The Young Turks - TYT's JUNETEENTH SPECIAL

Episode Date: June 17, 2023

Join hosts Senator Nina Turner and Adrienne Lawrence as they discuss the key issues impacting the Black community. Panelists include Mayor Mondale Robinson, Sharon Reed, Jayar Jackson, and Sharon Reed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Hello and welcome to TYT's Juneteenth special. And we got some important things to discuss around 2023 and the history of Juneteenth. The first half of this evening's coverage, we're joined by Mayor Mondale Robinson, who is a Rebel H.Q contributor and the mayor of Infield, North Carolina. And we have journalists extraordinaire, the one and only Sharon Reed. And Sharon Reed will be with us the entire hour. So the first half an hour, you got the mayor and myself and Sharon. And the second half an hour, you got J.R. Jackson, Sharon Reed, and. And and Adrian Lawrence, so don't you go anywhere. Now Juneteenth, it definitely comes at a troubling time, but it certainly is a historic occasion.

It really is about the emancipation proclamation of 1863, and then in 1865 in Galveston, Texas, it took like two and a half years for the enslaved black people of Galveston, Texas to realize that the emancipation proclamation had set them free. Now as a historian, I'm going to give you a whole bunch of background about that, but that's basically the gist of it. I mean, don't get me started about the border states where people were enslaved still in those border states like Maryland, et cetera, et cetera, a West Virginia where they were still enslaved. The emancipation and proclamation did not set them free, but I digress, it was just a historian to me. But let's take a look of some of the things that have been happening to the black community in modern times. That is not accidental. This is what happened.

happens when you lose democracy. This is what we are fighting against and must stand up against as legislators and as people and as citizens across this country because it's starting in Tennessee, but it won't end here. So we are advising our members and others that if you go, be cautious of how you operate in the state, that if you have another choice to hold your convention, consider a place outside of Florida. I don't know, funny fact is black people did not get to enjoy the other freedoms until their Second Amendment rights were secure. And I think that that's one of the lessons that we aren't allowed to enjoy the freedoms. I disagree with you on that, Don.

I disagree with you. I think you're doing a disservice to our country. I want to bring everyone together, said Justin Pearson, in a voice that if you closed your eyes, you could easily imagine coming from a suburban orthodontist. Justin Pearson wasn't white. That's probably how we got into Bowden in the first place. Jamal Bowman shouting at the top of his lungs, cursing, calling me a horrible, And calling me a white supremacist, which I take great offense to, that is like calling a person of color the N word, which should never happen.

Oh, the good bad days. Not at all, Congresswoman. She does not have a clue. So we're going to have this discussion about the past, about the present, and really about the future. Let me remind you again, as I said in the opening of this show, that Juneteenth is a celebration for African American people all across the country. But it started in Galveston, Texas. Because of that emancipation proclamation, that was in January of 1863, where President Abraham Lincoln set enslaved people free. The news did not get to Galveston, Texas,

until June 19th of 1865. So again, about two and a half years for them to get that. As we know, they didn't have tweet, they didn't have text messages, they didn't have any of that modern stuff that we take for granted now. And it took that long for them to know the news. Now historically, it is important for me to remind you that the emancipation proclamation,

the Civil War 1861 to 1865, the emancipation proclamation was a strategic political tool that President Abraham Lincoln used. And because we were in the Civil War, he did not want to have to get in battle with the border states, the border states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia after 1863. So it is important for you to understand that enslaved black people in those border states were not set free by the Emancipation Proclamation. But nevertheless, here we are talking about this from a historical perspective. We're going to bring it on to the present. And let's talk about where we want to go in the future.

So Mayor and Sharon is so great to have you here, all of us to be here for this first half an hour of this special. So we played some round robin of some things that have been happening to the black community in modern times. Because I think sometimes people believe that when we talk about Juneteenth, that we talk about black history in general, that we're talking about light years ago on the spectrum of history. This stuff was almost just yesterday. Your thoughts? And sharing, we're going to start with you. Well, you said a lot, that opening piece showed a lot, Senator. And much of it's hurtful as this. marking the celebration has been co-opted by the usual suspects in the most ignorant ways. I found myself today reaching out to my friends in Florida. I know it's a federal holiday, but I wanted to know what was going on down there. And I haven't had comprehensive talks with

them just yet, hopefully because they're out celebrating. But I'm also thinking about that day. I was looking over some of the archives and general Granger's proclamation. A special order number. Right. And it talked so much too about how blacks didn't really celebrate and we're still told what they could and couldn't do. So what is freedom? What's the price of it? It's still to me a question that we struggle with today.

