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Apple’s Tim Cook delivers a golden box of nothing to the White House, Ice Cube defends his role advising Trump on a plan for Black Americans, WNBA games see a bizarre crypto-linked sex toy stunt, and grandmas run a summer camp serving up cooking skills and life lessons.

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Ice Cube defends advising Trump on plan for Black Americans

WNBA sex toy incidents may be linked to cryptocurrency group’s money scheme

At this summer camp run by grandmas, kids learn cooking skills and life advice

Follow @PodSaveThePeople on Instagram.

TRANSCRIPT

DeRay Mckesson: Hey, this is DeRay and welcome to Pod Save the People. On this episode, it’s me, Myles and Sharhonda talking about the news that you might’ve missed last week, especially with regard to race, justice, and equity. And don’t forget to follow us on Instagram at Pod Save The People. Here we go. 

[AD BREAK]

DeRay Mckesson: Everybody, we’re back for another eventful week in American democracy or what it used to be. This is DeRay at @deray on Twitter. 

Myles E. Johnson: This is, your intro, what they used to be, really got me. [laughter] This is Myles E. Johnson. This is comrade Myles J. Johnson [laughter] at @pharaohrapture on Instagram, at @MoonPulpit on Twitter and X. Don’t follow me on Twitter and X y’all just keep me on Instagram. 

Sharhonda Bossier: And this is Sharhonda Bassier at @BossierS on Spill and at @BossierSha on Instagram. 

DeRay Mckesson: Well, we have a lot of news. I want to start with the Trumpburger guy. I don’t know if you saw Mr. Trumpburger, who had a whole place selling Trumpburgers, and it was a big deal in the sense that um, you know, it was like a PR move for him in light of people being very um Trumpy. And then he is being deported and he’s only 28, originally from Lebanon. Came in 2019 to the country. But I bring it up cause it’s like, you know, these people being big fans of Trump and donating the proceeds and all this stuff to Trump and being deported, I’m like I, yeah, what did y’all think was gonna happen? He is indiscriminate about his racism against immigrants and people who thought that it was gonna be a separation between the good ones and the bad ones, in air quotes, really got got. Trump burger. 

Sharhonda Bossier: A hundred percent and, you know, play stupid games, win stupid prizes, you know? [laugh] I, I, and I think the people who were like this vocal and their support of him sort of deserve to know that like their proximity to whiteness, real or perceived, will not protect them in this moment. Because I think, that’s also a little bit of what’s happening here, right? It’s like, even if you understood or or knew that there was no real distinction between quote “good immigrants” or quote “bad immigrants” you did think there was a distinction between white immigrants and non-white ones right and you thought you would be safe um and because so much of the rhetoric around immigration uh has focused on Latinos I think people who were not latino thought they were probably safe or safer uh and they are learning the hard way uh that they are not. I mean, obviously I still think uh that what we are doing is wrong regardless of people’s stance on Trump, et cetera, right? But I think that, I mean I hope that this opens up opportunities for us to have other conversations about um how everyone is at risk in this system and like Trump’s only loyalty is to himself. 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, even outside of Trump, right? I think the big thing for me when it comes to these stories is how we’re all under the same disease. So I know that in the news, it’s we attempt to try to like craft it to be Trump is doing something to this person who’s an immigrant, but I think we’re all under this great delusion of what American society is. I remember reading about Trayvon Martin when it happened and some like Black scholars talking about how, um yes, we can talk about the actual brutality that happened to Trayvon Martin, but what’s also useful to think about is what made Trayvon Martin think that he could go into a white neighborhood. What what what what are we telling people through this neoliberal Black fiction that we broadcast that what what will keep you safe and what won’t keep you safe. And I think that we’re seeing in a more absurdist version of that via the immigrant community. But I think we’re all under this kind of delusion of not just around Trump, but just around how wicked white supremacy white supremacy will be and that it could be both silly, absurd, um consumerist, and vile, evil, dominant, and real. You know, I think that’s what’s interesting too, but it’s easier to poke fun at something so cartoonishly wild. 

