- 2 years ago
Actor/activist Kendrick Sampson, elected officials Charles and Inez Barron, and professor Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly discuss the promise of a Black, radical future.
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00:00 We do have to stay in the politics and understand the politics, even if we're not trying to choose
00:06 between two evils or whatever it is and we're like screw that. Locally, what do we need to pay
00:13 attention to? Who's on the school board? Who's messing with my kid? Who's banning that book
00:18 that's gonna enlighten the rest of the kids? That's what we need to make sure that we're like
00:23 okay because that will be determined, guaranteed by life. Three full votes.
00:30 Hi, I'm Malaika Jibali, the Senior News and Politics Editor here at Essence and we are
00:39 celebrating our Black future with our inaugural Black Futures Now list. Some of our honorees have
00:46 joined us to talk about what a radical Black future can look like and how we get there. And
00:52 when I tell y'all I am so excited about all of these guests, they spit hot fire all the time and
00:57 so I cannot wait for the magic that comes out of this conversation. So without further ado, I'd like
01:03 to welcome former New York State Assembly members and council members Charles Barron and Inez Barron,
01:08 Wayne State University Professor Dr. Charisse Burdon-Stelly, and activist Rick Sampson.
01:16 Welcome everybody. All right, so we're going to jump into the questions. First up, and this is a
01:22 question for all of you and we can kind of start in order if you can see the order that you're in
01:27 with Dr. Charisse Burdon-Stelly, but this is a question for everybody. What gives you hope about
01:33 our Black future? What gives me hope about the future is actually the same type of thing that
01:39 can give you despair. So I think that the conditions in this country and internationally
01:44 are deteriorating rapidly. So there's, you know, declining life chances, polarization of wealth,
01:51 increased police brutality and violence, U.S. imperial rule reach, and that gives me hope because
01:57 things are, you know, as they say, things are darkest before they're done. And it seems to me
02:04 that more and more people, especially young people, especially racialized young people, are coming to
02:09 a radical consciousness about what is to be done as liberalism proves to be an invisible failure,
02:17 you know, as attempts to acculturate bourgeois or ruling class politics fail spectacularly.
02:25 More and more, I think people are either turning to reactionary politics or to radical politics.
02:31 And so that gives me a lot of hope because historically, and really, really by our time,
02:36 whether we're looking at the reds that were in 1919, or looking at the 1930s, or looking at the
02:43 immediate post-World War II moment where there was uptick in lynching and in unemployment among
02:48 Black people, etc. These are times when our people got active and got busy. And so I think that
02:53 more and more people are joining organizations, are seeing the need for political education,
02:58 are coming up with alternative ways to exist and survive, whether it be mutual aid or
03:05 different experiments with collectivizing. All of these things give me hope that there is a future
03:11 beyond capitalism and imperialism. Come on, drop a net. History. You could say she's a professor.
03:17 Thank you so much. Again, it's an honor to have been invited to be a part of this.
03:23 What gives me hope is our past, looking at how we have survived all of the atrocities,
03:31 how we have survived all of the threats and all of the lynchings and all of the killings.
03:37 We've not stopped. We've not gone back. We've not given up. So what gives me hope is looking
03:45 at our past and looking at our children, looking at our future as well. We sometimes wonder,
03:52 do they really get it? Are they still on target? But I think that looking at our past and the
03:58 struggles, I guess the Sankofa in me says, look back, get what we need from the past to bring it
04:05 into our future. What gives me hope is that no weapon formed against us shall prosper.
04:12 That nothing in history said that our oppression is permanent. It is temporary and we are winning
04:23 all over the world. Capitalism is collapsing. All great empires rise and fall. Remember the Roman
04:30 Empire fell. Remember the British Empire, the sun never set on the British Empire. Now they're a
04:37 little mud pat in England talking about Brexit. So no empire lasts forever. The American empire
04:46 is falling all over the country. Look at the Sahel region of Africa. Africa's rising up.
04:52 Young people, military junta's, young people, BRICS, the BRICS conference in South Africa,
04:59 all over the world capitalism has fallen and it's going to fall here too.
