- 1 week ago
ESSENCE News & Politics Editor Tanya Christian talked live for our Democratic National Convention town hall with Essence Special Correspondent Eboni K. Williams and Essence Contributor & NY Times Best Selling Author Michael Arceanaux.
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00:00good afternoon and happy friday to our facebook and twitter family thank you for joining us my
00:18name is tanya christian i'm the news and politics editor at essence magazine and today we have
00:24another town hall recapping the democratic national convention i'm excited because today we have with
00:31us our extended essence fam first up we have ebony k williams who's an essence special correspondent
00:38and we have michael arsenal essence contributor and new york times best-selling author guys welcome
00:45to the show thank you so much for having me thank you being here um so you know we're gonna jump
00:51right in it's been a jam-packed four days monday through thursday um we saw quite a few speakers
01:00you know recapping with dnc so what were your favorite moments and what were the moments where
01:06you're just like you know we could have passed on that i'll start with you ebony ah okay so i'll
01:12start with my favorite moment of course was kamala harris's um historic acceptance of the vice
01:17presidential nomination for the democratic party uh i especially loved how kamala unapologetically
01:24owned her black womanhood right um sometimes in these kind of larger mainstream spaces as black women
01:31and black people we we can somewhat be pressured into downplaying it and i love in this moment
01:37um she leaned fully into it and talked about all of the incredible black women um whose shoulders she
01:43stands on fanny lou hamer shirley chisholm um you know you name it so it was it was special and i
01:49also loved that we saw a bit of a more humanistic side of kamala she talked a lot about family
01:53and who encompassed her family and she talked about her husband she talked about her stepchildren
01:58um she also talked about organizations that encompass her family like our beloved sorority tanya
02:04alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated the entire divine nine right and i think that was key
02:09because we know the divine nine which are all of the historically black um fraternities and sororities
02:15they're a powerful infrastructure uh we believe and we're all founded on civic engagement we have
02:21the infrastructure to go out and mobilize and i think it'll be a great weapon for uh the biden harris
02:26ticket absolutely yeah michael go ahead give us your uh give us your favorite moments and then we'll go
02:33back to our our path okay um my favorite moment was honestly alexandria ocasio cortez's one minute
02:41um she managed to get a lot in that one minute i think it's really important to name
02:45the the evils the american sins that have given away to donald trump which is not an aberration but
02:52more so a continuation and manifestation of republican politics for like a long time
02:57um and i did like michelle obama's speech um because i thought it was um a way to plead to
03:06people to vote in a way that doesn't necessarily insult some of us and i say that with great respect
03:12because while i really do like um michelle obama personally admire a lot about her um i i have taken
03:19issue publicly with the tone in which they often speak to black people particularly even in the first
03:23podcast where there was kind of saying that we um people who don't like don't know about basically
03:28why the government doesn't work or these things i'm like no people know that the system has let them
03:32down even though they necessarily have the language that we speak in political speak but they get it so
03:36i thought monday was more so an impassioned really honest um just like look y'all want to die
03:42aren't y'all tired and really big earrings and just kind of with grace like she's an amazing orator so
03:49i really did appreciate that and aoc okay and so what were some of the moments that we could have
03:55passed on over these this past week well i i actually think um they could have kept the clintons
04:02personally um i think both hillary and bill clinton i get it they're seniors elders in the party
04:09but i just think they represent such a bygone era of the nation and the party and i think it just was a
04:18visual reminder of staleness to be candid so they could have kept both of them for me okay
04:25i actually will say i um by virtue of her being the last nominee and the history that she made i
04:31could see why hillary clinton would be included but i do agree particularly about bill clinton i just
04:38think particularly after what he said about kwame toray at john lewis's um funeral was just really cheap
04:45and i think this is honest it should be the last um bill clinton appearance that we see um because
04:51i just think he's just antiquated and a lot of what we praise him for kind of was based on mythology that
04:57has long been exposed by like so like melissa harris pair like a decade ago among so many other people
05:01and also in real time um i did not just need to see all of those republicans i particularly didn't need
05:06to see john casick someone who as recently as 2016 was basically told lgbt people to get over
