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From historical perspectives to present-day challenges, these authors will explore the nuances of progress, setbacks, and resilience within Black communities. Gain valuable insights, engage in thought-provoking dialogue, and be inspired by the diverse voices shaping the narrative of Black race relations and the ongoing journey towards equality.
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00:00Up first, we have Reggie Reads, reader, podcaster, moderator,
00:05who believes that choosing books is the best way to combat the doom-scrolling epidemic.
00:10Come on, Reggie.
00:16Up next, we have multi-genre writer, artist, producer, and author of the new book,
00:21Still True, The Evolution of an Unexpected Journalist, Reagan Jackson.
00:30Then we have author of the number one New York Times bestseller,
00:33So You Want to Talk About Race and Mediocre, The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America,
00:39Ijeoma Oluo.
00:44Beautiful.
00:46And finally, we have attorney, CNN commentator, and author of the New York Times bestseller,
00:52My Vanishing Country, a Memoir, Bakari Sellers.
01:00I'm so glad to be here. It's great to see y'all. The energy is incredible.
01:05All right, let's get right to it, though.
01:07So the first question I want to ask y'all is, you know, each of y'all have written multiple books,
01:12so I know something has to be bothering you, right, usually to write about it at length.
01:19And I just want to know, what was bothering y'all that led y'all to write the most recent book that you all wrote?
01:27Ooh, okay.
01:30So my book, it's called Still True, The Evolution of an Unexpected Journalist.
01:34And the thing that was really bothering me was the crappy media that I was seeing.
01:40Everything that I ever read about Rainier Beach, which is where I live,
01:43talked about death, murder, crime, all these things.
01:48I mean, you would really think I was living in a terrible place.
01:51Nobody talked about art and education and beauty and community.
01:55And that's part of why I wanted to become a journalist and why I was an unexpected journalist,
02:01because I just hadn't seen what I wanted to do done and done well.
02:07So that's kind of why I put together this book.
02:10It's 10 years of my work as a journalist,
02:12and it's also part memoir of what were the choices I made in terms of covering my community
02:19and make sure that we were accurately and beautifully portrayed.
02:23For me, with Be a Revolution, I had already written two books on violent white supremacy
02:35and white male patriarchy, and I was exhausted.
02:38And my initial plan was to take a few years off and reconnect with writing, my love of writing, right?
02:44As a little kid, I didn't say, I want to write about racism when I grow up.
02:48And I wanted to really, you know, get back to that.
02:52But I kind of didn't want to leave it there.
02:55And so when 2020 hit, the thing that became increasingly clear to me
02:59is that with all of the hardship, all of the struggle, all of the trauma we endure,
03:04we are here because of loving community.
03:07And I think that became even more apparent in 2020 as community was how we got through
03:13as every system we had failed us.
03:15And so what I wanted to do was to show what that looks like.
03:19A lot of times people will ask me, what can I do?
03:21What could I do?
03:23And what I wanted to show is what people are doing and have been doing.
03:26And so that's really where I decided to launch on this project
03:30to spend a couple of years with seasoned movement workers
03:34to talk about what it looks like to care for community
03:37and who really is leading the revolution that's been happening
03:41for the hundreds of years that we've been surviving against all odds in this country.
03:47So I just want to start off by saying thank you to all of you all
03:52because there's a lot going on in this space.
03:55But you all took a little time out to spend time with authors,
03:58particularly black authors.
04:00And so I just want to, you know, from the bottom of my heart,
04:02say thank you for the love and support of you guys coming out.
04:06That's first.
04:06So you asked a great question about the impetus behind the books that we wrote.
04:10And this is my third book, The Moment, that just came out in April or May.
04:16My first book was a long journey because I've always wanted to be an author.
04:19I always wanted to write a book.
04:21And I wanted to write a book about what it was to be black during the age of Donald Trump.
04:25I wanted to write a political book.
04:27And nobody bought it.
04:29I literally got turned down 32 times for that idea because they've said,
04:34why would we hire you or pay you to write a book about the age of Donald Trump
04:39where we can just hire somebody close to him to write about it?
04:41And so finally, I sat down with a young lady named Tracy Sherrod,
04:45who was the editor-in-chief over at Amistad.
04:47And she asked me about who I was and my story.
04:50And I told her about growing up the son of a civil rights hero who was shot in the Orangeburg Massacre.
04:55And my dad helped found SNCC.
