it does. There you go. Yeah. No, but really, know who represents you at every level.

Like, you're a fucking herb if I ask you who your city council person is, who your congressperson is, who your state is, and you don't know who that is. Don't come in here talking about you want to be an ally and you want to make stuff different

if you don't even know who to speak to that can make the changes that we need. So it's very easy. It's so easy to just Google. You're like, what city council district am I in or who's my assembly person? Really find out those people because you will be surprised the kind the the platforms they run on are not as inclusive as you think, just because they, you know, claim blue or Democrat or whatever. Yeah, I think that's there is a lot of shit going on behind the scenes it has been it's inspiring and motivating to see more and more people get on board with local politics and like learn more about like if you

don't know simply just educate yourself on it like it is not difficult to do there's a lot of people who are also doing it right now and yeah look at your city's or your county's budgets just look at those just take a look at those see where they see where the money's going to just inform yourself because you'll be surprised you're like what i thought oh no you're like my aunt's a teacher but they're giving this way more huh weird yeah there's like majority blue there's like blue cities that are still I mean, LA being one of them that is giving all of our efforts to get one different city council person in who's not like fully bought by real estate developers and the police unions like it's and like to the point where like i'm not even in the district i'm like okay so how much money do i have to raise for this in district four great let's go totally totally let's go

because everyone else is such a friggin tool of, ah, anyway, please get involved in your local politics, please. Just inform yourself. And also, honestly, very exciting that six whole Supreme Court justices said that trans people have civil rights in a general way. Like, you know, I want it to be nine, but six is more than a bare majority. All right, cool. Yeah, we can't, I mean, slowly.

It's a slow march there, but hopefully we can pick up the pace because I feel like we're in the midst of something where people are opening their hearts a bit more to understanding what it means to take care of everyone and what it means to be human. I think white people, certain groups, certain amount of white, well-intentioned,

white liberal people, and maybe conservatives woke up to what it meant to be black or connect the dots of humanity to blackness i don't know what but that is definitely occurring for some people and hopefully people can begin to put these things away of not just saying someone is black or someone is trans or someone is gay or someone is from this you can find a million ways to describe somebody as different than you but you're overlooking the basic thing which is that is a human being and if you are even somebody who could be looked at as someone different uh and would you want someone to look at you differently and say oh i'm not gonna fucking help that person because they're blank like that's the kind of that's the mentality i think we're slowly trying to to abandon where that there are some they're qualifiers to the level of humanity that you deserve.

And that by not doing stuff, you're enabling the existing prejudices. Like in particular with this, just with rolling back, you know, health protections for trans people. It's like trans people are already facing a huge uphill battle with most medical professionals yeah and to further roll that back is going to i mean it it is inhumane it literally costs lives it does not force any medical professional to have to learn or acknowledge uh trans people it's just yeah yeah um the other thing i'm just kind of overall i feel like

wait i feel like i'm witnessing in terms of like the discourse is that like the the rule the people in the ruling positions the ruling class the you know socio socioeconomic classes that are well up there past the one percent just they fucking really don't get it they really really really have completely disconnected themselves from the reality of regular people and cannot read like completely unable to read the room um because they i think they're so used to a system or culture that allowed them to operate like that that now that they're finding themselves in a place where like the trump like the trump administration was like oh they literally said they were caught off guard by the level of blowback from uh scheduling their rally on juneteenth in tulsa oklahoma and then they're like oh okay we'll do the 20th i mean i think

they did but i think they also figured maybe not enough white people would also be upset about that you know what i mean because yeah they're they're fine being cruel at any juncture like they're fine with that that's the whole point but some for them to say like whoa we didn't expect this kind of blowback that's like we're caught off guard that means like we didn't expect like some other white people to tell us this was bad too oh okay which is just it it is so like I mean, on so many levels, it's just like, oh, wait, everyone gives a fuck about black history? Hold on. We didn't, what?