05:13legalized discrimination and also is very anti-choice anti-woman to me um like this is the thing
05:20i wrote for essence you know break up with joe biden on board tell you me mama and papa to break up with
05:24joe biden on board and um joe biden told me and so did auntie so i can accept political realities
05:31and i also understand that joe biden is a very specific type of politician therefore he wants to
05:36sell us on this like we can all work together and things will come back sure look you do what you got
05:41to do to win i don't want to die i'm going to keep repeating that however i do think that it came at the
05:46expense of other people there was no reason julian castro should not have been speaking when he has
05:51an entire campaign based on police reform his police his police his presidential campaign was based on
05:56police reform why was stacy abrams only given a minute and as dr christina greer wrote um at the
06:03kids table when she only really lost to governor jim crow because he's he stole the election and again
06:10you should have aoc i just think like if we're going to go for everybody which is clearly intent like
06:15for the three people here and who we know would they have not responded more to those three among
06:21others than all of these republicans i just felt like it was a little bit more catering
06:25to white moms what they call a rage moms now uh we we needed more of us that said i the production
06:33was fun it was great but i just wanted to see more people who speak to my actual politics and who
06:38will motivate people who i personally just i'm trying to get to the polls but you know we all have
06:43to push them more and give them reason yeah there were quite a few people um on twitter i saw asking
06:50about julian castro and why he wasn't there now he was very supportive on twitter but uh that is a big
06:56question he was somebody who was vocal about criminal justice reform on the debate stage and that didn't
07:04often come up but he made it a point to bring it up uh in addition to the fact that um you know if
07:11you're trying to win over latino voters it is important to have someone like julian castro speaking
07:18at this type of event um so i would agree with that i do think that that was a huge miss
07:25for the party and i'm not exactly sure why he wasn't there but i i think that it was important
07:32to have his voice um i know other people are saying oh you know latino voters were represented in other
07:37areas but because he was a candidate um and the only latino candidate personally i feel that he should
07:46have been there could i add even you know that i'll agree with all those points but also you know
07:51he really is good at not falling for the okie doke of putting black and latino latin people like against
07:58each other he's been really good about showing how this impacts all people of all types i think part of
08:04it maybe is because he called out the dnc particularly about the debates the caucus system but if the dnc
08:08chair tom perez is now saying we should get away with the the caucus system i mean julian has really
08:14been leading the party in a lot of ways even if his influence has not been acknowledged i just think
08:19you know especially you y'all should be begging him to run for governor or senator next year you
08:24should be really utilizing him his campaign really spoke to a lot of i just yeah i don't get it i just
08:31it just felt like silly because he they need latin latino support he's able to really talk to black
08:36issues as well and he connects with so many people and he if i'm not mistaken he was presented as like
08:41obama light in 2012 and now it's like oh who are you again we'll show you in the montage it's just
08:46very odd i agree it was a glaring omission um like y'all both said you know twitter was was very
08:53noticeable and uh and rightfully vocal about it and listen i think we're we're all kind of speaking
08:58to one of the problems with the whole party and i know and overall i think most of us were pretty
09:03pleased with the convention and we're all pretty motivated to go out here but we have to acknowledge
09:07the party is trying to please too many people um all the time and i think it's a huge misstep i think
09:13that that they are you've got uh an establishment part of the party tom perez the kind of established
09:19dnc debbie wasterman schultz types and and they are just hell bent on trying to hold on to this
09:25nucleus of the party that talks to these rage moms like you said arsenal you know and it's it's really
09:32disheartening and frustrating and annoying i think to many of us that feel like the party
09:38should be celebrating enthusiastically embracing this new era of what the party clearly is being
09:45supported by yeah um okay so we we got our hits and misses out of the way do we think that the
09:53convention was effective you know we're going to be talking about the bump the bounce uh for the
09:58biden harris ticket do we think that they're going to show or people are going to be more in favor of
10:05them coming out of this convention uh what do you guys think ebony i'll start with you no no i i don't
10:13necessarily think that we heard anything that would have moved the needle but i don't know that i think
10:18that's such a critique right i think more or less at this joe biden if you don't know who joe biden is