05:04 I believe that we will win. I believe that we will win.
05:07 I feel like we are-
05:08 We're at a rally right now.
05:11 Hallelujah!
05:12 Yeah. No, I think that's the same thing that gives me hope. I don't want to be like,
05:20 "Echo, echo, echo, echo." But I think that I've been studying a lot of the past and what I realized.
05:29 To be honest, whenever I hear we should look at the past and how we've survived and all that stuff,
05:35 usually that used to be exhausting to me because I'm like, "All the stories that you know are us
05:42 dying and us suffering." But as I've been looking at, especially with the attack on critical race
05:51 theory and them banning all these books, even like these baby's books, children's books, that ain't
05:56 not a lit harmful thing in them. But I've been doing more and more research and the more and
06:03 more I dig, the more I see that we weren't just suffering. We were actually surviving and thriving
06:12 and excelling. And then it would get so threatening to their power that they would then do the most
06:20 extreme bombing a neighborhood or whatever it is. It was because of how successful we were.
06:28 It was because they thought we were too stupid to be that successful. So they left us up to our own
06:35 resources and the scraps that they left us that we turned into cities. You get what I'm saying?
06:42 So we turned it to whole industries. And then they left our ancestors. Here's where I get
06:51 excited is our ancestors left us the blueprint. Even though they tried to burn the blueprint,
06:57 they would send the blueprint overseas and then you would find it. One of our professors,
07:03 one of our brilliant people would find it and expose it. Now we have another blueprint. We have
07:08 a bunch of them to say that what we're going to do in this time is come out better. We're going to
07:15 make sure that we fight and we're going to lead that fight. And I love the bubbling up of the
07:21 liberation and labor movements. They're completely interlinked. But you see like 5,000,
07:27 Teamsters about to strike in Texas on Anheuser-Busch. You got the teachers unions and
07:34 there's strikes happening all over there, increasing, increasing. So I think there's
07:39 an enlightenment happening, not just of like you had the one in 2000 where everybody's like,
07:46 defund. Oops, just kidding. We're back to work. And holding government accountable for
07:53 how they're treating us during a health crisis and exploiting us and such. And then everybody
08:00 tried to get back to work and they still can't unknow what they learned. And so now that's
08:05 resurfacing and challenging them and people are having to stand on business. And we're seeing
08:14 more and more people be bold in that stance and saying, you know what, I'm going to join the
08:20 liberation movement because this makes no sense. Right. People are continuing their awareness.
08:27 Some people who might have been asleep, they're continuing to be aware despite all the obstacles
08:34 that we have been facing and that we are continuing to face. And that's what we do.
08:38 We overcome. So going into the next question, each of you have your primary work. Yeah,
08:45 I just listed off the credentials, actors, busy, you know, in the strikes in Hollywood,
08:51 professor, council members and assembly members. So you have your primary work,
08:57 but in other conversations, I've heard you all talk about the importance of also organizing.
09:02 And so you do your own organizing on the side as somebody who also organizes. That's a lot of work.
09:10 And so I want to hear from you all. First of all, how what kind of organizing work do you do?
09:16 And then also, how do you encourage people? Our people are tired. Our people are working
09:21 multiple jobs, working more jobs for less pay, not getting the same kind of wages that we were
09:28 back in the day when we could organize. You could have one job, have a solid pension and
09:32 retirement nowadays. We're doing gig work. So how do we get our folks motivated and excited
09:38 and energized in any way to also basically take on like a fourth job organizing? What would you
09:44 say to them? Well, you know, so I am an academic. And one of the things that Walter Rodney said
09:50 about academics is that we are enemies of the people and until proven otherwise. And so part of
09:55 that otherwise is waging struggle where you are. And so I think that in a similar fashion,
10:00 whether you're in academia and you're supporting, for example, the strikes that are happening,
10:04 supporting adjunct faculty, supporting student protesters, especially right now
10:08 when they're under attack and getting doxed and disciplined for pro-Palestine positions,
10:15 whatever the struggles are in your work site, you can engage in those. You can advocate for those
10:20 who are relatively more disempowered than you are. You know, so if you're a tenured or tenure
10:26 track professor, you can advocate for those who have these precarious appointments. So that's in
10:30 the context of academia. But anywhere you are, whatever your work is, even if you drive Uber,
10:35 you can definitely wage struggle where you are. I think also really focusing on caring for each
10:40 other and being part of collectives is how we continue to struggle even when we're tired,
10:46 because you know that the person to your right and to your left, so to speak, is also tired,
10:50 but is also willing to risk their lives for another, right? So I call that mutual comradeship.
