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19: Who Will Survive in America?
62 Plays3 years ago
[Originally recorded April 2021] In times like these it's hard to feel like any real change can be made, but after reading Charles Blow's The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto, I felt new energy and encouragement. For more pods, subscribe on YouTube & iTunes (search Brittany Geneva).
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Transcript
Introduction to Geneva Says
00:00:02
Speaker
Hey guys, it is Brittany Geneva back with another episode of Geneva says coming from my glam room slash office slash studio slash hat area. This room has become a lot of things during the panty. Um, you know me inconsistent as ever, but
00:00:28
Speaker
And back and actually planning to record more than one podcast today so I can try to do
Podcast Goals and Listener Engagement
00:00:34
Speaker
better. But back today with another podcast, there has been so much going on, obviously.
00:00:43
Speaker
can't even begin to cover all the shit, but do want to just reflect on obviously some things that have happened very recently. Also talk about a book that I just read that I absolutely loved and I need you guys to know about it. So that's what we're gonna get into today. If you're listening and you desperately want me to do this podcast more consistently,
00:01:13
Speaker
Um, connect with me online, like subscribe. I'm on Apple podcasts. I, um, where else is my podcast? I think it's on Stitcher. I think, uh, uh, I think I'm getting ready to put this on Amazon podcast too. If I like, you know, I want to, I was like, do I want to put it on Amazon podcast? So I want to put it on Spotify, but I feel like I really need to get myself together for those things, but subscribe.
00:01:42
Speaker
reach out to me on social media, Britney underscore Geneva on all the things. So let me just obviously get
Reflections on the Chauvin Verdict
00:01:50
Speaker
right into it. It has been such a crazy week. Last week, the show of in verdict. Thank God they found him guilty. They locked him right up. He was looking crazy. His face said, but I'm white.
00:02:08
Speaker
but I'm a police officer. What? How can you send me to jail right now? And I'm just so thankful that that jury understood the assignment, okay? Did what the fuck needed to be done.
00:02:21
Speaker
But it's upsetting and awful that leading up to this, even with just this mountain of evidence and all the things that happened last summer as a result of George Floyd's death, like there was still doubt. We were still like, well, maybe, I mean, I don't know. What if they, what if they acquitted him? What if they only come back with manslaughter, which to me would not have been enough. What, you know, what if, what if, what if, and
00:02:48
Speaker
America has done that to us that we can have a case that has literally no doubt. There is no doubt. There is no question. There is no there is no discussion to be had. And yet
00:03:01
Speaker
We were still like, but what if, and that's what America has done
Racial Injustice and Systemic Change
00:03:05
Speaker
to us. So I'm just thankful that we got accountability that what happened, what needed to be done was done. And now this man is going away, presumably for a very long time. Uh, I am looking forward to that sentencing. Throw the book at him. All right, judge, throw the whole novel, the whole library. Okay.
00:03:29
Speaker
Let that man go on ahead and die in jail. Okay. That's what we need to go ahead and have happened. But obviously this is a good moment, but also a sad moment. George Floyd should be alive. That's really what should be the case. George Floyd should never have even had to be in the situation. Nancy Pelosi. He wasn't a fucking sacrifice. He did not go out and sacrifice his body for the fucking movement. He was murdered. Let's be clear.
00:03:57
Speaker
So that shouldn't have happened at all. So really the place where we want to get is where this is not even a part of our everyday lexicon where police are just killing black people left and right for no reason at all. So that's what the goal is. But for now we will take this moment of accountability and this small piece of justice until we get what we really deserve.
00:04:27
Speaker
Okay. And when I think about getting to that actual place, like getting to the place where justice is just, you know, something that's happening every day and not this special moment, I, I have felt frustrated so often thinking about what are these solutions to this? Because every time.