DeRay Mckesson: You know what’s interesting, too, about the naming of white supremacy is that I understand the calculations that people made who did not think white supremacy was a real thing. Because Trump is the absolute best at giving his friends breaks. Like he, the law is not equal, it is definitely friends and not friends. And so it’s the tariffs, it is the Department of Justice, it is the government contracts. And you see a set of people who are like, oh, I’m one of them too. And you’re like, no, no no no, this is what happens when you act like white supremacy is not real. What were you gonna say? Sorry. 

Myles E. Johnson: But that’s the same thing that happened with some people in the Democratic Party. It’s like, it’s a tradition to think that you’re on the inside and figure out that you’re on the outside. So we know we are seeing a whole group of people being erased from the Democratic party from representation and being and and finding out that they weren’t really the great friends they were either, you know? I think that’s just happened across the board. 

DeRay Mckesson: It is sad to watch because deportation, nothing about it is fun or soft, especially under Trump. Like you not even, it’s already bad enough that you might get sent back to quote, “a home country.” They just sending to people literally anywhere. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Exactly. 

DeRay Mckesson: And like, could you imagine being deported to a country you’d never been to? 

Sharhonda Bossier: He might wake up tomorrow in Albania. 

DeRay Mckesson: That is such an evil thing. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

DeRay Mckesson: To do to people. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

DeRay Mckesson: That I’m like, oh, this is, we are in hell. The other thing I wanted to talk about is um Tim Cook in the White House. I’m just, you know, because Tim knows better, but they’re about to get all this government money and you’re like, wow, to kiss the ring like that is just so embarrassing. And if you didn’t see, for those listening, Tim Cook gave Trump a glass plaque of nothing in the White House, Tim looked embarrassed to be there. I was embarrassed for Tim, but they’re about to get a lot of government money, blah, blah, blah, blah. But wow, the number of people Trump has made kiss the ring is just, I’m legit surprised. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Wasn’t this also because the glass plaque was made of glass that Apple is now claiming it will manufacture in the US and put on iPhones so that Trump will, to your point of him like looking out for his friends, right, look out for Apple uh as you know they would like to be exempt from these tariffs that he’s trying to impose on chips that they will have to import? Right like all of this is like essentially how does Apple protect its bottom line and we all know because experts have been telling us this that like you don’t just decide to manufacture something in the U.S. tomorrow and it’s so, right like the infrastructure you need to build to make that possible takes years of investment and years of time like of time and and and expertise and so I think it’ll be interesting to see what ultimately nets from this, but I think that this is another example of them being like, how do we sort of delay the inevitable? Because they will end up in his crosshairs again, right? But right now they just are hoping to be like less of an enemy than they have been. And I think probably most importantly, find themselves exempt from some of the tariffs that he plans to impose on companies who have to import certain parts of technology. 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, I think I might just reject this framing. I think that, like, if there’s any type of, um oddness about it is that there needs to be a theater of you kissing the right wing’s ring, right? Like that, so there needs to be type of absurdist theater around it, which is definitely unique to Trump, but Apple for a long time, like listen, free Congo. Apple has been for a very long time been a company, a corporation that has willingly been an apparatus to keep people, marginalize people down globally. So I think that Apple and most American corporations are a part of the right-wing globalization that we’re seeing happening. Um. But yeah, it is one of those odd moments where Trump is understanding, no, you’re not going to make me seem like I’m special. You’re not going to get my money. And that’s how he sees it, the government’s money. You’re not gonna get this money and get all of this and with nothing for it. I understand myself as brands. So not only am I gonna give you the money just like Bush would do or Gore would do or Obama would do, or Biden would do. But I’m also going to make you align with these, align with my right-wing party’s ethos, which feels unique, but uh Apple has not shown any moral clarity around political issues at all so yeah. 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, I think that reading, I agree with that reading. Maybe my intro was imprecise. The last thing I’ll say is around the National Weather Service, they fired all those people. As you probably saw, the weather reporting was a little shaky afterwards because you know the government runs the National weather service and now they are hiring a majority of those people back. And I tell you they need to hire more people at the FAA too because I have never been afraid to fly until recently and I fly a lot and I’m like you can it feel like nobody running the planes it feels like it’s just you know you just praying real hard like the pilot wants to make it home and I got faith in the pilots. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

DeRay Mckesson: But everything else makes me nervous. 