10:57 But I think belonging to collectives and remembering that the struggle is, it is to
11:04 the end of improving the material conditions so that we can go from working 100 jobs to
11:08 back to one job, right, so that we can have more time to build up our community, to spend with our
11:14 families, and to do things that increase joy and peace and beauty in the world and not death
11:20 feeling like you've been tired, sick and tired of being sick and tired, as Fannie Lou Hamer said.
11:24 But we continue. And as Mr. Barron said, we will win. And keeping that front and center,
11:33 I wrote a book called, or we edited a volume called Organized Fight Win, precisely because
11:38 if we don't believe we'll win, then what is the point? Fidel Castro says revolutionaries
11:42 are always optimistic. And so I think keeping that in mind, even as we're tired,
11:46 taking rest when we need it, asking for help when we need it, but always moving forward.
11:52 Beautiful. Well, for us, we belong to several organizations, most prominently we're working with,
11:58 of course, Operation Power, but we also are part of the Shrine of the Black Madonna,
12:04 which has got the component going where they're talking about getting people involved in what's
12:09 going on locally, as well as the African, the African Socialist Party, working with them. So
12:16 we're with a lot of groups. And what we do is we try to stay in touch with our community locally,
12:23 right here in the East New York section of Brooklyn. We're not looking for that global
12:28 kind of impact. We know that everything is local, hyper-local, getting our people involved,
12:35 knowing what the issues are outside of our own door, knowing what it is that people are
12:40 interested in fighting about and getting resources and resources to the people that are our neighbors,
12:47 that we know what their issues are. So that's what we're involved in, in the organizational part.
12:53 And what we do is we have weekly programs. We're relevant to the issues, our main issues,
12:59 looking at housing, how do we fight gentrification? How do we demand the issues that the
13:05 apartments that are so-called affordable, the housing units that are affordable, are affordable
13:10 to us in our community? How do we make sure that we fight to get those parameters changed? HUD says
13:17 that in New York, we're gauging homes for people making $104,000, not in our community. So we're
13:25 fighting to organize in those issues, particularly with housing, making sure that we address that as
13:30 well. - Power, power is the great equalizer. When you have power, others' racism becomes irrelevant.
13:39 Racism is only relevant when you are powerless, when you don't have any power. So we organize
13:48 Operation Power, 'cause we have to move from mobilizing, mobilizing around singular issues,
13:56 Black Lives Matter. We know that, we know our lives matter. And if you just focus in on police
14:02 brutality, that is not gonna change a capitalist system, 'cause the police aren't the capitalists,
14:08 they are the protectors of the capitalists. So when we organize for power, one of the things
14:14 we wanted to do is what the Black Panther Party was starting to do at the end when they ran Bobby
14:20 Seale and Elaine Brown for elected officers. We got power now. We didn't just complain about
14:28 gentrification in our community, we stopped it. Our community is not gentrified and they tried,
14:35 we stopped it. So when we go up to people and say, "Black Power, man, you need to fight for
14:40 revolution." And they say, "You're gonna get me a job?" We say, "Yes, we got you a job. Now you're
14:48 gonna join the revolution?" Or if they say, "Hey, hey, hey, you're talking all that black stuff,
14:54 Charles, Black Power, revolution, socialism, anti-capitalism, you're gonna save me from losing
15:00 my home?" "Yes, we save a hundred of you from foreclosure." "Oh, Charles, man, you're talking
15:07 all that black stuff, revolution, are you gonna put some food on the table?" "Yeah, we funded
15:14 billions of dollars for food pantries." "Now are you gonna join the revolution?"