00:04:48
Speaker
We may be kind of possibly have a reason to feel optimistic. Some shit goes down the same day that George Floyd's killer is found guilty. A young woman is murdered by police after she called the police, you know, in the days leading up to it, Adam Toledo and
00:05:13
Speaker
Dante Wright and so many other people we still I mean Brianna Taylor they didn't even pretend to try to find any justice for her and so for me it just becomes this place of feeling really discouraged a feeling like We take one step forward. Maybe if you can even call it that but a thousand steps back and That's part of the reason why I you know ran for ANC and
00:05:42
Speaker
and I'm doing this ANC work because it makes me feel like I'm doing something and I'm helping my people. But in a broader sense, I mean, look, you know, ANC is we can't do nothing, but write a couple of letters, write a couple of resolutions and make sure that our neighbors voices are heard.
00:06:03
Speaker
But certainly we are not lawmakers, you know, we are not creating policy or anything like that and I tend to think that policy is the solution I Understand other people may feel differently or may Find other ways that they think are the answer but for me policy is the answer because you can directly trace and
00:06:31
Speaker
policy change to material changes in like everyday life. So when the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act and basically removed the enforcement arm of that act, what did it lead to? Hundreds, hundreds of voter suppression laws being passed all around the country. It was directly like A to B. No more Voting Rights Act in real life.
00:07:03
Speaker
voter suppression, like straight line. That's policy that shows you the impact of policy on the literal everyday lives of people and on the, um, on the ways that law lawmakers have to govern themselves and, um,
00:07:26
Speaker
local leaders have to govern themselves in order to be in compliance with the law.
Voting Strategies and Political Critiques
00:07:32
Speaker
So the law is kind of like where it starts, in my opinion, right? So when I think about, okay, what can we do to more deeply impact policy and lawmaking? How do we actually make lawmakers be accountable to us and truly like have to consider
00:07:56
Speaker
what black people want in order to like get elected and stay elected, which is what they want. And you look at somebody like Diddy, you know, with his whole thing, let's not even get started on like the latest bullshit with the corporate payments. Nigga, you owe, how much money do you owe to your artists? Anyway, that's a separate, that might be the next podcast. Okay. The hypocrisy of rich black people.
00:08:23
Speaker
who have become so elite that they've become completely disconnected from reality. That might be the next podcast. In the meantime though, I remember when Diddy said, we're going to withhold the vote. We're not going to vote unless you promise to uphold our policy positions and make sure that you're doing what you said you were going to do.
00:08:46
Speaker
And I guess in theory that sounds like a power move, but in practice that's you disenfranchising yourself because in our two-party system, a vote not for is a vote against. So if you did not go out and vote for the one side, you basically voted for the other side, okay?
00:09:09
Speaker
So this idea of like, we're not going to vote until you did what we told you to do, it's just not realistic. It can't, it's not going to work because that person
00:09:22
Speaker
is not going to, like the other side is gonna benefit from that. It's not a matter of like, well, now we really showed them, no. Now we really showed them that Trump's gonna get elected if enough of us don't come out to vote. So that's not an answer. It's a theory, but it's not an answer. And so when I think about what's the answer to hold lawmakers, elected officials accountable
00:09:50
Speaker
in a real way that does not disenfranchise ourselves, I sort of was at a loss.
Book Introduction: 'The Devil You Know'
00:09:59
Speaker
And then I discovered this amazing book that I'm gonna tell you guys about now that has, I mean, I've read a lot of books. I read a lot of like black books, okay? Just books about
00:10:17
Speaker
theories and ideas on how to improve the black plight in this country. And I often read them like, some I agree with, a good amount I disagree with. I just read Democracy in Black by Dr. Eddie Glaude. And I love him, but I disagreed with a good amount of that book.
00:10:40
Speaker
Even Barack Obama, when you read his books, you realize this dude is so freaking moderate. You know that, but then when you read his books, you know that, know that. And you're like, oh my god, this man is down the middle. And I'm a little bit more progressive. So I've rarely read black books on the black plight and politics that I have agreed with from cover to cover. Very rare.
00:11:09
Speaker
But this book here, baby, I agree, like top to bottom, left to right, whole thing, back to front, front to back, like this nigga was spittin'. This man was spittin'. And...