Very much so. And Mayor? I think, listen, I think you all point out in points, especially this part about asking the world, what is freedom? What is freedom? And by textbook definition, it means the ability or the right or the power to speak and act as one want to without hindrance. And when we're asked that question in the context of Black America, anybody's saying that Black people have the right to speak in act as they want to without hindrance is not living in this world. So like our Black, Like our ancestors own December 31st waiting for the Emancipation Proclamation to take place, even before Juneteen, two years before, I am still staying up to midnight waiting for that day. It's still a watch night for me. Watch night. Because I have not seen, I am yet to see black people be equal or let alone talk about this idea of freedom. And then we can't, we can't allow us, our history that is created in fancy from this to cloud.

what really is. Abraham Lincoln, to me, is not a soldier. You are coward when you use black people as political pawns as he did. He was in DC. He knew 13, 14 miles off the road a little further than that, of course, in Delaware, but not much further. He allowed black people still to be enslaved. And I, and I see that as cowardness. You cannot have freedom for some and freedom without others. And I, and you all both know that black people in Galveston, Texas knew they were free. The white people that had power over them wouldn't let it be until they were forced by union soldiers. And I still feel like black people suffer in that manner today. Oh, in many ways we are. Well, you all have joined us on the June team special right here at

TYT. Well, we bringing it to you, baby, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And to go back to something that Sharon said, and you said, Mayor, let's take a look at general order number three. We're talking about the general, a major general Gordon Granger, and this is, we're reading straight from it right here. The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a proclamation from the executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves. And the connection here to for existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. So let's, I don't know if the team can keep that up and put the three of us up, but I want us to be able to break this down a little bit.

Now, that last part in particular, the connection here to four existing between, between them becomes that of employer and hired labor. Now they know good and dag on well that those former slave masters were not going to treat enslaved people like they were employees and pay them a living wage and make sure that they have benefits and health care and land and all of that stuff. I know I'm putting some modernization on it, some 21st century on it, but that just was not going to happen. But think about this. This order assumes that black people had to take the position of employer, I mean, of higher labor. Did you y'all peep that out? The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a proclamation from the executive of the United States, all slaves are free. So how am I free when you also telling me I got to be hired labor? This involves an absolute equality of personal rights. That all sounds good, but we didn't have any rights. And rights of property, we didn't have any property between former masters and slaves. They were not about to give up that property. And we all know General Sherman Special Order 15 was not executed at all. where black people were supposed to get their 40 acres in a mule. So even, you know, mayor and Sharon, even as we dig into this, you see all of the loopholes, if you will, similar to the 13th Amendment of the Constitution. Your thoughts will start with sharing. Yeah, and look at the whitewash. What you just read there, we're supposed to celebrate and be so grateful for what

we're given after such horror. And that's really where we are still today. They were supposed to go to work and not gather and not get out the pocket. And if somebody asked you for your papers, you're supposed to still show it to them, much as it is today. So I guess for me, it's, I don't know why. And the mayor said something, not but a couple of minutes ago. And it makes me wonder why we can't just tell the truth. Can't we just tell the truth about all of it? So many people who look like us don't know the truth and I'm not even placing blame. I'm not placing blame for that. You have to seek it out, study, do a dissertation, and you still will have the details in so many ways left out because we have to put someone in a camp of hero

like Abraham Lincoln instead of saying look here's everything and you don't have to buy that All that long ago, people, well, that's just what they did. Slaves, no, people were conflicted and they knew better back then, okay? If you were human, you knew better, but you did it anyway. That's right. And when they had the chance during the American Revolution, you know, they wanted their freedom from King George. They had an opportunity not to carry in slavery over into the newly formed country of the United States of America, but they did it anyway.

Mayor, any final thoughts? I would just simply say that, you know, I definitely do not buy into this idea that people didn't know that was a thing, the way things were. You couldn't say that when you had just, you know, 100 plus years before 1800s, you fought a war for your freedom, give me liberty or give me death, right? When a white man said that he is a leader, he is history books are written about him. When a black man say by any means necessary, same statement, he's considered a radical, i.e. Malcolm X. So I think people, It's a cautionary tale for us to pretend that white people didn't know what they were doing back then. On one hand, you called us animals, why you raped our women, why you raped our men. So I- and killed your kids in some cases.