10:24and how you feel about joe biden by now a man who's literally been in public office for what
10:2840 years almost it as michelle said it is what it is um as for kamala harris she got big national
10:36profile some people are still getting to know her a bit better perhaps there were some people that
10:41were more affable to her because she opened up a bit more we saw a little bit more personal uh aspect
10:48of kamala but in general i think most people kind of know how they feel i don't think in this election
10:52y'all there's a whole lot of the undecided voter i i just think this this feels different to me
10:57i think this is not so much an election even about policy to be candid um or or traditional
11:03partisan hotbed pockets like abortion or um you know taxes i think this is an election about the
11:10culture of america and and and what who is american and who is entitled to first-class citizenship in this
11:18country moving forward that to me is what this election is about and you know either you're you're a
11:23trump person that wants the status quo and an intrinsic value of whiteness to sustain or you
11:29are somebody that has the courage to say i don't need to further suppress black and brown people in
11:34order to feel i have a chance at the american dream and you're going to be a biden harris person yeah
11:39i think it acts for me i think it was actually pretty effective for what their intended goal was was to
11:47reach a certain demographic of voters which i think in this case um were white voters white moderates
11:54particularly white republican women who you know are finally horrified by the bigotry and prejudice
12:00they've been voting for for decades but i digress um i do think unfortunately it's not so much i agree
12:06that they don't necessarily need convincing but i do think a lot of white voters to be blunt um appreciate
12:10the vanity boost that donald trump gave them as evidenced by several studies that shown these were
12:15cultural anxieties not economic anxieties because his voters were richer than hillary clinton voters
12:19um so they see chaos and the reality is we are disproportionately being impacted by that by not
12:25them but they're now being inconvenienced and he's making everything worse so i think joe biden his
12:31speech last night again i'm not i accept it i can tell the new thing now is that he's going to ride off
12:36into the sunset ideally on some fdr it's a reboot if we can actually survive so i'm happy to just like get
12:43on over there and just like push him to actually live up to progressive policies but i think what
12:47for me what my it's not even a it was good for what it was intended to be but is that good for the
12:52party long term right we're going to vote by virtue of necessity and survival which is what we always do
12:57but my concern is two years from now and there is reason to worry because while on policy biden actually
13:05does sound progressive particularly climate change and forgiving hbcu um debt you know which is literally my
13:11second book about we are disappointed about that i those are the things i wish i had heard about more
13:14so and i was i wanted to add i thought kamala harris did really great um more of us are familiar with
13:20her than actually you know that i think she was good i think she convinced many people i i personally
13:25think she could have won if she just knocked joe biden completely off but it's over now um i think
13:30those things were all successful but when you think about the people under 40 the black people the brown
13:36people a like working class people of all types two years from now what would they presented is not
13:43going to keep them donald trump is the main motivation and the production level was good
13:49enough to make us more people feel comfortable with their choices for the here and now like i'll deal with
13:52it but two years from now if you're not really put people picking people up i can see easily we're
13:59going to be stuck with light and not maybe but we're going to be facing potentially president tucker
14:02carlson or josh holly holly that's my worry about four years from now thought it was fine for what
14:08it was but it really wasn't for people like me and and you and you and that's what i kind of worry
14:14about well kind of like in some things but like generally it was i don't know i worry about this in
14:18two years it was i agree with that mike i think it was it's true it was a triage convention right now i
14:24could make the argument though that that might have been appropriate for the fact that we are bleeding out
14:30as a nation we're certainly bleeding out as black black americans right so i really wasn't mad at
14:34it but i totally agree with you you're totally right michael it was a triage convention um very
14:39much to address the immediate uh chaos and and pandemonium but that did nothing to lay a foundation
14:46for a party to move forward for another generation right totally agree i don't even disagree with you
14:51i mean we're kind of like in concert it's just i know that they're they're they're trying to please
14:56everybody which i agree with but they're trying to be white voters more than us that's what
14:59that's the best of it so that's what i worry about too yeah yeah yeah now uh ebony i spoke to you