00:11:27
Speaker
This is the book I'm talking about. It's called The Devil You Know by Charles Blow, who is a longtime New York time columnist and now he is on air talent at Black News Channel. And when I first heard about just like the summary of this book, I was like, what? But then when I read it, I was like, okay, like, no, my man is really onto something here, okay? Essentially,
00:11:58
Speaker
what his argument was is that black people need to get together. Essentially he says that geographically in America we are too diffuse, we are too spread out, and we need to engage in a reverse migration so the
00:12:22
Speaker
original migration would be the great migration in the 1900s that led us to moving to the west, moving to the Midwest, moving up north, right? Basically away from the south. He's saying reverse that and go back to the south. Go back
00:12:41
Speaker
to the areas that we originally left thinking we were going to get a better life, because we actually have not gotten the better life. And Blacks in the South, if measured by many metrics, are doing the best of Blacks in America. So Blacks in the South are living their best life. And we need to reunite, get back to the South,
00:13:12
Speaker
live together and create political power through the consolidation of our population. And at first when I heard that, I kind of was like, I don't know, but the more that I read this and then just intuitively thought about it, I was like, this actually makes a ton of sense.
00:13:40
Speaker
because what he's saying is actually being like the proof of that concept is being played out now with the DC statehood fight.
Discussion of Black Political Power
00:13:52
Speaker
Right now we are as close as we have ever been to truly like DC statehood is like a priority. It used DC statehood used to be like reparations where it was just like people talking but nobody believed it was like a thing like that was like on the fringe and for the first time
00:14:12
Speaker
30 years, I believe yes for the first time in 30 years DC statehood is like actually possible because It actually it made it to the house at all It used to people used to put the bills out and it would never even make it to the house for a vote at all Now the house has voted in favor and it has to go to the Senate now. That's gonna be very difficult
00:14:39
Speaker
because it needs more than a simple majority and all Democrats have in the Senate is a simple majority. So it's going to be tough. But the fact that DC statehood has even gotten this far is actually pretty like remarkable.
00:14:54
Speaker
The only arguments against DC statehood are absolute bullshit arguments. This man, I watched the, uh, the committee hearing before it went to the house floor. I watched the committee hearing on statehood and literally this man said, DC can't be a state because it doesn't have a car dealership.
00:15:20
Speaker
Pardon me if I missed the United States criteria, but I didn't know car dealership was on the list of what it took to be a fucking state. And we do have a car dealership, Tesla dealership downtown. So anyways, he lying. But I didn't even know that was a thing. Others were saying, well, DC doesn't have manufacturing, you know, like, I don't know, factories and
00:15:49
Speaker
I didn't know having factories was a criteria. So we need to have factories. We need to have a car dealership. Somebody else said DC doesn't even have an airport. Technically.
00:16:05
Speaker
Reagan National is on DC land even though it sits in Virginia that is DC land that sits there and I as a resident of DC can get to that airport in like 2.5 seconds and that's better than I could say when I lived in Atlanta and it would take me a hundred years to get to the airport so
00:16:28
Speaker
Who cares if it's there, if it's like far and the traffic is crazy, but if I left right now, I could be at the airport in Virginia technically in like 12 minutes. Anyways, that just goes to show you the ridiculousness of these arguments and the reason why. And then I also read that there are several Republican attorneys general signing a letter
00:16:52
Speaker
Basically saying we have to say no to DC statehood because it's gonna create I can't even remember what they called it some I don't know. There was a term that they made up that was a bullshit but like it was gonna create some What was it called Some something that was basically saying that there's gonna be too many like powerful people like people in DC are gonna have more influence over government because they're they like live
00:17:20
Speaker
close to where Congress people live. So technically they could like have more influence over Congress. I'm like, girl, what the hell? They are reaching so far because they don't want us to have statehood. And why is that? Because they know DC is black as fuck. DC, while no longer the chocolate city, technically no longer a majority black city is not, I mean, like the, the, it just flipped.