04:57And I talked about the Charleston Massacre where my good friend Clemente Pinckney and eight others were killed.
05:01And I talked about being the youngest black elected official in office and all of these things.
05:05And she said, you should write that.
05:07And I said, nobody wants a memoir from somebody 30 years old.
05:11But I was wrong.
05:12And she believed in me.
05:13And so I was able to put those words on paper.
05:16It was an easy write.
05:17The second book was a children's book because I was tired of black kids having to read things about purple trucks.
05:22I wanted them to be able to see themselves on the pictures.
05:26And it's very hard to be a black children's author.
05:30It's a hard space to crack into.
05:32I literally had to be a New York Times bestseller to get an opportunity to write a children's book.
05:37In the most recent book, The Moment, I'm reminded of Cicely Tyson.
05:44I interviewed her on Monday.
05:45She passed away on Wednesday.
05:47And she told me that I asked her why she waited until she was 90 years old to write her autobiography.
05:51And she responded by saying, in only Cicely Tyson form, I was waiting until I had something to say.
05:57And the moment for me was at a time, just like you were going through that in 2020, where I felt like I had something to say.
06:04I felt like we were on the precipice of a third reconstruction, but we missed that moment.
06:09Yeah.
06:10Yeah.
06:10Give it up.
06:11And speaking of that, you know, I wanted to ask y'all just about the United States response to 2020 and just how, like, the title of your book, Bakari, it felt like a collective moment, right?
06:27And I could go on and on about that.
06:29And in y'all book, y'all do a great job of just talking about progress rollbacks, essentially, whether it's DEI, whether it's Roe v. Wade, affirmative action.
06:40You all address that.
06:41And I just wanted you to talk about why the widespread change of 2020 died so quickly.
06:48And what do you think would have made it sustain over time?
06:55Oh, me?
06:58Okay.
07:01It died because white people remember they can walk away.
07:08And, I mean, where is the lie?
07:11That's what happened, basically.
07:13We had this moment where, as a country, we were all very galvanized.
07:18We were all very focused.
07:19COVID focused us.
07:21We had to figure out what we needed to do in order to stay alive.
07:24And in that moment, this terrible, awful thing happened.
07:28This terrible, awful thing that had been happening and continues to happen.
07:32It was nothing new.
07:34The thing that was new was everyone's focus.
07:37Everyone was like, oh, my God, that's terrible.
07:39I watched eight minutes, and it was terrible.
07:41And then, like everything else, they changed the channel.
07:48Go for it.
07:49I'm sorry.
07:50Yeah, I think, too, people were saying, this makes me feel bad, and I don't want to feel bad anymore.
07:56Yes.
07:56And so people looked for an action that would make them feel better.
08:01And so you saw how quickly our government, everyone, actually provided those actions, right?
08:07We had, you know, representatives in their cloths taking a knee.
08:12They were doing actions to make people feel like, oh, I did something, and it mattered.
08:16And we were sold this as revolution while the systems stayed the same.
08:22And they knew that we would buy that.
08:24We would buy a 0.5% decrease in police budget knowing that could come back up again the next year.
08:29And that lesson learned, because they were scared of this mobilization, was that they had to shore up these institutions.
08:38And so what we're seeing right now, they were like, okay, phew, we barely got away with that, right?
08:43We barely got away with this lip service, and we got people to stop being in the streets.
08:48Now let's make sure they can't do that again.
08:49And so what we're seeing right now, we're seeing protesters being charged with RICO charges, right?
08:54We're seeing this criminalization of student activists.
08:57We are seeing, you know, the doxing of activists.
09:00We are seeing this language shift to make sure that they don't have to go through this again,
09:05because even though they were able to get by by giving us surface-level improvements that they could quickly take back,
09:12they don't want to have to keep doing that.
09:13And they know that we're going to figure that out the more they keep doing this to us.
09:18So right now what's happening, pay attention, especially when we look at the way that protesters around Palestine
09:24and the cop cities all over this country are being treated,
09:27is they're trying to ensure that the next 2020 that comes around, we actually aren't in the streets.
09:34And they don't even have to deal with that.
09:37So I look at 2020, you have to peel back the layer of the onion when you're talking about what happened in 2020.
09:45First, I think we have to reframe the discussion, because what we saw with George Floyd and Derek Chauvin, his murderer,
09:52I want people to be extremely clear and intentional with their language.
09:55That was not justice.
09:57What we saw was accountability.