It's just, to be shocked by that. Did you know about this room full of other white people in the same generation who have been making millions of dollars for the last 20 years? Did you guys see this oh my god well they didn't talk about that at the country club or wherever the fuck i go to socialize away from those dark money meetings there at the wine cave circle jerk right where you put your phone in a shredder at the beginning and you get a new iphone at the end of the meeting but it's just i mean like when i look at stuff like that and i look at some of the reforms reforms not fucking not not not full-on abolition reckoning uh defunding de-emphasizing but reforms that cities are offering up in response

these demonstrations are also indicative that they do not they're not hearing us they don't get it and i think part some do because they know what it means to give the people what they want which would mean you know crippling a whole industry of militarized police and prisons that have been making billions of dollars um but i mean i'm just looking at the reforms right in minneapolis and saint paul i think they're doing a good job because they were immediately like okay we're gonna we're gonna try and figure this out. But we're still seeing things at other departments like, we're going to prohibit warrior-style training or just a ban on all neck restraints or let's not use rubber bullets anymore. Or let's just do a police body cam video must be released within three days of any police use of serious or deadly force. Okay. That's not, these are not the things that people are asking. Again, these are just tokens.

These are symbols. But I think, I feel like so many people are beginning to see the police departments in their cities for what they are. Yeah. I truly, I truly had no idea it could be different until all this started. Like I was like oh okay i've i've played sim city you have to have hospitals and fire and police you have to build all three of those otherwise everything goes crazy great and like no you can just do it differently and i learned that like two weeks ago which feels crazy it's uh like not not crazy in a bad way just like holy cow what a thing i was not aware of until right this month, you know? Right. And it does feel so disingenuous for the reform argument to keep cropping up.

I feel like as the weeks go on, less and less people want reform. It's not like the desire for police reform is increasing. I feel like there's people that, you know, I was talking to two weeks ago that are like, well, let's relax, let's do reform better reform that are now, now that they've learned more and educated themselves a little more, are more inclined to embrace abolition entirely. It just seems like it's a response to a demand that is not actually happening. Because if you just think of it, right, even if you said like in places where there isn't a lot of social support or the local economy is depressed like if someone just said what do you think is motivating people to commit

crimes some most people say it's a lack of support it's a lack of access to education it's a lack of access to health care there's just generally no upward mobility so you see increased crime uh out of desperation and otherwise and that's what you're seeing. But then so but the county's answer or the city's answer to that problem is, well, why don't we just get more people to fucking shoot them? And then they'll stop being bad. Right. That's essentially the logic, because then we'll have we'll put more police in there. They'll be shook when they see all these cops. That'll get them to think twice when they when they realize they're living in a country that has completely abandoned them for centuries like i don't know what i it just seems so disingenuous and i think we we have this thing where these reforms all they do is just further this process

of denial because if by saying we just need to reform things you're not you're avoiding the real conversation here about like what are these police doing in the context of making us safer? Is this conversation about making us safer and increasing our well-being? Or is this about this concept of crime and the good and the bad and these fucking dudes have to show up in diet SWAT team outfits

or full-on SWAT outfits? Yeah, like full Avengers mode. It doesn't make... And that's all people are saying. Like, just put the money into help. Like, let's help people. Let's help. It feels like the way that some conversations are going is like, well, we

should get police for the police. You're like, no. What? That was like that cracked video. Tiny guns for your guns. Oh, yeah, yeah. Who will protect your gun? A tinier gun. But yeah, there's no conceivable situation

where the police should need a separate group of people to stop them from brutalizing citizens. It's just like, have less of the people, get rid of the people brutalizing citizens. And the fact that, I mean, when I've been trying to talk to my friends and relatives about police abolition, I feel like it is always helpful to remind people that a lot of these reforms that are being proposed have already, are already in place like these are things that should already be happening um right but because of the ways that police are um trained and empowered and have found ways around like it's establishing these rules a lot of for a lot of police departments these rules are already there and people are just disregarding them and like it's well and they've done a really good job of creating all these structures that will protect them from actually account having to account for their wrongdoing, whether that's like the who investigates them internally.