So I think it is naive for us to downplay the horrors of this peculiar institution we call slavery, and I appreciate both of you from pointing it out. No, I agree with you, Mayor. We bring it to you. And as a reminder for those who believe that slavery was so long ago, let's put up this little quick timeline here just so you can see it. And we'll read it too. You're talking about the 1,500s here, which was the 16th century. And you look at that read, the 1,700, 1700, 1,800 American slavery, about 340 years.

And when you push into that segregation, you know, until 1865, 1954, still fighting against segregation, 89 years. And then we're into the 2000s as we speak. And we're still fighting some of the same battles that our four parents, and some of our four parents who had to endure some of this stuff, they're still walking the face of this earth or their children understand what they went through because they had those conversations. The United States of America is still a very young country. So none of this was that long ago. And the federal government failed African American people after the reconstruction because

of a deal that they struck for political reasons, right? This is not new for black people to be left out in that way. They pulled the federal troops out of the South and it was business as usual. But here we are, though, we wanted to lay that out for you. Let's talk about some of the positive things about June 10th, because we do have a she-roll in this story. It was very important for her to fight long and hard to make this a federal holiday. And she's been on this journey for a very long time, and that's none other than mother. Some people call her grandmother, but I call her mother, Opel Lee.

And I had the opportunity to meet her in 2016 on the campaign trail. And she fought really hard. And I do want us to lift her and not forget that her reasons were pure and genuine for wanting the United States of America to recognize this as a federal holiday, although the history attached to it is extraordinarily on the opposite end of that. She did work very hard in trying to do this, collecting signatures, talking to elected officials, doing walks all across the country to get this done. I remember Sharon and mayor, I had the opportunity to be on a call with her. I brought her and P. Diddy, Diddy, Diddy love together. And Diddy helped her collect more of the signatures that she needed to push it over the top to turn this into a holiday. And so there are a whole host of other folks whose names I don't know that I'm not naming, but I am proud to say I had a little small part.

And I say small part in helping Mother Opel Lee get this thing over the finish line. And she undoubtedly and her family did most of the work in others who were with her over the years. But in being able to form a relationship with her and her niece and asking them what they needed, I did my small part, which is to link her up with somebody who had the cachet to help her bring it on home. So I want viewers to know that Diddy Love was very instrumental in helping Mother Opelie get that over the finish line. But she shouldn't have had to collect signatures. She should not have had to beg this government, these Democratic leaders, to make Juneteenth a national holiday, any thoughts on that? I wish it was something that more white people celebrated a cleansing, if you will.

I don't see why you wouldn't. I don't see why you would fight against noting this day, this holiday, why you wouldn't want to spread that love. And thank you for mentioning that circle of love, because when you put her picture up on the screen, screen. I love her. I just love, love her and the fact that generations came together to get it over the finish line with her leading it just speaks volumes about perseverance, resilience, love. Yeah, it really does. And Mary, you know, she at 89 years old, Lee made a 1,400 mile walk to Washington, D.C., which became an annual walk. This was really serious.

for her. And this is what she had to say. I gathered some people at my church, my pastor, the musicians, the county commissioner, school board members, and they gave me the send-off. I started walking from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C. I just knew somebody would notice a little old lady in tennis shoes. And they did. You know, so my question for us is how can we honor Mother Opelie? She was doing this for pure reasons, even though we know that the answer to what true freedom is for the black community, it still remains a question mark, right? We're still trying to find what that means. But how do we honor women like her? And why was the Juneteenth 19, you know, I mean, is it still important for us today,

despite what others did along the way or did not do along the way? Mayor? Yeah, yeah, I think, listen, first of all, Mother Opel is absolutely. the mother of Juneteenth and I think people should not, we shouldn't play with the idea. Grandmother plays implies that, you know, something you're a generation removed from the work. This is her work. She's the mother of Juneteenia, we should acknowledge that. Also, we should also acknowledge right now in this moment, the average live experience, the average life of black men is around 60.8 years, 69.8, right? Our government is trying to extend extend the years you can qualify for Social Security to 69.

She was she was born less than 69 years after slavery ended. So there's I'm telling you within a life of her her life and 96 years we're obligated to understand that nothing, nothing for black people in this country comes easy. Nothing a 89 year old white woman walking anywhere let alone 1400 miles would have been national news, the fact that you are breaking that news to most people in this country is a damn shame. But it also reminds us that we have so much work to do to remind people that regardless what's going on in Florida with their governor and other people trying to erase us in our history, it is impossible as long as we're willing to walk.