00:17:50
Speaker
So it just became a little bit less than 50%, but it is still black influence and the non-black people who are here are very liberal. So when you think about DC, you know it's gonna be obviously a very liberal, like politically very liberal and that black interests will still be well represented. Although we are no longer majority black, the mayors have all been black
00:18:19
Speaker
our non-voting representatives in Congress are all black. So this is still a city very much politically that is not only liberal, but very black, like the black political voice is very strong here.
00:18:33
Speaker
So as a result, they don't want us to become a state because they know as soon as, and every state is guaranteed two senators and obviously a number of electoral votes. And that, that will have a material impact. Look, two senators in Georgia.
00:18:52
Speaker
made the difference between us being able to have what was the act that Joe Biden just passed the recovery act that wouldn't have happened without the two senators in Georgia so you know two senators can make a big difference. And if we add two more democratic senators.
00:19:08
Speaker
and however many electoral votes DC would get, that can make a huge freaking difference. They don't want us to be a state because they know what it will mean politically for black people. And as a result, they are fighting tooth and nail against letting us be a state and they have no good reasons and they're making shit up.
00:19:34
Speaker
And that is what shows me that the consolidation of black people, literally us all living in a certain area and having a strong voice in said area makes us a political threat to the right. And that is what makes me know that what Charles Blow is saying in this book
00:19:58
Speaker
is legit, because we're not talking about, you know, a few black people moving, you know, from here to here, he's literally talking about a reverse migration, the black communities, like black people in the nation, all consolidating
00:20:18
Speaker
into a key number of states. Now I should have done this before I started, but I forgot to check which states he specifically
00:20:30
Speaker
was calling out. So bear with me, but he literally named, um, the States and there's plenty of black people there now. Like he's not talking about moving to like undesirable places. Like he's talking about moving to places that a lot of us are now, we probably have family there child. You know, we have, um, we already be visiting there, might've been from there and then moved away. So,
00:21:00
Speaker
This is, okay, here we go. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I don't wanna say the wrong thing. Okay, here we go. So what he is arguing for is Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and DC if it becomes a state. But he's saying not if it doesn't because the voting piece obviously would be negated because we have
00:21:29
Speaker
non-voting representatives in Congress. And conspicuously, what's missing is Florida and Texas. He in his, and obviously he explains this all in the book, he removes those from the South, okay, as like a geographical place because they're too, they're too diffuse and too different. Like Northern Florida is too different from Southern Florida.
00:21:56
Speaker
East Texas is too different from West Texas. So he's like, he's narrowing what he calls the South. And then like Maryland, you know, is not really the South, but he's adding Maryland because of the black population there. So he's sort of taking some liberties with what the South is, but essentially those are the places. So again, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and DC,
00:22:26
Speaker
if it were to become a state. And so the whole idea there is that if we move to the major cities in those states that we will be able to have strong political power there
Insights from 'The Devil You Know'
00:22:46
Speaker
and we will actually have more power than some of these small states where there are so few white people, but they really are making a lot of decisions. I saved a couple of passages that I just wanted to read and just share a little bit more about what he was saying.
00:23:15
Speaker
So this is him talking more about these states versus like white states. View this plan for black power in the context of the current landscape of white power. White people have constituted a majority of the population of every state but Hawaii for the last 90 years.
00:23:36
Speaker
eight states, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Idaho, Wyoming, and Iowa are over 90% white and control one out of every six Senate seats in America. The black population is four times the population of those eight states, but controls no Senate seats. So think about that. Think just by nature of them all living in these states and like kind of grouping together,
00:24:06
Speaker
they have more political power. On average, this is another passage from the book, on average, there are about 436,000 people per electoral college vote. But in sparsely populated states like Wyoming, there are 143,000 per vote. And in heavily populated areas like New York, there are 500,000 people per electoral vote.
00:24:36
Speaker
In other words, one voter in Wyoming has the power of nearly four voters in New York. If white people fled, oh, and this was him basically saying that, what if we do this and then white people move into the areas that we are trying to take over? And he was saying, it's still good for us because if the population goes up, the number of electoral votes goes up and we'll still have political power. So that was basically the point he was making in that passage.