What happens then if there are laws to protect them from lawsuits? Can they they can still get their fucking pensions even if they get fired for this kind of stuff? Like it's almost it's like, what are you going to do? OK, you fired me. Guess what? I still get my Derek Chauvin, I think, still stands to get a million dollars from his pension after murdering George Floyd, because these are how these laws are set up because being a police officer, you want to talk looting.

That's what they're doing. And you, and in LA, right? Like, so over the weekend I was talking, I was on a, like a sort of Q and a call with Nithya, uh, who is running for city council uh c4 for district 4 in la and she's one of the few she's a city planner she's highly highly motivated to begin to dismantle these systems of oppression and inequality in this city but that's tough because everybody else on that council is bought by everybody um and she's had a really stunning stat that she mentioned on this

call saying that it's less than, I think, 25 people in the entire city that are meant to do one-on-one engaging with our unhoused population in the city. Only 25. We have over what? 10? Yeah. In the city, I think. I don't know if it's a county, but I know in the city, that's what it is. And the city is gigantic. And when you look at the numbers that we have, that homelessness has gone up by 14%, it's not. But we have all these. Before coronavirus, it went up by 14%. Right. Who knows with the second housing crisis that's coming along with an administration that says that giving people unemployment is disincentivizing or describing it like that.

unemployment is disincentivizing or describing it like that. This is where the real, this is the real like war that's happening, you know, because, but the, you know, we're convinced that, oh, well then, you know, maybe we need to work hard or whatever. No, no, no. This is set, this is all being set up for people to make more money off of our pain and then walk off laughing. And I just want to bring up that with all these reforms that we've seen, because we don't want reformation, we want transformation at a bare minimum.

Andrew Cuomo, you know, they passed a few laws. Great, great steps forward. But then he said, quote, this is Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York on Saturday, he said, you don't need to protest. You won. Okay. Quote, you accomplished your your goal society says you're right the police need systemic reform and he's trying to end the outrage there and thinks that this can be bottled up this cannot be bottled up because we still have we're still talking about toyan salau who was killed in florida after reporting that she was assaulted uh and the police failed to protect her. We still have, we still, I'm sorry, what's the young woman that was killed in Akron? Nakia Crawford, somebody pulled up to her car and just shot her through her window. A black woman.

And they said a white man had just killed her at a stoplight. We are not having a reckoning with the real systemic issues and the pathology of racism in this country. It's just really disheartening. So I don't, when some governor is trying to say, hey, you guys won. No, we haven't won until I don't have to read about another black trans woman dying, black trans person dying, any trans person being denied care, any homeless person, any unhoused person being denied care any uh person who's been brutalized by police not getting justice these are the kinds of things that that's when that's when things can end but but it's not going to as long as we get these you know milk toast reforms fuck out of here that's yeah i mean that that is like the danger of incrementalism and

people like where people are like well what's wrong with, you know, in stating eight can't wait and like what's wrong with it's like, okay, when you do that, you're if, you know, someone like Cuomo passes a very, very, very basic reform. They're just going to say, I did something. We're done. Let's move on. Let's go back to the status quo it's like if you're not pushing for what the ultimate goal is you know people are people will always find a way to halfway it or and and in this case not even halfway it like the police have never respected human life less like it's just yeah that quote from him was infuriating. That's dead on, Jamie.

Because the most surprising thing to me is I feel like nationally for all police officers, there should have been like a automatic quiet reform going on of just all of them knowing this isn't the time. You know what I mean? Like, if I was a police officer right now, I would know, like, it's more likely than ever that if I do something crazy and brutal, it'll be national news. Like people are paying attention. And, and in spite of that,

we've got Atlanta this weekend and we've got everything else going out. Like they didn't ramp down at all. So, so when people say, Oh, let's do a reform that tells the police to be a little slower to do something brutal. You would think like the news did that and it didn't,

they're just doing it. Even that is being ignored. I mean mean we have like last week in in seattle and in portland there are cases of the police saying okay we're not gonna uh we're not gonna use tear gas anymore and then 25 seconds later they're using it again like it's oh no that's a different kind of tear gas that's the thing so yeah that's actually um it's tear gas from canada it's kind of tear gas. That's the thing. Yeah, that's actually tear gas from Canada. It's Canadian tear gas. These systems will always find an excuse to, if they feel like they can get away with giving you 2%