Myles E. Johnson: I feel like we’re both, uh, walkers with Christ, DeRay, but you might and I don’t like to judge other people’s walk, but you might be walking a tad bit closer, because how I’ve been road tripping in trains. I said, I don’t test, I believe in God but I don’t test him, so. 

DeRay Mckesson: And I’m with you. I was supposed to go somewhere over the weekend and it the only way back was a connecting flight. And I’m like, that’s one too many planes. Something I ain’t gotta be at. Like I was, like, you know, I could do a direct flight, but I’m like, that is testing God’s grace, taking a connect. 

Myles E. Johnson: Can you bike it there? Can you bike it? 

Sharhonda Bossier: Listen, I was in Mexico and I um noticed everybody getting on the plane, doing the thing where they like touch the plane and say like a quick prayer. You know what I’m saying? All the Catholics were doing the sign of the cross. Everybody was just like, we just trying to make it home, you know? And there was a little bit of turbulence coming in and out of Mexico City. And I could feel like the tension on the plane in a way that like I had never felt it before. Right? Like I’ve flown quite a bit and I think people are like, just yeah, everybody’s out here on a wing and a prayer. 

DeRay Mckesson: Literally. 

Myles E. Johnson: I do want to talk a little bit more about the weather part, too, because um have you all got to seeing these documentaries? Some of the clips of the documentary have been going viral. Um. It’s Ryan Coogler’s documentary that’s on Netflix about Hurricane Katrina. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: Um, underfunding, understaffing, or, um, gutting, uh, people who let people know about weather is an act of white nationalistic terrorism, because when you really understand what communities are most affected, even in New York, you know what I mean? When I was in gentrified New York the floods were totally different than when I was in un-gentrified New York. You know. And that is true across you know across this nation. So not being able to alarm people of things, not being to able to um predict things, that helps a whole community vanish. And we saw that with New Orleans, we see that with so many communities, we’re seeing that even in LA with these fires, what will those communities that are Black look like once they return? So we see people being able to use natural weather um happenings as a way to further enforce a kind of mass gentrification of the whole nation and a mass extermination of people. And I think seeing those choices as that also helps to see the bigger plan of what’s gonna happen. You’re one hurricane away from totally uprooting any type of upward economic progress or health progress of a people. And I think that’s why he’s doing it. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, I thought actually the connection you were going to make was between like climate change and what we can expect with like trickier, harder, more turbulent travel because I think people are also making those connections, right? Climate scientists are telling us like if you’re afraid to fly now, like the FAA and oversight is one thing, but like also expect that your flights are going to be more interrupted because of extreme weather and more turbulent because of extreme weather, right? The other thing to your point though, about um who gets access to what information is, you know living in wildfire country, the guidance around what we’re supposed to do when we hear of a wildfire is shifting because like evacuation routes get overcrowded, right? People don’t know how to get in or out. We saw in the Paradise Fire, right, people actually get trapped in their cars trying to flee. And so now they’re like, well, how do we think about helping people shelter in place? But often I have an app on my phone that’s the watch duty app that’s powered by volunteers, right? Because the county like emergency alert system is not reliable, you know what I mean? So it’s literally somebody who has like taken the time out to be like, we’re gonna watch this fire. We’re gonna tell you how many acres is burned, how many, how contained it is, how many firefighters are on scene, et cetera, et cetera. But like you know, the last set of fires, the closest one to me was three miles from my house. That’s basically down the street, you know? And so you’re like, how do, what do I do? Do I try and get on the roads where I’m probably going to sit in traffic with nowhere to go? Do I shelter in place? If so, where do I that? And I have to hope that I get the information to help me make a timely decision, right? Um. And that feels like it’s increasingly difficult. Um. And that’s assuming, and I know that one of the things that came up in the Hurricane Katrina documentary is that like, some people didn’t have the option to flee. They literally just didn’t have the financial resources or the transportation to. So like so much has to go right for you to be safe in these moments. Um. And you layer on top of that, the fact that you might not get information in a timely enough fashion, and that’s devastating to poor people and the communities we care most about. 