15:07yesterday on revolt black news and we talked about wanting to hear specifics from joe biden about how
15:15he plans to really bring equity uh to the black community and close the the gap on so many things
15:23um between the white community black community did you hear that last night and uh what do you know
15:30he needs to do more of in the next 75 days to make that message clear i didn't hear it the way i needed
15:38to hear it tanya you know again i was really looking for specific these are home oh here's what i want to
15:46say first i think the foundation has been laid in the wake of the you know black lives matter 2.0
15:53movement whatever you want to call it the result you know the response to george floyd's killing
15:57like this the fact that it is now okay to say black people have been disproportionately uh totally uh
16:07you know uh shitted on basically for lack of a better word in this country for generations that is no
16:11longer a provocative or taboo thing to say like that's now a mainstream accepted truth more or less
16:18so when that's laid y'all now joe biden has the runway to now design and articulate policy that
16:26directly impacts that wrong so it no longer has to be home ownership for for you know just general
16:34middle-class americans no you can say i'm rolling out a policy to specifically empower home ownership for
16:41black folk in america it can be that specific now i'm designing a policy to specifically like you
16:47said mike um forgive college debt i think for all black college students frankly especially if you're
16:54first generation whether it's hbcu or you go to a pwi like i think you get to be that specific in
16:59writing the historical wrongs perpetrated against black americans in this country and he didn't go
17:05there um he i didn't really hear him say the words enough for me structural racism
17:10black subordination um equity financial and political equity for black americans in this
17:17country i needed a bit more of that okay and michael how about you um it's like i don't disagree but i
17:26just know the point is like it was the convention is a pageant um in terms of the pageantry well i live
17:31for a pageant i mean go ahead michael but not for this purpose not for this purpose no no no i mean i i
17:37said it they said like i would have liked to hear it too but you only hear so much in these which is
17:43actually not an excuse but it's just that's i don't know it is what it is because they've taken
17:47it to death now but you know like yeah what i will say you know i was caught off guard i'm like oh it's
17:51a new day when the the advice a presidential nominee is beginning his his or her acceptance speech with
17:59ella baker i was like oh okay um but at the same time this is the man responsible for the crime bill and
18:04what he did what happened with anita hill and it's not to like discourage but to say like there's
18:09poetry and then there's policy and in case of joe biden there's a lot of atonement that needs to be
18:13done was that speech was really um good for him in terms of what the intended goal was but in terms of
18:22policy i will say if i could have given no it i'm not i'm not expecting you to give us like a 10-point
18:26plan and i know you like he actually could talk about policy in length but elected not to but i think
18:31certain nods like again for uh people for black graduates who make um on a hundred and twenty
18:38five thousand dollars divided one body plan is talking about eliminating debt i just not a pwi
18:45versus hbcu debate but the reality is most black people graduate from black colleges and we are
18:49disproportionately impacted by student loan debt particularly private student loan debt which
18:53is not a book club but like that's what i wrote about my second book because this is disproportionately
18:58impacting so many of us so the idea of home ownership and just basically even be able to
19:02eat sometimes is a real issue i think that even that little line would have actually kind of clicked
19:07for certain people because it's a really quick and shareable clip that might have rang bells to pass on
19:11facebook in the midst of all those conspiracies and nonsense and people you wish you left in middle
19:15school um even i mean he did talk about um the climate plan but i think just even more maybe one
19:21specific line about how environmental justice and how like a really massive climate can not only really save
19:27this country from financial ruin that's not really being acknowledged yet but okay um but also help
19:33say the fact that i know for a fact people in my life that probably died because of environmental
19:37pollution like you know so those things i think can be talked about in the fall between um senator harris
19:44and joe biden but yeah it was a pageant he did that he did really you know i will say if he just
19:52spelled the sleepy joe thing i didn't fall asleep at least he wasn't slurring his words and struggling to
19:56pronounce basic words like that idiot autocrat um so it was fine but you know i think in the fall
20:04to motivate certain types of people you need to hit those very specific points about debt cancellation
20:09um climate change and really kind of motivate people to like say oh you actually might be again
20:15you're gonna be like you're giving me fdr reboot you're trying to be the progressive pop pop now that's