09:59Justice is George Floyd still being here.
10:01Accountability is what we saw.
10:03Now, that's necessary and appropriate, and we should applaud that,
10:06but we have to be very intentional with our words.
10:08The second thing is I want black folk to understand how we were able to get to that level of accountability.
10:14The first thing, it took a 17-year-old black girl named Danella Frazier who had the audacity to take a camera out.
10:21We also had to have on camera a knee in a black man's neck where he's literally bellowing out for his mother for nine minutes.
10:28The last thing that happened, and both of you all alluded to it, particularly you, is that we were in the midst of COVID.
10:35George Floyd does not happen if we're not in COVID.
10:37We're in COVID, so you cannot turn your head away.
10:40You have to continuously look at this.
10:42You have nowhere to go.
10:43You can't go outside.
10:45And so people were seeing this over and over and over again.
10:48And then the entire world came outside.
10:50So you have to have a 17-year-old with courage.
10:54You have to have a video of a black man being killed.
10:56You have to be in a once-in-a-100-year pandemic.
10:59And the entire world has to come outside just for black folk to be able to achieve a certain level of accountability.
11:05So that's how you first have to analyze that.
11:08The second thing is, and one of the things that I talk about often, and this really doesn't answer your question,
11:13but they answered it well already, so leave well enough alone,
11:16is I always feel like my job on this planet is to reduce the cost of change for black folk.
11:23And people are like, Bakari, what does that mean?
11:25Every ounce of change we've ever had in this country has been because of black blood that flowed through the streets.
11:31And I feel like that price is too high for us to pay.
11:35And so people then ask, they're like, Bakari, what the hell are you talking about?
11:38And I say, well, you don't get the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act of 64 or 65 without the Edmund Pettis Bridge
11:44until white folk saw us getting bludgeoned on a bridge with dogs and water hoses, you don't get that change.
11:50You don't get the Fair Housing Act of 1968 without the assassination of King.
11:54We don't take the Confederate flag down in South Carolina without nine black folk dying in a church.
11:58You don't have a conversation about criminal justice reform without George Floyd having to die
12:03and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.
12:05And so the price for change in this country for black folk is like they say in New York,
12:10you know, they say to rent too damn high.
12:11The price for change is too damn high for black folk in this country.
12:16And so when we look at 2020, I always am reminded that we got these $600 checks,
12:22the $1,200 checks, the $2,400 checks.
12:25And as you were saying, the system's never changed.
12:29Like, I don't care when people call me nigger.
12:31That happens enough on social media.
12:33All you got to do is go around and ask.
12:34But I do care about the fact that black folk are tied up in these systems of inequality and oppression.
12:40And I'll stop after this.
12:43But these systems are not broken.
12:46A lot of y'all run around here talking about our health care system is broken
12:50or our criminal justice system is broken.
12:52And I'm like, they're not broken.
12:53They work the way they're intended to work.
12:55Like, engineers create systems to create outcomes.
13:01And the outcomes are what they intended them to be.
13:03And so one of the things 2020 taught us all, I believe,
13:06is that we have to deconstruct these systems and reimagine them so they look like all of us.
13:12Yeah.
13:13Wow.
13:15And, you know, as a book lover, I'm particularly moved when people address our stories being erased.
13:22Right?
13:22And in each of y'all's books, you're talking about book bans.
13:28You're talking about even our stories being erased internationally, like in Mexico.
13:32Right?
13:33And I want y'all to each speak a little bit about what we have to do to ensure that we are protecting our stories
13:41and perhaps even the role you feel like y'all are playing as authors in making sure that our stories sustain.
13:47When I accepted the invitation to become a journalist, I did it kind of tongue-in-cheek
13:56because I was like, I don't know that I'm necessarily feeling that as a title.
14:00But I love the opportunity to tell my story and to tell the stories of the people in my community
14:07and to get it right, to tell it in the way that it's meant to be told.
14:10And that's kind of what I'm hoping to inspire future writers to do.
14:16I want people to read this book, think about who you are in the world, think about what
14:21it is that you care about, and take action.
14:24You know, critical thinking followed by action is the meditation that the world really needs
14:28right now.
14:29But also, we can't take it for granted.
14:33I feel like it's easy to kind of get lax and say, oh, well, you know, next time I'll tell
14:41my story.
14:42There isn't a next time.
14:43It's only now.
14:45And you're the one who has to do it.