DeRay Mckesson: You know, Project 2025 does lay out the link between the National Weather Service and climate change that they’re like that data is being used to talk about climate change and climate change isn’t real. So you’re like, ok, that is again, wild. The second thing, though, is that if you’re all of the weather apps that we use are powered by the National weather service data. And what they want to do is privatize the weather collection, the collection of weather data. So people now have to pay for weather data. Which is currently free. And you’re just like, the grift is, it is just one big grift being paraded as something else. [music break] Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned, there’s more to come. 

[AD BREAK]

DeRay Mckesson: Did y’all see that Trump has completely ended the Rose Garden at the White House and is building a huge–

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

DeRay Mckesson: –a $200 million hall as an add on to the White House? I’m like, I didn’t even know there was a space to build a $200 million dollar like event space attached to the White House. What? 

Sharhonda Bossier: I’ve seen the sketches of the ballroom. I did not know he had already paved over the rose garden. And people were like, this [bleep] looks like a Panera bread. Like this, it is it’s tacky, it’s ugly. And it’s like the reduction of green space too. I don’t know. And like of historic green space and so much is happening. But yeah, I, [sigh] yeah, I saw it. 

DeRay Mckesson: It just looks like a patio. 

Sharhonda Bossier: It does. 

Myles E. Johnson: Tacky and ugly and chilling, right? So I’m big into esthetics, right, so the esthetics to me look North Korean. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Mmm.

Myles E. Johnson: And they look Russian um and also looks a little piece of Queen’s Ital–, you know, shout out to my Italians, but it looks a little Queen’s Italian mafia, you know, you know, the stereotypes. It looks like all those things happening. And it makes me wonder what the plan is. And I wonder if people who are inside of organizing spaces and leftist spaces, progressive spaces are really digesting or metabolizing what this signals. Because I do think, if you think that the Biden [bleep] was bad. And when we think about January 6th, I’m wondering if we’re really metabolizing like what he’s signaling around how long he plans to stay, um what he wants this country to look like. And also it’s hard to me, too, because I think this also came out at a time where we’re trying to move away from the Epstein stuff right and trying to cover up the Epstein stuff. But I think both can be true at the same time, which is always the thing with America and specifically this presidency, is that the absurdity can hold intelligent evil as well as the stuff that we already know is intelligent evil happening in front of us. And um I just wonder if people are prepared for what it looks like, specifically when we think about how many people are being absorbed into ICE, how many people are covering their faces, how many um white nationalists and Mormon groups are uh have been prophesying a moment where there will be an opportunity for white nationalism to take this country back and that there will be a leader to help that take way. So I don’t say that to be um doomy, I don’t say that to be uh terroristic, but I want to say just because he’s a clown doesn’t mean that the circus he creates will not be lethal and real. 

DeRay Mckesson: That also makes you think of, you talk about the Epstein stuff, which, you know, people, it’s scary to think that people might support him through, but they are doing everything they can to distract people from that. I don’t know if you saw, but Trump is um, Trump is publicly proposing for the first time to reschedule marijuana from being a schedule one substance, which is on par with heroin and LSD, as having quote, “no currently accepted medical use” to being a scheduled three drug. Um. Which would limit its availability, but allow it to be used for medical research and um would be in line with 40 of the states that have already said that there is at least some use for marijuana. This, you know, historically has never happened because the Republicans have been vehemently against it and have blocked it every other time a Democrat has proposed it. It’s been World War V. And now Trump might do it and it is perfect timing to distract people from the Epstein stuff as well. That’s why I brought it up. It made me think of it Myles. 