I said, it is impossible as long as we are willing to walk. And speaking of Florida, we know that Juneteenth is very important. day, especially in today's current climate, we did open up the show with some segments about what is actually happening to black people in real time, the erasure, how certain leaders are trying to dehumanize us, take away our history. They don't want people to know our history. All of a sudden, white people understanding our history is a burden. All of a sudden, it's a burden. And they're using law. I mean, they're actually changing laws to prevent our history from being taught. So DeSantis is really, at the forefront,

front of this, but he is certainly not alone. He's a revisionist history zealot who claims that black history lacks educational value. And he has spent the last year working to ban the teaching of black history and to white Washington, Florida. Here's a headline for you, just in case. Ron DeSantis bans African American studies from Florida high schools. Does not want them to know it. A move by the Republican governor is the latest in a series of actions to stop conversations

about race and gender in public schools. Because if we have that conversation, God forbid, that our younger people will be enlightened and understand, you know, it was James Baldwin who once said, know from once you came. If you know from once you came, there's really no place that you cannot go. I'm paraphrasing him on that. He was talking to black people, the black history is all people's history. And he's basically saying, let's expand that out, know from whence you came. And it really is nothing wrong with telling the good, the bad, and the ugly about this country.

unless you don't want people to know the truth. And that is the DeSantis of the world. And again, he's not alone. And he's even targeted colleges because no student is safe in Florida. Let's take a look at this. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signs a bill banning DEI initiatives. That's diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in public colleges. And his efforts to restrict teaching on racism and bias have multiplied across the country.

So he's not by himself. We have a chart to put up just to show you this. We have tracked efforts in 36 states to restrict education on racism, bias, the contributions of specific racial or ethnic groups to U.S. history or related topics. It is happening all over the country. And this is 21st century America, y'all. We're not talking about, let's put the mayor and sharing up. We're not talking about 19th century, 20th century, 19th century, 18th century.

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And when you're talking about an 89-year-old woman, who again had such resolve, who wouldn't shut up, who did it? I always saw her smiling, by the way. Then we can do something to you. You ask what we can do, Senator. And I just think it's simple. Whatever your platform, wherever you are, just keep calling it out. out, keep congregating, call to action, whatever it is, don't shut up because people are

uncomfortable. I think that's like a simple, and maybe it's Pollyanna, but I think that's what we have to do. Keep talking about it, passing it on, educating our young people, educating ourselves, and staying in the fight, which isn't easy because there's a lot of anger. Just being black in America on this planet, there's a lot of anger and we're not angry people, but the forces from the outside are, the pressure point is pretty high. I mean, we are conscious people. You know, James Baldwin once said to be black in America is to be in a constant rage all the time. So if you're conscious, yeah, you're raging because you know that things are not going well.

So we're getting the sign. We only have a few more minutes left, too, to be exact, in our first half of our TYT June team special. We are joined tonight, one happy family with the journalist extraordinaire, the one and only Sharon Reed, and Mayor Mondale Robinson. And we are breaking this truth down. You know, I did put up some, I want the team to put up some of the books that we would like to recommend. And then, Mayor, you jump on in here and have the last word in this segment. But I want to leave them with some things that they can go and read to further their research. One is titled The Brightest Day.

The second book recommendation is Juneteenth, a children's story. Adults can be edified from reading this book. And this is the book that is written by Mother Opel Lee and the last book recommendation. And there are many out there you all. These are just recommendations on June 10th. So these are three resources that people can read to learn more about the holiday, especially Mother Opel's book. Mayor, you get the last word in our segment. Yeah, I think in addition to your reminder that people,

to people that this is the 21st century, but I want people to understand that Ron DeSantis issues and the ramifications of what he's doing is not just new, right? This is not because of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. People should know that we have a long history of people being white, people being miseducated about what is and what it was, right? This is how we got the lost cause ideal about the Civil War. Because the daughters of the Confederates, people talk about the monuments they had put up.

But we didn't talk about the books that they forced into southern school curricula that changed a generation, two generations actually, or what white people thought was the truth. And in all of it was based on just southern propaganda about how pleasant slave life was. And we see that now. And there's a danger of the next two generations of Floridian kids of being miseducated to to the point where they think the slave trade was nothing but a business trade. And I think we should be very afraid of Ron DeSantis and his anti-wokeness, meaning, you know, he's trying to distinguish this flame that James Baldwin was talking about. If you don't know, if you're asleep, then you won't be on fire.