of what you actually want, then they will just do that and call it a day. Right. And not to say, like, repealing 50A in New York is a huge deal because it basically says it all your records to or your performance stuff will be out there to see but even in minnesota people knew about derrick chauvin so it's not because that's just one that's just one part of the game to obscure the actions of police is the things like 50a but at the end of the day they're still if they don't

have a reckoning with themselves it's not going to happen because essentially no i mean i and i know that policing is diverse but let's be real it's an expression of toxic white male supremacy so you're it's going to act the same way that all these white comics did when people started getting woke and being like rather than like seeing what time it was just reasserting themselves. I'm like, nah, what the fuck's the problem, man?

Nah, this is bullshit, dude. We've been doing this for you. Oh, now you want to change it off. Fuck that. Like that's the energy of the police right now.

It's the same way when somebody has to evolve, but their privilege has not ever afforded them the chance to be, you know, reflective or see themselves for anything aside from the good guy that they have just diluted themselves into believing they are. And it's the same. And watch. And I don't know.

This is just kind of, this is a theory, but much in the same way a comic gets canceled and goes to alt-right, I think the cops are already alt-right. So maybe they are. Yeah, they made that jump a while ago. Yeah. That'd be funny if they're like, the cops are learning from Louis C.K. Before we get to that, let me just cut that thought off

and let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. Hello, everyone. I am Lacey Lamar. And I'm Amber Ruffin, a better Lacey Lamar. Boo. Okay, everybody,

we have exciting news to share. We're back with season two of the Amber and Lacey Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network. You thought you had fun last season? Well, you were right. And you should tune in today for new fun segments like Sister Court and listening to Lacey's steamy DMs.

We've got new and exciting guests like Michael Beach. That's my husband. Daphne Spring, Daniel Thrasher, Peppermint, Morgan Jay, and more. You got to watch us. No, you mean you have to listen to us. I mean, you can still watch us, but you got to listen. Like if you're watching us, you have to tell us, like if you're out the window, you have to say, hey, I'm watching you outside of the window. Just, just, you know what? Listen to the Amber and Lacey, Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's

Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. And of course, Lucha Libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha Libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha Libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance.

It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask.

Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of my Cultura podcast network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. I'm Renee Stubbs, and I'm obsessed with sports, especially tennis. On the Renee Stubbs Tennis Podcast, I get the chance to do what I love, talk about how tennis and other women's sports are growing and changing and what the future holds. I think I just genuinely loved what I did. I love this waking up, putting on my sports gear. I still believe it was so rewarding. Maybe you can relate to it as well. As a woman, I think it's a very powerful feeling to have a job at

which you're able to see improvements in real time. On the show, we dissect everything going on in the game straight from the biggest players in the world. Plus, serve up recaps of all the matches and headlines in the game, including a rundown of the US Open every Monday. Listen to the Renee Stubbs Tennis Podcast every Monday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Fantasy football fans, the NFL season is here, and now is the time to get ready to dominate your leagues.

The best way to crush your opponents this season is to listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast. Come hang out with me, Marcus Grant, and my pal Michael F. Florio as we give you all the info you need to absolutely steamroll your fantasy league and bring home a championship. You don't need to spend hours each day breaking down every stat and every stitch of game tape to set a winning lineup. That's our job. We'll provide all the insights you need to set the best lineups each week. All you need to do is listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast when it drops five times a week. If you're looking for a smart, fun, and entertaining path to dominating your fantasy leagues, then look no further than the show Straight From The Source at NFL Media.

Do it before it's too late. Subscribe now and listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. You were saying, Alex? Oh, there's been so much news I forgot about that wave when a bunch of white, older comics were like, I will be damned if I have to continue to write.

You know, it was great. Right. But what a time. Okay, bye. New jokes from me. And that was the problem. But that's the arrogance I think whiteness affords some people is to not ever look at themselves as being in the wrong

because white faces and narratives have dominated the realities we've consumed for centuries. So that would be jarring. Yeah. But you know what? That's what time it is right now. So punch your ticket. Don't be an asshole and then have to tell people you were wearing a MAGA hat in the summer of 2020.