14:47So especially if there's any of you out here who have been thinking about writing your memoir,
14:51your story, talking to your grandparents, talking to your people about their stories,
14:56please don't wait.
14:57I think that it's important that we remember that oppression doesn't exist without a story.
15:09The way in which these systems that are so horrific and murderous for hundreds of years
15:14are able to sustain, and people who normally would think they wouldn't want to be a part
15:19of that, wouldn't want to support that, they do because of the story that's told.
15:23A story that's told about our worth, a story that's told about the worth of people with
15:29more privilege, a story that's told about why we're doing what we're doing or what even
15:33is happening.
15:34And we counter that with our stories.
15:38Our stories are a vital part of revolutionary work.
15:41And how you tell it is so important.
15:46And there's so much gatekeeping about whose story gets to be told, whether you have the
15:50proper language, the proper grammar.
15:52And so one thing I always want to tell people is if your story can effectively communicate
15:56to the people you want to communicate to, you are a good writer and that is a good story.
16:01And if you feel like you can go into a bookstore right now and pick up 50 stories just like
16:06yours, all right, maybe think, maybe reconsider.
16:09But I bet there's not a single person in this room who could.
16:13And so tell your story how you can.
16:14And every story reaffirms our humanity and chips away at the story that underpins the
16:22oppression that we suffer under.
16:23And you don't have to write a book.
16:25You don't have to write an article.
16:26You can write a song.
16:27You can paint a picture.
16:29However you tell your truth, we need.
16:32Because we have been, you know, consistently erased and stories have been written about
16:38us that are used to harm us.
16:41So every story is a revolutionary act so long as it's true to you.
16:46No, I think that's powerful.
16:48It kind of sucks going third because they say everything by the time the microphone get
16:52down here.
16:52So I would say that this is when my conservative streak comes out of me because I believe we
16:59have to have a certain level of individual responsibility when it comes to sharing and
17:03telling our story.
17:04And I don't think we do enough of it.
17:06I think that for a long period of time, and that's why this moment of book bans, that's
17:11why this moment of anti-intellectualism is so valuable for us because now we have to reclaim
17:18that mantle and actually educate ourselves and our children ourselves.
17:22This is not, when people talk about book bans and things like that, I get the policy.
17:28I understand how we want to fight that.
17:30I know you need to be at school board meetings.
17:31I get all of that.
17:32But it also means you have to reclaim your household because you know that they're not
17:37going to learn about Stokely Carmichael or Julian Bond or Marion Barry.
17:40They're not going to learn about Judy Richardson.
17:42They're not going to learn about, you know, Ella Baker and Fannie Lou.
17:45They're not going to learn about these individuals or Majeska Simpkins or Septima Clark down
17:49at their public school, which means that you have to reclaim that and actually educate
17:54yourself and then your household.
17:57Because we've had this gap where the stories are no longer being told and passed down, and
18:03that's on us.
18:04That's on us building that community.
18:06And also, as you were saying, sharing your story and writing your story ain't hard.
18:11It's really not.
18:13I have this app on my phone called Voice Record.
18:16And when I'm riding or when I'm on an airplane or whatever it is, I just talk into it for a
18:20little while.
18:22And it just, there's another app that dictates it for you.
18:25Just spit out what you, so you're writing your own book right there.
18:29But it's so easy, and we want to just give that power away, and we should not.
18:34And our stories are so valuable.
18:36Our stories are so important.
18:37And the last thing that I'll say about that is, every now and then, you will say something
18:41that touches someone else in a way that will empower them to do more than you can ever
18:47imagine.
18:49In the moment, I was talking to my dad, and my dad actually, he made a point.
18:53He said he believes that we're back in 1954.
18:57And for me, it was something I just, I talked to him a lot about stuff like that.
19:00So it was something I put in there in passing.
19:02But for the reader, so many people have come up to me and said, that's a very sobering
19:06reality about where we are.
19:08I defined white supremacy in the book, and you probably have a much better definition
19:13than I do.
19:14But I simply define white supremacy as when equality feels like oppression.
19:18So when you're talking to folk out there, and they're like, I'm asking for equality, and
19:25they're like, oh my God, that feels like you're oppressing me, that means that they are a part
19:28of the problem.
19:29But you're able to put those words down on paper.
19:32You're able to express your thoughts, and just maybe you can move one or two people.
19:35And in each of y'all's stories, too, y'all talk about gentrification, or just home ownership,
19:47land ownership, whatever it is, whether it's the story of Josephine Wright, whether it's
19:51CHOP, whether it's your own home, right?