But to be aware and awake, damn sure we'll set you on fire. Amen to that. Well, we are on fire tonight. Well, this is the first half of the special. When we come back, y'all stay woke and stay ready, all right? When we come back, you'll be joined by Adrian Lawrence, who will lead the discussion with, again, journalist extraordinaire, Sharon Reed, who's here for the entire hour and TYT's watch list leader himself, J.R. Jackson, you're not going to want to miss the second half of TYT's June team special. We'll be right back after this. Welcome in to the second half of TYT's Juneteenth, 2023 special. Thank you so much for joining us. I am Adrian Lawrence and also alongside me is J.R. Jackson, host of TYT's The Watch List and Sharon Reed,

TYT sports contributor. Thank you both for joining me today. Excellent, I can't wait, good times. Happy Juneteenth, everyone's coming. Happy Juneteenth, brother. Yeah, June 10th. And the thing is, is when we talk a lot about the issues that arise around things that are impacting the black community. We know that one of the most prevalent wars on blackness emerges in the education system, whether that be whitewashing basic history, granting school vouchers, or cutting program funding, black children's education is under attack and has been for centuries.

You know, and I think of the fact that Brown v. Board of Education, the seminal US Supreme Court ruling ordering desegregation of schools was nearly 70 years ago. But today there is still the situation. where you have schools are under federal orders to desegregate. Check out this headline from earlier this month, that's right, June of 2023. 32 Mississippi school districts still under federal desegregation orders. That's right, June 2023. And a lot of people will associate segregation with the Jim Crow laws of the South, but a majority of segregated schools were in the northeast and Midwest because the reality is that anti-blackness is everywhere and it's also ever present.

As the Economic Policy Institute indicates, black children are the most impacted by this disparity. And black children are five times as likely as white children to attend schools that are highly segregated by race and ethnicity, as you can see here. School segregation really worsens when schools break away from an existing district to form their own, which they'll often do claiming that they need more local control. And the end result ends up being whiter schools with better resources. And really, despite the research showing that school desegregation is economically beneficial for society as a whole, particularly the black community, it still is very much the case where there is segregation in education. And also to really talk about some of the effects of integration, we can look at this for the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Some of the long term effects of school desegregation increased black men's annual earnings by 5%. five years in desegregated schools yielded and 25% increase in annual earning, significant long run improvements in black adults health, reduce the probability of spending time in jail by age 30 by 14.7%. These things are significant. And yet we still have a system that operates every day in a fashion that continues to keep black children in schools that are segregated that aren't truly. reflective of our society and that refusal really to recognize that the issue is still ever present than it was back in the day when Brown v. Board of Education was ruled upon. It just tells us that this is a problem. And the thing is it's not a problem that black people

need to fix because racist practices are not something we created. But even with that said, Sharon, I know that you're a parent and JR as well. What do you think needs to happen to level the playing field in education? Well, we have to keep fighting and I'm sorry, but white parents have to step up and fight for our kids and understand that our kids matter and that we love our children just as much as they do. These schools are something else having to go in every day and hold and hold certain administration, certain teachers, certain accountable. My daughter went to a great school, okay?

Not everybody has that option. And even in that great school, when I look around and see some of the disparity and how some people are talked to, maybe their mom's not there every day or isn't around the corner. It's a lot. Everything seems like it's a fight. And as we fight for our kids, what are we teaching them? that every day's going to be a fight for them. And that's not really a childhood, is it? It's really not a childhood. And here we are all these years later as we celebrate Juneteenth. And I wonder, Adrian, what are we really celebrating? We're still talking about a fight, inequality, less than

hurt, pain, George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, on and on and on. And while I'm grateful, of course that we're not slaves anymore and people got the message a couple years late, but they got it. At the end of the day, I wish we could just be people who were celebrated for the gifts, the talent, the love, the ways we built this country. It's like we can't get past what was done to us because it's still being done. Well, as we've already seen, you're talking about how things are already still being done, it gets written off as complaints and why don't you guys pull yourself up by your bootstraps, constantly over and over in these same things. Because as we've seen, when someone says white supremacy is what's a

guided this nation from beginning to even some still institutions we hold now, it makes sense, doesn't it? But we like to sever that. It's reasons why governors like Rhonda Santis are trying to eliminate the education of what has it's happened since up until now, because there are connections to it if you pay attention to it, if you analyze it correctly. Look, because it's based off of white supremacy, there'll be beliefs from many bigoted people who say, yo, why don't you just go ahead and do it yourself? What's the matter with you? Because the blame has to be that black folks are still inferior without saying the term inferior. It's like when people say that, oh, I'm not a racist. I didn't use the N word. I just did things and said things