Myles E. Johnson: I was going to first comment on the fact that DeRay skips from World War III, IV, and V. Like, I’m like I’m like, we’re just beginning to earn our third one, so let’s just let’s ground that. Yeah, it’s so interesting how drugs and culture and the brand of drugs change, right? So, I remember a couple of weeks ago, we talked about psychedelics and how psychedelics in the 60s and the 50s was so associated with counterculture. And now that that era has kind of died and nobody reads or looks at history anymore. You’re able to rebrand something as something that could be serviceable to um Veterans. Same thing kind of happened with uh with weed here in the Midwest where it where is in some states illegal, in the state that I’m in it is um legal. The brand of it, you still have the goofy um smoke shop stuff. But then the stuff that I’m seeing that sticks are either places that make it seem like this is a new tobacco, which is interesting branding to me. So it almost feels like you’re buying blue jeans or tobacco or cotton. So they’re putting it as just an all-American herb that is great, or you go walk in there and it feels like an Apple store, right? And I already told you my opinions on Apple. Um. So it’s been interesting to see conservatives and Trump and and and folks on the right just kind of mutate to whatever can happen so they can protect their powerful pedophilic leader. That’s what it seems like was going on. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, I definitely made the connection between the conversation we had around you know some high profile Republicans shifting on um psychedelics and their potential therapeutic use in this move. I also, you know we haven’t talked a lot about some of the previous Republican leaders, but like John Boehner left Congress and then became a massive investor in cannabis, right? So like they also are getting all of their ducks in a row so that they’re able to reap the financial rewards from shifts like this too. Um. And then now you know they don’t need low-level drug busts to lock us up. They will lock us up for so many other things. So their private prisons will remain full anyway. So why not make money off of you know drugs now? 

DeRay Mckesson: And did you all see the CDC shooting that happened? 

Sharhonda Bossier: Did. Yeah, terrifying. Yeah. I mean, the idea that this person was like obsessed with the COVID vaccine, right? That’s why they were on campus, like looking for someone associated with the CDC to kill. I think, you know, we’ve talked a lot about uh the evolution and like the growing threat of political violence in this country. Um. And this was another example of that. Also, there have been some stories recently about how AI is shaping the articles that get published in medical journals. And so continues to undermine the public’s trust in medical research and what’s coming out, et cetera, et cetera. And so the right and the anti-vax movement being able to leverage COVID in particular as a way of mainstreaming more of their anti-vax views and more views around sort of vaccines and medical research, and pharmaceutical research being ways that the government is meant to control us um has had many terrifying consequences and this is one of them for sure. 

Myles E. Johnson: I said this many times on this podcast, specifically um last year, because I knew it to be true that we’re going to start seeing so many different types of mutations of motivations around what has us arrive at political violence. So I knew that when it came to Luigi, um the very disturbing story of the mass school shooting that happened with the Black boy who was a white supremacist. And when you read his letters, it was just horrifying. And there’s been so many instances, unfortunately of of of political violence, that the reason why I wanted back in the day, last year, to bring that up was two reasons. First reason is I wanted people to maybe um not be so hypnotized by the violence. And say all violence is bad, but really be able to look at the dark in order to shed light onto it and see what maybe is happening in other people’s suffering. The other thing is too, is that these type of moments of violence are going to be used for an era of surveillance. So now that we have people going into Cop City, now that have people going into Emory, now that we have people going to hotels and doing these different things, what is going to happen is there’s going to be um a public thirst for a type of surveillance and a type of police presence that will almost let the, that almost manufactures a consent for police uh a police nation, right? And that’s like, the reason why I wanted us to think about it more nuanced, because I think when we don’t think about it nuanced, then we think about it flat, then it says, of course, bring me more protection, of course more surveillance, more cameras, more cops, but then we don’t necessarily look at what is the underbelly of what’s happening that’s producing these things and are there other options besides giving up our personal freedoms? [music break] 

DeRay Mckesson: Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned, there’s more to come. 

[AD BREAK]

DeRay Mckesson: Well, I’ll hop into my news, which is about our dear friend Ice Cube. And you know how I feel about all the Black people who supported Trump, because it just really drives me nuts. And, you know, what is annoying about the Trump stuff is I get how he might have got you the first time. You might have been like crazy man on TV. He’d never been elected to anything before, so we really didn’t, like, you didn’t know if it was gonna be a nightmare or a joke. You just had no clue. Then he gets in there and, you know, we realize now COVID is probably the only thing that saved all of us. You know, didn’t save all of us but it probably saved the government as like a functioning thing just because he had to do certain things and could not do certain thing because people were dying and, you know he was the agenda was limited. But you know, when he said things this time, it’s like people really, you know, you should have believed him, but here we are. Ice Cube recently said about the ICE raids–

[clip of Ice Cube] It hurts because you know it’s all kind of different situations been going around you know as far as immigration, but to see people like disrespected like that and you know the federal government just you know, being too heavy handed and disrespectful, going to churches and weddings and, you know grabbing people out of those schools and, you know it’s like, come on, man, you know, y’all just–

[clip of unnamed person] Cause there’s a way to do it, right? 