19:53And, Bakari, I'll switch it up this time, right?
19:56I'll come to you.
19:57But can y'all just talk about what moved y'all to speak about the importance of us owning
20:05our assets in front of owning our assets despite the forces of gentrification that are coming
20:12to take all of the land and all the home?
20:15Well, yeah, because for me, I think that we talk about, in our community, we talk about
20:21surviving so much, because that is what we have to do day in and day out.
20:27But very rarely do we talk about thriving.
20:30Very rarely do we have those conversations.
20:32We, you know, when we talk policy, people talk about poverty mitigation, but very rarely
20:38do they talk about wealth creation.
20:40And so for me, I wanted to at least have a conversation about economic mobility in a way that was sustainable
20:47and we could actually begin to have that conversation, because objectively, we're in a pretty bad spot.
20:53But home ownership today for black folk is where it was pre-Fair Housing Act of 1968.
21:01And the number one metric by which you define wealth in this country is by home ownership.
21:06And if you can see a group of people that are not even making progress slowly or stagnantly, but it's declining,
21:15then that fundamentally is a problem.
21:17But then you have women like Josephine Wright, who was four feet, ten inches tall.
21:22She was 94 years old.
21:23And she got served with a lawsuit because there was a developer in Savannah that wanted to come
21:29and take her Gullah Geechee land.
21:31They wanted 22 feet of it because they were developing apartments.
21:35That land had been in her family for 150 years.
21:38And so I told the story of Josephine Wright, one, because I was able to help her.
21:43Two, because it was a weird combination of Snoop Dogg, me, Kyrie Irving, and the black community coming together
21:50to help this young black lady, because she reminded all of us of our grandparents.
21:54It reminded us of how hard it is to ascertain wealth in this country.
21:59And then the last story was that even if you do everything right, you can be on your way out and you can still be fighting.
22:04But she won.
22:09And it's a story not of survival, but it's a story of this black woman thriving.
22:14And so I think that we have to be able to share more of those stories,
22:17because if I didn't write about Josephine Wright, nobody in this room would know about the Gullah,
22:22well, we know Gullah Geechee, or y'all should know Gullah Geechee,
22:24but we wouldn't know about the Gullah Geechee culture, the richness of it,
22:27and how the perseverance really matters.
22:29All right, I'm going to be a little messy with my answer here,
22:36because the truth is, is that we are on occupied, stolen land, right?
22:40So when we are talking about owning property on occupied, stolen land,
22:44it gets a little messy, a little complicated when we're talking about justice,
22:48and we're talking about race, right?
22:49And I think that it is no coincidence that we, of course, have been shut out of this,
22:54because a system built on the occupation and theft of land that turns land and its resources
23:00into a capitalist commodity is something that, of course, we,
23:05who were also turned into capitalist commodities, would be pushed out of, right?
23:10And so I think, you know, we live in a reality, right?
23:13So I'm going to say it is important that we have land, that we have space that can't be taken from us,
23:18that white supremacy can't touch.
23:19But when it comes to what that looks like, we need to get creative,
23:23and we need to start thinking about new definitions of wealth for community.
23:27And so, like, what I loved being able to write about, like, with Wanawari,
23:30which is this beautiful community kind of land space,
23:34community space to keep these homes that were owned by a black family as community homes,
23:42to support artists, support community spaces, is to say,
23:46how can we turn this from, I need to build individual wealth in this capitalist idea
23:52that we will always be kept out of?
23:54Because even if you own your home, it won't be, it won't have the same value, right?
23:58The moment you get old or sick and the health care system comes for you,
24:02those vultures are going to be at the door trying to get your daughter,
24:04your grandchild, to come and sell that house cheap, right?
24:07And then it's not yours anymore.
24:09So we need to look at what it means as communities to define wealth and space
24:13that doesn't contribute to this capitalist theft,
24:18that instead shores up our communities, keeps us, you know, in community,
24:22also with our native siblings as well,
24:25so that we know that for multiple generations we have a wealth that can't be taken
24:29or defined by white supremacist capitalism.
24:32It's really, really important that we do that.
24:34We have done it.
24:35That is how we have done it around the world for hundreds of years.
24:38We need to reclaim those practices and see how we can get them to work for us here.
24:44Yeah, absolutely.