and it helped implement policies that made disparities between the two groups or multiple groups around that. So if the blame has to go to black folks so not being good enough, if we actually invest the same way in our children, the way that we invest in certain other children, we will see those differences begin to equate a little bit more. And then that would eliminate this myth that black folks have lower IQs, can't learn, do things differently, are more prone to negative things that they've pushed since the beginning of time, because that's what keeps certain hierarchies in our society the way that they are. This stretches to other things, outside of race. Of course, we see the attacks on the LGBTQ plus committee. So imagine that also added to

black folks within those same communities. These hierarchies have to continue. That's why whenever you see someone from these type of affected communities, it's, oh, well, they're this, they're that. These assumptions are made, but they can't be made unless the agenda items that are put in place by politicians or carried out by our society in general, continue to leave it that way. You know, if we actually, things like policing, housing, employment, equal pay, we know black women are paid wrongfully and differently than others, women in general. So if you add that to it, it changes how things happen at home. And if those things are happening at home, not the same way.

And we have segregated schools and certain schools get more money than others. The results are right there in front of us. But then we ignore how we got there. And it's just ignorance on display right in front of us, as matter not whether or not we're going to accept reality. Absolutely. And the thing is, is we've seen over the course of history that even when there were times where black people pulled themselves up from their bootstruck,

even though I hate that reference and it's an absolute joke, but when we had Black Wall Street, when we had communities, we had Tulsa, we had all of these thriving and populous banks and opportunities for growth. What happened? The white people came in and they lynched, they burned it down, they flooded, they did everything in their power to shut down any prosperity that black people had built. And that is continuing to go on today through various ways, whether it's legislation that's passed that has a disparate impact or by creating a system by which people continue to be saddled with even debt if you look at the student loan set up. Either way, it's problematic across the board and it seems to be the case that until we, number one,

acknowledge our past and the history of this country, but also be willing to institute the measures that are necessary to course correct, then we're just going to be having this conversation year after year. And there's something also we're going to have a conversation on because it does happen to have its roots also in the slavery era is the adultification of black children. The reality is we're seeing conservatives now executing their agenda by way of saying they need to keep children safe. And to the extent that that references to children, even though we know it's veiled for all sorts of nonsense, but we definitely know that it's only cishead white children. And we see this time and time again as black children are deemed threatening or dangerous

or hypersexualized simply because they exist. What, for example, in April, 16 year old Ralph Yarl, who you can see pictured here. We're gonna put up his photo, although I'm sure you've probably seen it because it was all across the news when he was shot in Kansas City, Missouri, when he accidentally knocked on the wrong neighbor's door when he was trying to pick up his siblings. And the teens assailant, Andrew Lester, 84 year old white man pictured here, he stated that he thought, Ralph was trying to break into his home, and he was scared to death due to the boy's size. Ralph is a lanky 5-8 kid under 140 pounds. Get out of here.

Also, in May, a Mississippi cop named Greg Capers. Well, he shot 11-year-old, a Darian Murray, whose photo will put up here. That child had called police for help, but he was faced with deadly violence and left with incredible amounts. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Nissan. Buy your tickets now.

And get a free chili dog. Chili Dog, not included. The Naked Gun. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. Trauma. Sometimes I can see myself. Lay inside the coffee.

I'm all my thoughts at night. My only was. And sometimes I think. People are watching me. But my main thought is me dead. 11 years old, it's a child. The adultification of black children, it's illogical, it's wholeheartedly racist, and it's incredibly harmful.

Being seen as adults negatively impacts kids emotional, mental, and physical health, and it makes it more likely that they're going to be subject to unwarranted punishment and even disciplinary disparities. For example, we know that black children We know that black children are far more likely to be subject to suspension and expulsion in the academic educational climate for the same behavior in which that they're white colleagues, classmates, engage in. And as we just spoke about the educational disparities that are already present because of segregation, it just shows you that this is very much a part that is built into the fabric. And also we have to consider the intersectionality when gender comes into play because it compounds the harm.

Black girls perceived as being less innocent, more mature for their age. And you can see from this graph here from a report that was released by Georgetown law, that black girls are not afforded the same opportunity to be children. They are hypersexualized. They are mistreated just like black boys are too. And the thing is, is nothing has changed. But it clearly seems to come from all of these roots of white supremacy, really dehumanizing black people. making out black boys and girls to be adult-like.