[clip of Ice Cube] Overdoing it, you know, and, and then the country flip flops. First it’s cool, then it’s not, then it’s cool, then it’s not, you know, it’s like, how could somebody even keep up with what’s going on? So it’s just, it is sad, man. I can’t wait till this period is over. You know. 

[clip of unnamed person] Man. 

[clip of Ice Cube] It’s like I don’t know how we’re going to get to the end, but this is just uh it’s crazy to see people dragged out of they the spots of refuge and want to traumatize people. 

[clip of unnamed person] 100%. 

[clip of Ice Cube] I mean that’s part of it too, they want to traumatize the ones that’s looking, not just the ones that’s being, yeah, they just it’s a whole tactic that’s been that being used for forever and it’s played out.

DeRay Mckesson: And I’m reminded of Ice Cube’s defense of Trump with the wonderful platinum plan. If you don’t remember the platinum plan, the platinum plan was so offensive. I’m still so, saying it out loud is just so offensive that that’s what he called the Black man plan, is the platinum plan. Ice Cube was probably his single biggest Black defender. In the platinum plan, he said there’ll be three million new jobs for the Black community. We just got the jobs report. That didn’t happen. 500,000 new Black-owned businesses. We’re definitely not on track to do that. Increased access to capital in Black communities by almost $500 billion. This is the president who is ending DEI, like all anything race-based in any world. He is cutting it. Give Black churches the ability to compete for federal resources for their community? No, because Trump’s whole thing is that you actually can’t do anything by race that’s not white people. So I say all that to say that Trump got these people and Ice Cube was out there using all of his credibility, whatever it might be left to be like, oh no, that’s our guy. And then Ice is doing exactly what he said Ice was gonna do. And Ice Cube is like, wow, that so sad. And I do think that, you know, I believe in repair and I believe in forgiveness as concepts. But I do thing that there are moments when you have to let God do those things on God’s time and not us. And I think that the people who supported Trump, I actually think that there should be no forgiveness because the chaos has actually just been so big. So I’m fine with the end of Chrisette Michelle’s career. I want [laughter] I want Saquon Barkley to join her. I want Ice Cube and Snoop to join them. And the only thing I think you could possibly do to make up for it is to be as loud against him as you were for him. I will stop my soapbox, but Ice Cube, you a sad man. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Oh, no.

Myles E. Johnson: Okay, West Coast want to go first with this one? 

Sharhonda Bossier: Okay, because this is painful, okay? I just want to note that as the resident West Coast correspondent on this podcast, um it’s a hard season for us, okay. Ice Cube has been famous literally my entire life. Like I cannot imagine a time when like I did not know who Ice Cube was. His music wasn’t on the radio as part of NWA, as part of you know West Side Connection, you know, he himself, then you got like you know, the movie star Ice Cube, then you got the like Ice Cube that gets made fun of in the boondocks, right? Where Riley describes him as like, that nigga that make family movies, you know? And I think what we are seeing is the same thing that we saw with Andrew Schultz and the same thing we saw with Charlamagne that we talked about over the last couple of weeks, right. And that is realizing that you were out of step with the folks who actually impact your bottom line, right and DeRay, you said, you now, Ice Cube was leveraging his credibility or whatever is left. Ice Cube has a significant, a massive Latino fan base, right? The Cholos, the Ese’s, the whatever you call them, right, are like Ice Cube stans. Like he you know performed during the World Series when the Dodgers were in it. The Dodgers, also you know supportive of Trump and Ice, huge Latino fanbase, and that like that fanbase is calling on folks to you know boycott them, etc., etc. And so it’s just like. I don’t have anything to say other than like, it’s sad to see him go out like this. Uh. And again, I think this is like what we are seeing a whole bunch of other people who are recognizing that they are out of step with their fan base, try to like salvage what they can. Um. And then, you know, lastly, reflecting on the limits of this podcast panels or hosts or co-hosts bodies, abolitionist politic, again, y’all are like, you what? That’s for somebody else to do. 