24:45I started writing about gentrification because in 2011 I bought a house in Rainier Beach
24:53and I intentionally bought a house in a community that was diverse, in the 98118.
24:58It's one of the most diverse zip codes in the state of Washington.
25:02And I sat there and I watched as my Vietnamese, Cambodian, Filipino, East African
25:08and African American neighbors got foreclosed on and pushed out.
25:12So, you know, I had a front row seat and I just wanted to talk about it at first.
25:17And then it became a process of me learning more about how do you get pushed out?
25:24What are the mechanisms?
25:25What are the systems in place that can keep you in your home?
25:28And wanting to share that information with other people for harm reduction, honestly,
25:33just to keep people able to sustain themselves.
25:37But it's become so much more.
25:40I really do think this is the beginning of a blueprint towards generational wealth
25:44and community wealth like Ijeoma was talking about.
25:47Like, that's our future.
25:49That's what needs to be our future.
25:50And without these conversations, that doesn't happen.
25:55Indeed.
25:56And I'll make this the last one, right?
25:59Okay.
26:00So, and I think this is a fitting way to end.
26:02So, in Still True, one of my favorite moments is when you have a conversation with Adana Protonentes.
26:08And she talked about being optimistic and how optimism is an act of subversion.
26:13And I'm curious about what are y'all optimistic about as we go forward navigating these shades of progress?
26:21Well, in addition to writing books, I'm also the co-executive director of Young Women Empowered.
26:26And I work with teenagers.
26:29And they are the only reason why I have any optimism left is because every day they remind me,
26:36okay, okay, if they're in the world, it can't be all that bad.
26:40And then the second piece is my dad.
26:47My dad is one of the strongest people I've ever met.
26:51He's so strong.
26:52In 2020, when he was confined to a wheelchair, I had to take him to the doctor.
26:57And he was in an apartment building that the elevator was broken.
27:01So, he just popped out the chair and crawled down a flight of stairs and was like,
27:05Hammer, just grab the chair, just bring it down.
27:07And, you know, and I was like, we could have just waited.
27:10We could have rescheduled.
27:11And he was like, I've been black a long time.
27:14You know, like, I'm going to live my life however I can.
27:17So, get the chair.
27:18We'll do this.
27:19You know, and he's a master strategist.
27:22And it reminds me that our ancestors were master strategists.
27:26They were people who knew how to do everything, from growing their own food, to finding their way to freedom, to finding joy in the darkest despair.
27:36They are also my optimism.
27:39Right.
27:40It's beautiful.
27:40Yeah, I would say for me, similarly, I'm always having to remind myself that we exist because of the resistance and the fierce love of our ancestors and our community.
27:54We have, we exist through times worse than this because of that.
27:59And so, we are living testaments to that.
28:04And so, it's hard to feel like all is lost at a time like that.
28:08You know, and I just think, like, in the past, if we had always thought that, we wouldn't be here.
28:11And then, for me, the young people, when I think, I'm a parent, so I had a kid who was graduating high school as the pandemic started, and I had one that was entering middle school as the pandemic started.
28:22And these were devastating years for our young people, right?
28:25Failed on so many levels, massive depression, you know, locked away from their peers, really got to see all of our systems fail them.
28:34And to watch them out in the streets today, marching, protesting, still feeling like this world is worth fighting for, that they can change it, that they're invested in it.
28:45Like, I don't care what your politics are.
28:48That has to give you hope.
28:50They haven't given up on us, and they have every right to.
28:53And as long as they are out there, you know, when they have so, when they've had so much taken from them, and they're still out there fighting, like, how can we not?
29:03How can we not be proud of them?
29:04How can we have less faith in them than, like, the people trying to hurt us?
29:10I have to have more faith in them.
29:12And as long as they're going, I'm still going.
29:1545 seconds, Bakari.
29:16I know.
29:17They ran me up against the commercial break.
29:19I feel like I'm sitting up here with Van Jones.
29:22I'm just trying to get a word out before we go to commercial.
29:26You guys give me hope.
29:27I'm not somebody, my anxiety does not allow me to live five years at a time, or where will you be next year?
29:34And I live one day at a time.
29:36And I try to win each day.
29:39And moments like this are energizing or nourishing for your spirit because of all of these beautiful people out here who want to make sure that tomorrow is better than yesterday.
29:48And so I would just encourage you guys to enjoy this moment, go out and touch the grass, shake hands, hug people, and just get as much hope as you can from the black folk in this room.
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