15:19 Power, we gotta get power and we gotta go from mobilizing to organizing. Do you know we got three
15:28 new $88 million schools, $110 million worth of parks renovated. We were also able to get two new
15:38 $36 million libraries. We were able to get thousands of jobs for our people and got three
15:45 political prisoners freed, got a reparations bill passed. Why? Because we were in where the power is.
15:53 But stay black, stay radical, don't sell us out when you get in.
15:56 So the follow-up question to that is, how do we then get other black people excited so that
16:04 they're not just asking about the jobs, but they're saying, "Can I join the revolution?"
16:08 How do we motivate our people when so many people are exhausted from doing so much of their day-to-day
16:15 work? How do we get them involved? I think we get them involved by just having our message out there,
16:21 by getting them to be aware of the results and identifying how those results were achieved.
16:28 It didn't just fall from the sky, it wasn't just a part of the process, it was a fight
16:33 that we waged. And when you fight, you win. We got to get people to understand that, yes,
16:38 we know everybody's tired, but we got to make sure that we balance our own health and our own
16:44 wealth, safety, and all of that with a better wealth and the broader picture for our community.
16:50 You've got to get involved. Let the people know what it is that you've done, how it got to be
16:55 there, and let them know that this is a collective struggle that we're in.
16:58 You know, the big challenge for us is that we've been so successful. Sometimes when you
17:03 give people what they want, they say, "Well, ain't nothing wrong with the system. You all
17:07 done got me a job. You done saved my home, so what's so bad about capitalism?" So you got to be,
17:13 it's a challenge to meet the needs of the people and at the same time, make sure that they see the
17:20 need for radical systemic change. We say the way to keep people involved, meet them where they are.
17:27 We go to the barbershops, we go to the beauty salons, we go to public housing,
17:32 we are on the trains with them, take public transportation. So we meet them where they are.
17:37 And sometimes people join people. We think ideology is all deep. They ain't even thinking
17:43 about that. They either like you and will join you, or they may not like you and agree with
17:49 your ideology, but not join you. I'm an artist. So Tony K. Bambara said,
17:57 "The job of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible." And I think that what I left out
18:03 that's inspiring me is all these creatives, all these, Kendria Bland and once a corporate Aaron,
18:14 Aaron Beasley, and Lene'e Vinay, I'm going to keep it black, but I'm going to keep it brief,
18:24 with her tea time. I think that there's so many people consciously, these really dope influencers,
18:32 artists, and content creators that are taking creative approaches, even like playing characters.
18:39 And one thing that I think that, playing characters to convey something. And the thing
18:46 about art is that it pierces through more than like statistics and information, right? You hear
18:51 a bunch of information and policy, and it is designed to be like mind screwing. Like what
18:59 did they just say? And it's written in the colonizer's language. So if you think about
19:04 how we've been innovative in culture to convey complex concepts in very simple terms, or even
19:14 to relate it to a story that happened to us, we have been experts in creating culture. There would
19:22 be no American culture. There would be no America without us, right? And I think that we can
19:27 be strategic about, and this is how we organize at Build Power. So our organization is called
19:36 Build Power. It's also a company. We're producing film, television, and short form content.
19:44 And we run into all these incredible, innovative creatives, right? That are taking this
19:52 information in the times, the genocides happening in Gaza, Sudan, Congo, taking complex conversations
20:04 about AI. If you look at Joy Bulumwini and a lot of these incredible folks in black tech,
20:11 who are like, no, this is what's happening. Look at the airports, right? You can refuse to have
20:19 your digital scan. Those types of things I think are really important in the way that we used to
20:24 protect each other through different writings and pamphlets and such. So I think we build a culture
20:30 just like we've always done around that organizing, around that information. We have to have in-person
20:37 and digital conversations kind of like this, right? And have them on a consistent basis.