00:25:08
Speaker
I had saved so, so many passages. They're all so good, but I'm not gonna sit here and read you this entire book. Okay, and this is, so he spends a good amount of the book also sort of addressing like potential counterarguments, one of which is like, you know, do we really wanna self segregate? Do we really want to like be this sort of only black, all black, you know,
00:25:37
Speaker
idea that doesn't really incorporate other races. And here's some of his ways that he addresses those points, which I agree with. I understand the appeal of racial coalitions, but there is a preciousness in the idea, a laudable allure that doesn't always manifest. I too dream of a world in which people come together across immutable differences, including race, to advance society and promote unity.
00:26:06
Speaker
This sort of transracialism often exists in interpersonal relationships and sometimes in whole communities, but on a national scale, it falters. Even among the greatest champions of coalitions, there is room to diverge on the issue of black power. So when we're talking about black power, he's basically saying that's best left to black people to try to work through, and we don't need a rainbow coalition for that. I agree. We don't need to rely on other people. We can do this ourselves if we unite.
00:26:38
Speaker
And the last point he was sort of making here is this idea that, but what, let me figure out how to say this. So essentially there are people who are living in these non-southern cities who are doing very well, who are not having any struggles, who are making plenty of money, who
00:26:59
Speaker
have great jobs, their kids are doing great. And so the sort of question is like, why would they uproot what's going well for them to move to the South if they don't really need to, if their life is kind of going well. And essentially what he was saying was don't fall into that trap one of thinking things are going well, or you're not experiencing racism just because you're not being like called a nigger.
00:27:25
Speaker
And two, don't fall into the trap that white people set of like, yes, we are so open and we love the blacks, but really only certain blacks and they only can get to a certain level. And it's still a part of a bigger system that controls how far black people can get. So two passages that address this specifically.
00:27:49
Speaker
The more talented and successful you are, the more tightly the moneyed establishment embraces you, cleaves you from the struggling plight of your people, and banites you as the honorary member of theirs. It's easy to get lost in this and seduced by it. So, oh, the whites love me. Who cares? Who cares? Seriously.
00:28:17
Speaker
And then here's the other, here's the other one. People think that they avoid the appellation because they do not openly hate, but hate is not a requirement of white supremacy. Hate is not a requirement of white supremacy. Just because one abhors violence and cruelty doesn't mean that one truly believes all people are equal.
00:28:43
Speaker
So think about that. Think about Nancy Pelosi and the things she says and does. She doesn't hate black people, but I don't think she's, I don't think she sees us as equal. I don't think she sees black people in the same way she sees white people. And there are, and we know that white liberalism is so incredibly dangerous at times because it's still imagined black people lower than white people, but just, you know, like not getting lynched. Okay. So.
00:29:11
Speaker
don't be seduced by it is basically what he's saying.
Book Recommendation and Podcast Closing
00:29:14
Speaker
And for me, I just, you know, one, strongly, strongly, strongly, strongly encourage everybody to read this book. It's a super easy read. I read it in like five hours.
00:29:30
Speaker
Yeah, like five or six hours, like what stops? Like I didn't read it all the way through. It's super easy to read. It's not long. It's very simply written. Sometimes these scholarly books child, you'd be like, okay, this was a textbook, but this was very easy to read and very easy to grasp. Very well written and very interesting. And I really just encourage people to read it because it really gets your wheels spinning.
00:29:58
Speaker
And it speaks to a solution that feels tangible and feels possible and feels achievable even like within my lifetime. So I think it's amazing. I really loved it. That's why I wanted to take some time.
00:30:14
Speaker
and share about it with you guys here today. Thanks for bearing with me. I know this one was a bit lengthy. Oh, 30 minutes. Oh my God. Thank you for sticking with me if you are still listening at this point. Appreciate you. Again, this is Brittany Geneva. Geneva says podcast. Follow me on Apple Podcast.
00:30:34
Speaker
Follow me on the social medias, Britney underscore Geneva, and I will be back soon. I'll be back soon. Bye.