And society justifies harsher treatment and hypersexualization every day. And again, you know, Sharon, I know it's not our jobs to remove the boot from our necks. But what do you think needs to be done to address these issues? Boy, it's a direct question, but there's just no easy answer. And I'm still reeling from the sound bite you played to have a little boy. He sounded paranoid, didn't he? He sounded paranoid. I picture myself in a coffin, I feel like people are watching me, but you're not paranoid if it's actually true.

You are being watched when you go into a store, when you walk by a door, when you knock on the wrong door, you are being watched. And sadly, there's a mom who can't look at her son and say, you're not going to end up in a coffin. I mean, the way I parent my own child, who's just being a child and may mention something. And everything has to be a teachable moment. I'm so worried. Like, well, you don't want to play, you don't want to knock on people's doors and run. And, you know, stuff that kids do sometimes. You don't even want to discuss it because I immediately have that fear.

What can be done? I don't know, because just when I think there's a line that we can educate our kids to, Adrian, there's something that crosses it. And we learn something else horrific at a mother is dead over an iPad with the kids watching her take her last breath. I don't know. I just don't know. It's trauma on top of trauma. This is a thing. I always talk about how it's an illustration of our society. So if our society deems certain folks a certain way, that's the way it generally goes. So if it's been that way since, say, the beginning of the country, and we have this

slow progression, you would think as we talk how proud we are about our progress, oh, we've gone so far since the civil rights era and since enslavement and all these types of things we've gotten so far. If we're proud of it, why don't we talk about it? Why don't we talk about how we've gotten from point A to point D to point C to point D if we've even gotten that far? The folks, a lot of times that are rejecting the idea of progress or actually doing something different to where our society sees certain folks. If we want to change that, we would talk about it. Instead, we have blockades and shut up, don't mention that. Yo, just in general, when it comes to the way folks are seen in society, like the young kid who was traumatized by thinking about and seeing himself.

in that coffin. How much do people really relate to him? How much do they see their own children in him? We just spoke earlier about schools and desegregation, how schools are still segregated to a very large degree all over the country. I'm in Los Angeles. I've dealt through that with my child. He's been in three elementary schools. I see it. It's not like a lib city thing. It's the way people react from a community to community. So how do you change a society? It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of understanding. It takes people listening. So if they, if people don't understand or believe, or here's three black folks on a Juneteenth special complaining again, which I'm sure people would see and think, how much do you really learn from that? How much

do you understand? Do you think that we all collect an email every morning, go, this is what we're going to complain about today? Or maybe we have like similar type of experiences that illustrate how our society treats us. But if we see things like Black Lives Matter protests or rallies or discussions and people say, oh, what are you talking about? All lives matter. When we see kids get assaulted, killed, treated a certain way, and you don't care, you're proving right there how much you don't care about someone else's life. If you can't see them as the same, or at least the same worth, when it comes to economic to any other levels that keep certain people down, it will continue. How does that change is the hardest question?

Exactly. And the thing is, is I maintain and I will always maintain that this isn't a problem black people need to fix. This is what white people need to fix. They created this situation in this country and they cannot ignore it. And anybody who chooses to ignore it is part of the problem. And they're opting to be part of the problem because we've been in your face for centuries, letting you know this is unacceptable that we deserve better. And for you to continue to allow it to persist. And if not enable it, that tells me you are very much a part of the problem. But I know as we approach June 10th and how important it is now as a new federal holiday, I definitely want to end our special today with some uplifting news, you know, despite the fact that what we know from this recent survey released by the Washington Post today in a report says about half of black Americans say that racism will only get worse over the rest of their lifetimes and are, you know, rightly so fearful of racism continuing to amp up.

Despite those things, nearly half of black Americans still say it's also a good time to be black in the country. And that's cool. Because as I was reading the report this morning, I was thinking, that's awesome. The fact that we're always smiling. We're always doing something. We're uplifting. It's awesome to be black. Like you see all the stuff that we do, we create. And it's like one of the things they can't take from us is our joy, even though they try. Sharon, what is something that really means something to you this Juneteenth weekend that you know, they can't take from you. Well, I think just that resilience that you're right. We have the opportunity to just keep going.