20:42 Collect emails, do the old school thing, right? Collect emails and phone numbers,
20:48 and who knows what digital things are going to be hacked tomorrow. So make sure it ain't all digital,
20:53 right? Meet in person, meet in person, okay? And build a culture around the art. Watch these
21:02 short films together, and you can screen your favorite Instagram videos. I don't care if you
21:08 don't want to see a whole documentary or whatever it is, but take the information and look at it
21:13 through a critical lens by having that care that we're talking about, right? Like, hey, what do
21:18 you need? What do you need? What does your grandma need? What does your auntie, what do the kids
21:23 need? Okay, we see this need. Let's see if other people need that. Okay, other people need that.
21:29 So who around us can help us find the resources for this? Who's good at this? Who's good at
21:35 cleaning up? Who's good at checking up on the elderly? And start to build teams around that.
21:42 And the more that we build our own teams centered in care, because the biggest problem is the
21:48 systems that we have are centered in our oppression. The purpose of them was to harm us.
21:54 And so how do we create things that the purpose is to make us healthier? And how do we create
22:00 them in this moment? And one of the most encouraging things about that, that I would
22:04 like everybody to consider that sees this is that everybody's trying to figure it out right now.
22:11 The people up top, because of the technology, because of the labor movements, because of the
22:16 liberation movements, and people saying that they're fed up, they are trying to figure it
22:21 out right now. They're trying to figure out what the new structures look like, what the new power
22:25 is going to be as people, you know, companies are buying companies. And so while they're trying to
22:31 figure it out, what we've always done is figure it out first, pay attention to the policies,
22:37 like they said, the low hyper local things, because no matter what you encounter, no matter how hard
22:43 you go at it, and no matter how we, you know, combine to protect each other, there's always
22:49 going to be a political interference, there's always going to be some sort of, hey, somebody's
22:55 going to write something or buy something that makes us have to change our tactics. So we do
23:01 have to stay aware, we do have to stay in the politics and understand the politics, even if
23:08 we're not trying to choose between two evils or whatever it is, and we're like, screw that.
23:13 Locally, what do we need to pay attention to? Who's on the school board? Who's messing with my
23:20 kid? Who's been in that book that's going to enlighten the rest of the kids? Who's that's
23:24 what we need to make sure that we're like, okay, because that will be determined, guaranteed by
23:30 like three, four votes. That's right. And they'll, you know, try to confuse us so that we don't get
23:37 those three or four votes. But I guarantee you, we'll get five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10,
23:42 you know, if we build this type of culture. And speaking of that, you talk about the lesser of
23:48 two evils and the importance of certain types of elections, because we get caught up in what's
23:53 happening on a federal level. Obviously, this is a political season, we've got the 2024 presidential
24:00 election. And I want to ask each of the panelists, if you could just offer some thoughts about what
24:05 do we do with that? Kendrick, you kind of already previewed that. But what do we do?
24:09 What is the narrative that we can focus on, instead of trying to just get our people to vote
24:16 for the lesser of two evils? Because at the end of the day, evil is evil. So Dr. CBS, how can we
24:24 shift that narrative so that we can really look at our political possibilities from a radical lens?
24:32 Yeah, I mean, I think what you said is exactly right. There is no, there's evil or there's not,
24:37 there's capitalism or there's not, like people like to talk about hyper capitalism or whatever,
24:41 there's capitalism or there's not, there's imperialism or there's not, period. And so,
24:44 and we see where the quote unquote, lesser evil of this current administration has gotten us,
24:50 backing genocide, breaking strikes, reneging on the even paltry promises that they made,
25:00 increase the miseration for the majority. So that's what the quote unquote, lesser evil gets
25:04 you. It gets you constantly negotiating the terms of your, of your immiseration and your subjection.