Embarrassing. Okay. Moving on. This should not be a surprise. There's a new Gallup poll out saying that Americans aren't feeling too good about the state of things here in this country. Now, I've never been one to wave a flag or own clothing with USA emblazoned on it. You didn't do the Old Navy tank tops, Miles? Nah, nah, fuck that. I stopped fucking with Old Navy when the performance fleece boom died out. like emblazoned on it i think you didn't do the old navy tank tops miles nah nah i stopped

fucking with old navy when the performance fleece boom died out old navy performance fleece old navy remember that shit yeah i was fucking with performance fleece um and old navy was tight because you could go in there with fucking 20 bucks and you come out with a whole new outfit yeah oh you know and they'd be like oh my god what happened to you i'm like don't worry baby it's a whole performance fleet out performance fleece outfit um i digress but you know i think when i think most people right i think thinking american people who have a sober eyed take on what this country is aren't probably view this country as a failed experiment with pockets of decency and fantastic pr just fantastic the pr is actually the best thing about this company this country uh because

we're doing all kinds of shit and people think we're number one and then the un is like um we should act maybe need to send like poll observers to watch the elections uh we need to talk about human rights violations because i think the pr scheme is starting to wear thin a bit. But now there's this Gallup poll that has been going on for 20 years. And for the first time, the self-view of how Americans feel about the country has hit its lowest since they began this poll for only 20 years. So right now, it's still a majority. Don't get me wrong.

63% say they're extremely or very proud uh but that is still the lowest figure ever the highest right after 9-11 when it was 92 and only eight percent of the country realized what america was doing abroad uh to bring that kind of terror to the country um and then it's just the dixie chicks uh and then so 40 uh so when they break it down only 20 of respondents in the entire thing though said they're satisfied with the direction of the country which is very interesting and even like among conservatives 67% of Republicans now describe themselves as extremely proud. That's a nine point dip from last year. Wow. That's for Republicans. Now, I don't know if they are responding to the, you know, it could also be like, I hate what this country is doing. Look

at what George Soros is getting Antifa to do with these fake deaths of George Floyd. You know, like if they're on that kind of thing and that's what they're responding to, but, or if they're like, uh, this is, this is bad. I think it all depends on how you're engaged. These are interesting.

Cause I feel like what is reflected here is like when people are saying whether they're proud to be an American or not, I feel like more often than not, people are responding to like an image of the idea they have of America and like what you've been told your whole life it stands for and maybe not always what it actually is and what it actually is doing so I don't know yeah maybe people are just kind of not only just seeing what's happening right in front of them but perhaps realizing they have been sold a lie. I hope so.

And even if you're waking up to it, don't feel bad. Just realize that now you have work to do. That's all. Just time to roll your sleeves up. And I've seen this tweet said a thousand times over the weekend from a lot of black Twitter users of saying like, oh, wow, you're really getting tired of thinking about race in this country? Okay. You're getting tired.

Okay. Fantastic. And I'll leave it there. Because just this is the work we have to do. And I think you should be excited that you could possibly be in a time in American history where we could do something significant. But you don't. The second those distractions come back, that's what I get worried about. Well, I also, because I'm sort of surprised this poll didn't find more people who are upset about America, because like that's that's the kind of question where you could come

to I'm upset about America or not feeling good about its image like a lot of ways. Like you could also come to it from the way of like, there are too many people against Trump. Like, like that could be your reason. Right. Uh, like I remember when I stopped watching the NFL or football in general, it was because I think like the brain injuries are scary and they have like covered up evidence of it, giving people long-term concussions and problems. And like, I have those reasons. And then I would tell people that without getting to the reason why. And occasionally they'd be like,

yeah, too many people kneeling. You're right. And I was like, no, no, no, I'm not on your team. No, no, no, different thing. Like we're separate. And so with this pride in America thing, I could see a lot of people being like, you know, it was a great country,

but then liberals started blah, blah, blah. Like there could be a lot of reasons for people. Well, it's definitely the lowest it's been for Democrats, too, because when they break it down by party, Democrats are always a little are obviously going to be more critical because some people I don't know who on the right could be critical of America for the right reasons. Aside from what you're saying is like, I don't know if respected the commander-in-chief and let the president lead the country, we'd be in a lot better place. Okay? Right. Yeah.