And after hundreds of years, you haven't broken us and you're not going to. And we figure out how to survive and thrive. We're smart, we're creative, we're brilliant in our approach and we're strong. I wish we didn't have to be so strong, but I celebrate that we are and for the lessons that I'll have to teach me. my daughter, she'll be better for it. She'll be stronger than the next one. And that's part of our history, part of our legacy, a part of her future. Generational trauma is a real thing. And Sharon, I'm glad you pointed out this way. And what you see in our children is what we can see as far as the progress or at least hope for something else different. So yeah,

there's the resiliency there. And the more that we see it getting passed down to our children, them understanding their world and where they fit into it and seeing themselves, in a different place than maybe my grandparents saw themselves or what they felt they could have the ability to do in this country, to then my parents, to then me and then my kid. You see that type of change happen. And that actually inspires us to continue to go on and fight these fights and continue to have these disagreements and even proof of what is that's happening. And why are we trying to convince other folks? It seems like if we could just get it all done because we have a certain level of control ourselves, then sure, it would get

done, but that's why we collectively need more people. If you don't see every American as an American, how do you include all Americans unless you have no intention of doing so? And also in the digital age that we have now, my kids all over the usual socials and reading up on things just from sports because the kid's obsessive about it. He sees the disparities in differences the way people talk about one group to another when it comes to basketball, to the NBA. They see it. They're not dumb. They're smart enough to see all these things go. So when they see it and they recognize and we have to guide them through it, it sometimes hurts. And also sometimes it's very joyful to see the things that they're learning and the perspectives that they're

getting about our world and our society. And they're going to be part of that change. And I think other folks that they're around, these other kids, hopefully, at least from my live perspective that I'm seeing in this city, some get to understand a little bit more because the interactions of folks that you can learn from them just from being near other people, it does wonders. Yes, it absolutely does. And that's a cool thing that connection via social media where you can reach people across the globe and you can also absorb their knowledge. You know, you have these creators on TikTok, YouTube and all of the other platforms that are educating us in ways that schools didn't. Or maybe our parents had limited knowledge about our history, our past, our contributions, and also the reality that we face every day. And I think the coolest part of that is being able to share it with others. Having grown up in an all white space, I have a number of white friends and I pass on that news. I pass on the things that they need to know if they're going to remain in my life because

it's incredibly important that they have the knowledge to know what they need to have, the conversations they need to have with their white family members and their other white friends because I'm not going to put it all on myself to educate, but my God, is social media a great mechanism for getting the news out there? And so as we kind of start to wrap things up in our conversation today, I want to ask you, Sharon, what are you doing to celebrate Juneteenth? Well, I'm going to be with family, reflect. I like to look at some of the National Archives stuff. Maybe I'm a geek, I don't know, just to kind of take you back there and

just kind of think about what it was, what it is. But I have to say, we might have been separated at birth because I do the same thing. I'm going to be unapologetically black. And if you wish to be in my presence, then you're going to have to accept that. And I hope that you want to grow. I hope you want to grow. So I've lost a few, but I've gained some others. Absolutely, they lost you. I think it's similar connections here, because I grew up around a lot of white folks and black folks as well, because there was integrated schools around where I was. And I was like, why do we have to do this? I'm like in second grade. But the people who actually will learn and connect from you, just from being near you,

they benefit from it. So even the terms of like, you know, we're going to be unapologetically black. Some people get afraid that. What's that mean? I'm not going to do. It means I'm going to be myself because we have to switch for society to make sure you accept us. So maybe sometimes you should have to learn something. Maybe sometimes feel uncomfortable. Because when people say, yo, there's very uncomfortable in this one particular party, I'm the one white person. Hey, maybe you can absorb how other parts of society actually interact. And then you're going to be a better person for it. It's not for me. It's for you to be a better person. Maybe your life will be more enhanced. Maybe you can be a better member of society than everyone gets better. Absolutely. And so

what are you doing, JR, to celebrate the holiday? We generally go down to Lamert Park. There's a huge Juneteenth special every celebration festival every year down there to food, the music, the folks. It's a happy celebration. I've learned and gotten around specific smaller black businesses from breweries to clothing stores to restaurants. It's a beautiful celebration. Everybody's out there. It's happy, it's glorious, and it's a celebration of our emancipation, but also our position in society that we deserve. Yes, yes, thank you. Well, you both have an amazing, incredible weekend and everybody out there. Thank you so much for joining us for TYTs, 2023 Juneteenth Special. Again, I'm Adrienne Lawrence and for J.R. Jackson and Sharon Reed, we are wishing you an informed, an anti-black, and a reflective Juneteenth.

Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.