25:10 And so I think for me, the important thing that we should do for our people is quit reducing
25:15 politics to electoralism. Electoralism is not the totality of politics. And so,
25:22 vote if you want to vote, right? Vote if that's part of your praxis, but politics is how do we
25:28 build up our communities? How do we satisfy our material, our material needs? How do we care for
25:33 one another? How do we be, you know, there's this book I was reading by Josh Meyers called Black
25:38 Study, where he talks about how do we be for and with each other? That's all extraordinarily
25:42 political, especially in a society, in a world that is bent on your exploitation, oppression,
25:48 and domination. And so I really think that understanding that the political is organizing,
25:52 it's being in collectives, it's having discipline, it's waging principle struggle within
25:57 your organization. That is the political. The political is building power where you are, and
26:02 that is not reducible to voting, nor is that oftentimes achieved during voting. No disrespect
26:07 to our, our politicians here. You can build localized power with voting, but, but federally,
26:14 unless you got a super PAC, it's, it's ugly. So, so the politics is not reducible to electoralism,
26:22 and anybody who will have you believe that that's solely what our ancestors died for
26:26 is either a agent or they're trying to mislead you.
26:30 >> Well, no, we certainly agree with you a thousand percent. On the, on the national level,
26:38 I really think we need to focus on the system. Whether the manager or, of the system is a neo
26:47 colonial black puppet president, Barack Obama, or whether the manager of the colonial capitalist
26:55 system is a racist, fascist, ignorant maniac, Donald Trump, or whether the administrator of
27:05 the colonial capitalist system is a neoliberal racist Joe Biden. The bottom line, capitalism
27:13 is evil. We're not going to vote our way to freedom. It's not a panacea, but it is a strategy
27:19 for getting local power. Some of the very same revolutionaries, radicals who don't believe in
27:26 the electoral arena will come to me and say, can you get me a letter to help get Mthulu Shakur
27:32 free from prison? Absolutely, and it happened. Can you get me a letter to do this, to do that?
27:38 Can you make sure that we have black history in our curriculum? We have power. So you can't ignore
27:44 state power. Every revolution ever fought, they dealt with state power. Castro ran for Congress.
27:53 It wasn't until Batista decided there wasn't going to be no elections. Hamas, the so-called
27:58 great terrorists, they ran for office and won. Even Marcus Garvey had a political party that he
28:06 ran for office in Jamaica when he came here. So all of the revolutions, you name them, it got to
28:14 deal with state power. And so I say on a local level, it's easier to maintain your revolutionary
28:22 ideology and philosophy and mission, but the national, it doesn't make a huge difference no
28:29 matter what they say. So in my local area, if Donald Trump wanted to build Trump Towers on
28:38 Alabama Avenue and Brooklyn, East New York on city-owned land, he has to come see the Black
28:44 Panther. And if I say no, the zoning committee is going to say, whatever you say, local council
28:52 member, and he's defeated. We have defeated multi-millionaire, billionaire businessmen
29:00 who had to go through the political process in order to try to gentrify our neighborhoods.
29:06 We are the only Black community in New York that's experienced a 13.2% increase in the Black
29:14 population. And we lost some of the White population. I didn't run them out. They left on
29:20 their own, but we lost White population. So when you have power, that's the great equalizer. You
29:28 have to have power or be able to influence those who do have power. If you have neither,
29:34 then we're going around in circles and having a lot of action and motion and movement,
29:40 but we're not accomplishing the things that we can accomplish when we have power. Power
29:45 is the great equalizer. And I think the caveat to that would be Black radical power,
29:51 because you can get people to sit on it. Right? That's right. That's right. Black radicalism.
29:57 Everybody is more radical than what they think. If you ask anybody, would you like to get to the
30:02 root causes of your problem? I don't know anybody who would say no. You don't want to go to a doctor
30:09 with a headache and they just give you some Tylenol. And you want to know, how did I get
30:14 that headache? What caused that headache? And all of our headaches are caused by capitalism,
30:19 colonial capitalism. And the solution is not just getting more anti-poverty programs, which we
30:26 should, more programs for health and development and all of that. All of that we should get.
30:31 But the root causes to our problems is colonial capitalism and it's prioritizing profit over
30:41 people, greed over need. Yes. We're being told to vote for the lesser of two evils.
30:46 How do we approach that narrative, that demand from a radical lens? I think, you know,
30:54 no matter if you participate in politics or not, politics will be at your front door.