DeRay Mckesson: God is the greatest abolitionist. 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay, okay, hopefully he don’t free us with this asteroid. Be like, y’all can’t get it together. So I’m not surprised I see something different than y’all. I’m surprised I see it from this this subject from a different angle. Um. Because this kind of excites me because for a very, very long time specifically inside of Black communities, it was if your skin is Black, you’re assumed to be progressive. And if you’re Black and queer, you know that to be a lie. And what I like about this, and even though you know, not, like I I am familiar with Ice Cube’s Latino popu– you know Latino fan base, but I’m also, I also know that there are Latinos who are happy about this immigration stuff too. So we can not so so he can still have a huge Latino audience who still loves him and still supports him, even though he supported somebody who’s doing such heinous things. And I am excited about the idea because of Shannon Sharpe, because of Ice Cube, because of so many different people that we’re able to have more nuanced conversations because Ice Cube is a far right figure. So he’s been a far-right figure. He’s been a figure who has um went into pop culture and has reinforced rigid stereotypes around Black masculinity and perpetuated it and packaged it to us in great music, in great images, and in great films, but it is a conservative, traditional idea. No matter if we’re talking about Friday, no matter if were talking about um that movie that I watched 10,000 times with Solange in it, they’re all trying to perpetuate a type of idea around Black masculinity, Black manhood, Black family values that align surprisingly with white supremacist values. So I think the more people begin to talk, the more people begin to show their politics, the more we won’t just assume because you rapped on a beat and because your skin is like mine, that your politics is like mine. And that kind of excites me because I’m tired of pretending that Snoop Dogg is a progressive. I like more, I like more people showing that, oh no no no no, no. Vote or die was just a, we were playing. You know, I like that, you know, and speaking of, because I can’t not say vote or die and not think about this, but even when it comes to Diddy, thinking about Diddy and his being in bed with the Democratic Party and having such a successful voting campaign, and then him also being revealed as having queer sexualities, and also being a patriarch, and also being a neoliberal Democrat, Like I like that complexity because I think the simplicity has really um stunted our growth as Black people. In my opinion. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Oh, I don’t even know how to follow up from that right. My news this week is is an extension of a conversation that we started last week, which is a conversation about the sex toys that have been thrown on the court during WNBA games. Uh, over the past week, it has been reported that this is the result of a sort of meme coin, uh, come to life and I will acknowledge and own that like the cryptocurrency world is a world that still does not make sense to me. Um. But, you know, what I have learned in the last week is that when something goes viral online, people can create what is called a meme coin. The Dogecoin is probably the best example that most people who are not familiar with meme coins will recognize. Um. And so there was a meme coin created at the end of July. Associated with or that sort of was, I guess, launched after the first incident of this, right? And so since then, there’s been this little corner of the cryptocurrency world that has decided that this is a thing that they’re going to like bet on and watch live streams of as people try and do it. And so originally, I think when we talked about this, we talked about this from a place of um this being harassment, assault, homophobic activity right aimed at or targeting WNBA players. Um. But I think what’s increasingly fascinating to me is the ways in which like the online world and the real life world are sort of becoming increasingly enmeshed, right? Um. And you know, Donald Trump Jr. after the most recent incident tweeted a meme that was Donald Trump on the roof of the White House throwing a green dildo onto a WNBA court right that was like in the in you know what is well, what used to be the Rose Garden. Um. So there’s just like so many things happening, especially as you think about the Trumps and their role in the cryptocurrency world. Um. So that’s one part of it. The other part of is obviously the ongoing misogyny and homophobia. Um. People think it’s funny to do this because the WNBA has the largest number of out queer athletes. Um. They are women, obviously. And then I saw someone tweet something that said, because at the LA Sparks game. I guess the person who threw it actually ended up hitting one of the players say that he was the most accurate shooter in the league, right? So like there’s still this disdain for women in women’s sports. So wanted to bring this to the pod to talk about all of those different elements. Maybe y’all can help me kind of pull together some of those threads and make sense of what happened and how we got here. 