20:19the remix spin all right well let's lean into it and actually try to talk about those things in detail
20:23because people you know you need something i will agree with that yeah i just want to add real quick
20:30just real quick point totally agree with everything you just said michael i just think if he had it in
20:35him to do better he would have done it by now to be that's that's why i keep telling people like we can
20:39keep me too right we can keep expecting or wanting him to to do better and give us those sound bites and
20:47get leaning forward i think it's just not in him so i think the best we can all hope for and expect at
20:53this point is for him to not mess it up like you said not make major gaps not make us fall asleep just
21:00like hold the wheel joe hold the wheel i will give him one compliment um i do think joe biden better than
21:08most politicians maybe better arguably than a lot of people in the public space is able to talk about
21:14greece in a way that i do think is really helpful to a lot of people and i do think one aspect about
21:20that speech that was probably really useful was a real acknowledgement of death pain and suffering
21:25i saw it on my feeds in real time a lot of people of different ages black you know were impacted by
21:31that actually black people i'm leading with um in mine that's my vote but you know what i mean um
21:36at a time where there's so many people that are dying and so many more people are like 300 000 people
21:40are expected to die by december 1st and that number could very easily get higher as it's
21:45consistently shown to do this is disproportionately us latinx folk i do think you know it might not have
21:51like worn my heart per se because i we go ahead like some of us have liberalizing others but i do
21:58think because we don't have a national grieving process right now those probably those words probably
22:04did help people i actually think that's the best thing that he's he's able to do um to be like i
22:10think a lot more people are going to die there's a lot of pain and suffering even you know one sentence
22:14that he said about just dealing with grief and like the unfairness that actually did kind of impact me
22:19in a way because you know a lot i've been losing people every year and we didn't need to because of
22:25health care because of so many things so i thought that was one good thing i think that is useful
22:29but yes he's not going to ever be like this you know incredible orator like even like back on the
22:35show but i do think he can speak really good to great to grief and i do think there are many people
22:40who need that and a lot of people who probably need it and don't even realize it um because there
22:44is a real sadness and anger manifesting and that's just to me it's boiling over and i don't know where
22:54that goes in terms of us collectively in the nation so i did think that was one really important aspect
22:58um well i think i'll send me campaign emails i'm joking i know i definitely think he did it they
23:05or the campaign did a great job with that like if they're if one of their points were to make sure
23:11that people know that joe biden is a good guy he's empathetic um they definitely made that point even
23:19when i was watching uh jacqueline britney who in who was the first person to nominate him for to be
23:27candidate for uh for president and just her telling her story about how she met him in the elevator and
23:33she really believed that he was the kind of person who you know cared about what he had to say great
23:39point the the uh montage of between him and jill great i thought that was great i thought that was
23:46effective um so definitely on that point especially when we're talking about comparisons between him and
23:54and trump who said you know who has constantly praised his um work on the on the pandemic you know i
24:03remember jared kushner said we're doing a great job when when the number was at 160 you know so just
24:09things like that making that comparison they were very effective um and to your point ebni a little
24:16earlier you were talking about kamala uh some people know her some people don't but when she was able to
24:23speak to her identities and and who family was i think that those were the kind of moments that
24:29really brought people in to these two candidates and really uh allowed them to see the the human in
24:36them we always talk about politician politician but these are real people with real stories and so
24:42you know joe joe biden about his wife and and his child who passed away and then kamala with her
24:49family i definitely think those were moments that that brought voters in to who these people are and
24:57who they're going to be voting for now we have just a couple minutes left so i want to know from both of
25:03you in the next 75 days what do you think uh both joe biden and kamala harris need to do to energize
25:14people to make it to the polls we're hearing a lot of well i don't like the ticket so i'm not going
25:19which to me is just not an option this year so what do they need to do what does the democratic
25:25party really in general need to do to make sure that um if if they want to vote uh if they want
25:32people to vote for them if they want people to come out the way they came out for barack obama