31:01 And it doesn't necessarily mean that, I mean, I'm the last person, you can check my track record,
31:10 that will tell you to vote for the lesser of two evils. It ain't going to be me, all right.
31:15 But what I will say, well, no but, no matter how we organize, whether we're creating, which we need
31:24 to do, creating little micro economies for ourselves, mutual aid, whatever it is, pouring
31:30 resources into our people and making sure that our people have what they need. It is going to be up
31:38 to us, it has always been. And when we build new businesses, small businesses, educational systems,
31:47 healthcare systems, like the Black Panthers did, right? Free breakfast programs. When we
31:55 build these things, when we build protection systems around our neighborhoods, like the
32:02 patrols that the Black Panthers did in Oakland, and then the Mulford Act came through. Mulford
32:09 passed, that's how California became a no open carry state. It wasn't because they were liberal
32:18 and interested in protecting folks from people carrying around guns. It's because the Black
32:24 Panthers were protecting their neighborhoods and then stormed the Capitol. And said, y'all ain't
32:34 gonna kill us no more, okay? Whenever we do that, whenever we organize outside of politics,
32:42 politics interferes. And there's politics even within our organizations, entrepreneurship,
32:52 you know, however you wanna frame your liberation process, all right? If you're talking about that
33:02 through business, if you're talking about that through education, whatever it is, you're building
33:07 that thing. There will be, in the same way that the government works, the same way that local
33:11 politics work, people start wanting to vote on things. There are boards, there are, you know
33:17 what I'm saying, as you form political organizations, nonprofits, whatever, there are
33:22 politics within those businesses, within those mutual aid programs. So we have to understand
33:30 what that means and how to navigate those things, how to talk about those things without getting
33:35 pissed off and being like, no, we don't wanna vote, can't we just do things? No, no, we actually
33:42 have to organize, that is how you organize things. So you're gonna encounter politics regardless of
33:48 if you want to or not. Focusing on how it applies to your, when they say hyper-local, that just
33:56 means your neighborhood, when your next door neighbors, your city, your county, whatever it is,
34:07 those are the local politics. When you focus on those, there's no option but to understand
34:14 what's going on federally. I guarantee it. It all goes, they'll blame it on somebody,
34:22 the city, the town, the neighborhood will blame it on the city, city will blame it on the county,
34:27 county will blame it on the state, state will blame it on the federal, okay? Everybody's gonna
34:31 try to escape accountability in there somewhere. So focusing on what's happening very, very close
34:39 to you, very close to the people that you love is how you stay involved in politics. And the way
34:46 that you keep people engaged is you get more and more creative. You get more creatives involved,
34:51 you get more fun ideas, you'll get some corny ones, people will be like, that's corny,
34:57 I'm not with it, okay, what's your idea, right? And then you bring that in and get people to
35:02 understand deeper and deeper and get more care and care, more care incorporated into your practice
35:09 and your strategies. I guarantee you by the time we out of this thing, we'll have a new system.
35:17 If we do that, we will have a system. Now they might come for it, but that's how we have to
35:24 think about right now, how they're attacking our stories, how they're attacking our DEI programs
35:30 and all the things that protect us. This is our success that they're attacking. So look at the
35:37 blueprints that have been created and say, how do we protect ourselves in a way that they can't come
35:43 for us no more? - I love that.
35:45 - I do. - And what I heard from all...
35:50 - Power. - Power, that's right.
35:53 - Power. - What I heard from all of you is,
35:55 there are myriad ways that we can think about politics. It's not just in the White House,
36:01 and it's almost a crime that it is narrowly focused on that when there are so many things
36:08 happening right outside our homes, happening right down the block that are happening,
36:12 maybe inside of our homes that is political. And so there are so many ways that people can be
36:19 involved outside of that. And so I want to thank you, the honorees, our esteemed guests. I wanna
36:25 thank you EssenceFam for joining us for this important conversation. And thank you so much
36:32 for sharing your insight as we celebrate our Black future now.
36:37 (upbeat music)
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