Yeah, people, I'm sure that people are responding to a lot of different ideas here that are just expressed under the same umbrella. Yeah. Yeah.

But everyone, the point is, everyone is disappointed. Yeah. Yeah. I tried to go to Quiznos and I couldn't eat it sitting inside the restaurant. That's what we're talking about, idiots.

I'm a systemic racism. Systemic what? Uh-oh. I don't know. I don't want to talk about that. I'd rather talk about Quiznos. I'd like to pivot back to Quiznos. Do you remember the prime rib peppercorn sub? Do they

still have that? I'm sorry. No, we were talking about it. Okay, you know what's... Okay, that's too much Quiznos knowledge. Hop off in your Ford Ranger. We'll see you later. Damn. Okay, and finally, just wanted to bring up this idea. On yesterday's show,

I don't forget how much I talked about it, but it was very nice to see all these physical manifestations of slavers in the forms of statues and flags and things start coming down. And places like Belgium where King Leopold, man, if you didn't know, look, I'll make it easy. There's a Behind the Bastards episode about King leopold and what he did in the congo uh check that out because if you really want to understand like this is not an this is not an american thing this is a global thing this idea of white supremacy and the subjugation of non-white people is a it's been around um and actually a lot of our greatest enlightenment thinkers helped begin to create these ideas that would actually be rationalizations for black subjectivity or brown subjectivity. This is a centuries long thing we're dealing with.

But it was nice to see these symbols come down because clearly people, we all got on the same page. Survey says, ding, racism bad, slavery bad. It used to be a hot take no longer. So the statues come down. And now like a lot of people are asking like, what do we replace them with? You know, what are we going to do? There's, like, a statue of Nathaniel Bedford Forrest, who I knew he was in the KKK because of Forrest Gump. Because I believe his first name was based off of his last name.

the first name was based off of his last name uh that yeah that sculpture came up in 1978 and you know they are more and more people want to get rid of this thing uh and there's been all kinds of talk about like what do we do can we replace it can we what do we do with these statues like robert e lee do we put it up with uh someone from guar you know uh or do we take that a statue down of a slaver in new orleans and put up britney spears i'm sorry new orleans i didn't mean to say new orleans i will cancel myself uh in new orleans okay and put it up with britney spears or in tennessee how about a great tennessean dolly parton i think these are good ideas in general just to be like replace them with people the state is proud of. But it's not with like just like non problematic white people.

That feels like a like not not quite. I don't know. Bit of a lateral move. I think. Look, it's some American. Some Americans. It's going to. It takes a minute.

They just some people just got to the point that slavery bad okay uh unfortunately uh and that was that already took some some 100 odd years uh but now it's like we'll put them another white person so white people don't get mad that a white person who is nice yeah i was just i was just reading like casually i'm like trying to find out like who some of like, you know, Nashville's like great black, like people are from history, black Tennesseans.

And there's so many, so many stories that you could include that are so amazing. There's one about this slave named Jack Macon. And if you're any place named Macon is named after the slave owning family. And his master the man who owned him saw that this slave had a knack for healing people and treating like wounds and help like just as like a healer a doctor to the point where this white man had him practice on white people and white people were like oh my god this jack guy really is able to like he's he's

got a skill but this but when they got busted the state was like no slaves can't practice anything like that's impossible no no no they're not human like shame on your your owner blah blah blah the owner went across the state to try and you know skirt the authorities to allow this man to practice more and a lot of the white patients that he was seeing were signing petitions to try and get the state to allow him to practice medicine because they even saw objectively, this guy, he's doing something that is beneficial to us. And down to the point where he's listed