25:36they're going to do that whoo that's a tall order but that is exactly what is needed um because as
25:43michelle said we have got to see turnout that looks like 2008 and 2012 full stop like that's the reality
25:50my experience tells me y'all kamala nor joe ain't gonna do it you know they just that's not who they
25:56are so i would suggest this don't make it so much even about them you know make it about people need to go
26:04vote for who's going to replace ruth beta ginsburg people need to go vote for um the avoidance of a
26:11trump supreme court because that's exactly what will happen if trump gets another four years he will
26:17likely get at least two picks on the u.s supreme court and that will be unprecedented um i can't
26:23recall any president having four sitting supreme court justices on their watch um so and they need
26:29to talk specifically about what that means because for some people that's just a rhetorical talking point
26:34they don't know the impact of what federal judiciary means the u.s supreme court trump has already been
26:38more effective than barack obama was in eight years in three and a half years in terms of replacing
26:44activist far-right republican justices on all federal supreme court levels they need to be talking about
26:50that y'all and really educating the electorate on the states beyond just who's in that oval office
26:55because it's much bigger than that yeah i agree with that but i also worry in a nation where
27:02a significant enough amount of people think judge judy sits on the supreme court um i think
27:07conservatives are generally better about educating their voters about the importance of judges but
27:13it's like another point that i agree with you with but i'm like democrats have a long way to go even just
27:17in terms of like the culture yeah um i actually i mean i think people are going to vote i think i understand
27:27the polls are tightening but is anything going to get better in terms of the economy or the coronavirus
27:32between now and november i think it benefits cable news um channels and papers and needs of click to
27:39make it seem the race is closer than actually it but then again you can never discount the prejudice of
27:43white people um that said um i think joe and kamala can only do so much i agree with ebony about that i do think
27:52kamala motivates um the demo that votes the most i personally have never seen so many black women
27:59happy on cable news um i do understand that kamala harris has a mixed record um but that's you know
28:12i've always felt her record was more complicated than people let on i also think she's malleable in
28:17a way that's actually useful as evidenced by the fact that for the first time she lost the race
28:22um and she reached out to a lot of black activists to at least see what the issue was so i think
28:27talking to black media which she's already started will be really helpful um i think the same will be
28:33true of joe biden i think it's important to talk about actual policies that will benefit people and
28:36even just like again it's the hbcu debt forgiveness that's something really easy to like get people's
28:40minds off and people talk about debt cancellation all the time climate change you know people don't
28:45necessarily talk about all the science and nuances but they know it's hotter they know these um storms
28:49are scarier than ever and they know california's on fire so speak to that how that actually can create
28:55jobs it's again i will say the biggest hurdle for them is not so much for me i mean they know how to
29:02get more people to vote but i think it's also the fact that they're trying well there's a coup going on
29:08and the u.s postal service is being used as a prop one effective thing i noticed that they did on the
29:12last two nights was to remind people every five seconds to text three three three or whatever the
29:17number is to learn about how they can do mail-in balloting and voting early i think that's the most
29:22important thing it's direct outreach to people who they know can who know whose votes they know they
29:27need and who they actually need to acknowledge because i read um and like in may black people
29:33particularly were distrustful of mail-in ballots we called it early and then there are clearly young
29:37black people who don't have the funds i've read elsewhere so i think that's sort of the thing that we
29:41need to start talking about like reaching out to people directly and telling them how they can
29:44actually vote so they don't die um and trying to get rid of the madman who doesn't care if we die
29:49anyway and that's a great point to end on a lot of people have been saying it we really need to make
29:54sure that we have a voting plan come november and we need to think about it in advance so if that means
30:00reaching out to get your your ballot absentee whatever that is make sure you have a plan and as michael said
30:07earlier also let's look at these proposals uh joe biden has a build back better plan let's take a
30:14look let's make sure that we're familiar with the policies uh so that is our time for today ebony and
30:20michael thank you so much for joining me i had a great time and i look forward to speaking with you
30:25guys in the future thank you thank you tanya thank you essence bye
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