in Nashville's earliest records as one of the first doctors, but it just said Dr. Jack because he didn't have a last name because he was owned. He was not a human. So he was just listed as Dr. Jack. And it's have a last name because he was owned. He was not a human. So he was just listed as Dr. Jack. And it's just a really, you know, that's an interesting story from our history because we don't look, I think this is another opportunity for many people to look at the history of their own cities too, because a lot of great things have been done, but there's a reason why certain names are elevated and others are you know suppressed um or you know any number of like you know why aren't there more statues we

need more like ida b wells statues we need more other statues of uh of like radical black thinkers who are putting the work down that hopefully will be a roadmap to this new sense of liberation a lot of people are moving towards but But I don't know. Take a look. It's in a book. I didn't know anything about Dr. Jack. I didn't either. That was merely me just being like,

who are some notable black Tennesseans in history? There's another man named Alfonso Sumner who started one of the first black schools in Nashville before the Civil War because trying to educate black people. But that was illegal. So he was chased out and he went ended up going to cincinnati then this another man named daniel watkins started uh black schools in nashville to the point where like in 1850 something uh up to 80 percent of uh black people in tennessee were literate because of schools like this because they were they were illegally

educating themselves because ignorance is the way people are kept down and i think that's a thing that people learn very early on these are the kinds of stories i feel like people would talk about more too because there's so much i don't know there's just so much uh substance uh there too not to say look i stay in dolly park okay don't get me wrong about no dolly but if we're if we're having a con if we're having a conversation about a racial reckoning in this country and taking down statues of KKK grand wizards, then I think what you'd want to do is someone that was diametrically opposed to that to now stand on that space. Because that would be something. That would be at least some small form of a reclamation. And Dolly Parton has the greatest monument you

can have which is dollywood it's an excellent theme park she's gonna go there fried dough it's great yeah if if this could be reframed kind of as an opportunity not to just replace um statues of racist oppressors with just people who aren't racist oppressors but as an actual educational opportunity of if you know if these statues are going up where you live you could you stand a chance to learn uh about someone you may not have known about at all and like yeah the opportunity is there so don't there there's no there's no use in making a lateral move no that's why I think why, especially, unfortunately, to say that we're no longer waiting

to delay equality is going to begin being painted as a radical stance because I think like most people, right? Incremental change is not helpful, especially when we are sober and clear-eyed enough to diagnose the problem.

If we can see the problem, then we have a responsibility to diagnose the problem if we can see the problem then we have a responsibility to solve the problem there's just no there's just no way around that and i just don't even understand rhetorically how you could say like yeah we know that racism is the problem but let's deal with this other stuff on the way there it's like you just said okay well yeah especially statues like like people are getting told, oh, you should have done the legal way of removing the statue.

But then when you just look it up, in a lot of cases, it turns out people tried. Like that statue in Bristol, England of a famous slave trader. Like people had been trying the legal way for a long, long time and the city just stonewalled it.

And so then they tore it down. Like it's not just situations where people are up and up ending it like they tried other ways too right and i think that's why also like voting is only part of this new way of getting changed because like yeah when people put feet put their feet on the street look how much look how many things changed because of that because people know voting is too nebulous they're at they're telling up numbers on a spreadsheet at the end of the night on that tuesday that's how that's how a lot of politicians

if you're if you're lucky yeah right it's not even a guarantee right exactly assuming that we even have that basic you know right uh met then uh but after when you see millions of people in the street, that basically signals the thing to people that there's a lot of people who care so much they're going out. Anyway, but we'll see. Cause I'm part of me is still like skeptical that, you know, because of just the nature of how this country has tried to resolve issues with racism, that this could be another moment where everybody's foot goes off the gas. Um, and like it was,

it happened to just be a perfect storm of time to focus because of a pandemic and things like that. But we'll know when sports are fully back up and all these other things, if we're still willing to have these conversations. And if people are not willing and you are listening to this show we have a responsibility to make sure people do keep talking about this because you know we it seemed like most people were on the same page unless it was performative anyway acknowledgement isn't a solution it's just acknowledgement thank you so much uh for stopping by schmitty oh it's been a blast thank you so much for stopping by Schmidt A

it's been a blast thank you guys where can people find you follow you and what's a tweet you like oh yeah I'll pull up a tweet here you can find me on the internet I'm at Alex Schmitty on Twitter and at Alex Schmitz Instagram on Instagram and I also have links there for a

like little newsletter it's tinyletter.com slash Alex Schmitty next show and you can find what i'm doing next by just sign up for that newsletter and then forget about it and focus on important things and i'll let you know when the time comes what i'm doing next and i'm also i got to guest on a great show called the dork forest hosted by jackie cation who's a nice uh nice and great and really funny what's the dork so that's out soon too. It's a show where you get to talk a whole lot about something you're particularly dorky about. So I got to talk about Grover Cleveland

and also talk about an abolitionist named Benjamin Lay and it felt great. All right. I could talk about history until my head falls off. So that was really nice. It was a good time. All right, well, challenge accepted. If you guys want to see the live stream

where Alex's head comes off, I'm talking about history so much, drop a dollar. And is there a tweet that you like? Yeah, this is from Joel Stein, who's a writer and does comedy. And the tweet is, as the world embraces authoritarian personality cults, one of the greatest strengths of Joe Biden is that no one is excited about him. Yeah, no one is excited about him. Jesus. Yeah, no one is excited about him at all. He's not going to be one of those.

It's going to be great. It's an evergreen tweet. It's funny, though, too, when people are being like, oh, look, Trump can't even drink that water and stuff. I'm like, dude, Joe Biden said he was going to beat Joe Biden in the general election. I'm like, uh, Jami,

Jame, Yami, Yamboni, Zamboni, Zamboni. Uh, where can people find you, follow you?

What's the tweet you like? Uh, you can follow me on, uh, Twitter at Jamie Loftus help if you're so inclined. Um, but you know, keep talking to your families,

keep reading, keep doing shit don't take your foot off the gas i'll recommend a jabuki tweet there's not a bad one in existence um his tweet is white people in media be like self-care is so important to avoid burnout in these times for example i just found out yesterday that black people are human and I immediately needed a nap. All right. Truly. He's the best. You can find me miles of gray, Twitter,

Instagram, PlayStation network. Also my other podcast for 20 day fiance. Talk about that trash fire. 90 day fiance. Some tweets. I like, ah, typical first one from at reductress. Also, my other podcast, 420 Day Fiance. Talk about that trash fire 90 Day Fiance. Some tweets I like. Oh, typical. First one from at Reductress.

It's a nice white smiling woman in a hoodie saying, My allyship might not be perfect, but it certainly isn't helpful either. Please think about that. Please be effective. Let's be effective. The Onion at The Onion City enters phase four of pretending coronavirus over. Because that's really what some places really look like. And also this last one is from Nick Estes. Nick underscore W underscore Estes.

It says, historian here, tearing down a statue is not erasing history. Putting up a statue on land whose original caretakers you can't name is. Yeah. Chew on those facts for a bit there. Yes, The Daily Zeitgeist is a production of iHeartRadio. And you can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist, Instagram at The Daily Zeitgeist, Facebook fan page. And if you want some more podcasts, check out the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. We also have a website, dailyzeitgeist.com

where we post our episodes and our footnotes. Thank you. And we post that and the songs you write out on. The song today is a track by Dirty Art Club. Great little producer. Very sample-based, trippy soundscapes

that are nice to listen to. This track is called Arctic Garden by Dirty Art Club. It's this nice mosaic of sounds. That's why I love, you always hear me whine or wax poetic about sample-based music.

It's great. It's great. It's like the original stealing for music. All right. I guess we're gonna ride on on that. I guess we are.

All right. Well, thanks so much for joining us. We'll see, I guess we'll see y'all on that I guess we are alright well thanks so much for joining us we'll see I guess we'll see y'all in a little bit later today for some trending take care of yourselves

please take care of yourselves please take care of yourselves please be kind to yourselves okay and please be kind to each other alright we will take care and we'll see you tomorrow or later today

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