DeRay Mckesson: I’m like just floored by the disrespect of it. I actually don’t even have like a deep analysis. I just think it’s unbelievably disrespectful. The crypto thing, I feel like I’m not quite, I’m like out of the loop on crypto, but I just hate at an NBA game, somebody’d beat these men up so quick. Oh my God, these men, they wouldn’t get two seconds the moment that thing starts flying. They knocked out. It won’t even, you don’t even need security. Somebody beat up took them out, it’d be over. So the idea that this just, I mean, not that I’m calling for violence at the games, but the idea this keeps happening. I’m like, oh, this is, this is you know, if you didn’t know what gendered things look like and misogynoir looks like, it’s this because there’s no way this will fly in a whole range of other venues. But I don’t have any deeper thing to say besides I’m offended by how ridiculous this is. 

Myles E. Johnson: I agree. I think the disrespect and the humiliation is my analysis because I don’t think of myself as totally ignorant when it comes to uh crypto or AI or anything, but also not an expert. But even if I had to translate it, I’m like, you know, I lived in in Flatbush for years and stuff like that. I’ve been in a Susu or I know people to be in Susus. So the idea around what’s going on is not hard, like when you like put your mind around it. I think that what is most alarming to me is how come when people come together to do these type of things, it lands at humiliation? Like, how come there’s always a straight line between the lynching postcard that we always talk about over, that happened over a century ago, and to what’s happening now? How come anytime there is um uh money and patriarchy and fame involved, um uh Black women, Black queer people begin um begin getting humiliated in the way that the society will allow, you know? And I think that to me is the analysis is what is the soil that this stuff is being birthed of, that these are always the fruits that it bears, you know? 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. I think there was a part of me that had hoped, I don’t know, that it wasn’t rooted in misogyny, that it wasn’t rooted in homophobia, that it wasn’t an attempt at making the players the butt of the joke, right? I just want there to be something that, like, we get to be in on that’s not at our expense. Yeah.

Myles E. Johnson: I want people to get more pol–, I don’t want to say politically hopeless, but I want, like, people to be real about what we’re facing, and then, like from there, have a foundation for actual hope. I feel like we haven’t really arrived at actual hope because we’re so in denial about what face, you know, what we are facing, and then another shooting happens, and then we’re in denial again, and then somebody, another tragedy happens, and then the police don’t get there on time. Like, we just have to know what we were facing, we have to be able to name the monster, We have to call it what it is, imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy underneath cis hetero successism. And we have to then go through, but like I feel like sometimes people want to lie about what they’re seeing. I’m like, don’t, that’s that’s going backwards. You’re a Black woman. You know what you’re seeing! 

Sharhonda Bossier: I know, but I I and I don’t think of myself as naive right like. 

Myles E. Johnson: No. 

Sharhonda Bossier: I really don’t and yet and still I’m like, I can’t have nothing you know that’s what it feels like. 

Myles E. Johnson: I think we just don’t want to believe that the culture that we’re living in is so advanced, but also so archaic. And that is the paradox of American culture, is that most of the things that we are dealing with are very old, old things in a very new, new way. So now our racism is on apps, now our racism is powered by AI, but the racism itself is primitive, it’s archaic, and it is here. But don’t don’t if you somebody throws a banana on a court, you know what they trying to tell you. [laughter] 

DeRay Mckesson: The other thing, too, is that it’s interesting to watch people sacrifice themselves, because these now they’re arresting the people. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

DeRay Mckesson: You know? 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

DeRay Mckesson: So you’re gonna get arrested, banned from the facility, all these things, and that  and like you are willing to put your own sort of free like aspects of freedom on the line to be able to participate in this, which is just so wild.

Sharhonda Bossier: Well, didn’t the founder of the coin say that this person wasn’t like a well-known part of the community? But that they also feel like the community should put up some money to bail him out because they should show that they support people who do this even if they aren’t well-known members of the community. So um yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: It’s that part and it’s also just like the social prisons that poverty gives people. Like, I–

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: I really am under the belief that most people are not scared of jail or death when their life is a walking prison that is always in threat of death. That is how come we see violence and where and how we see it. And even in the Black community, you know, we have to deal with our own internalized nihilism and not pretend that it doesn’t exist because we see the products of it all the time. So, of course, if you have nothing to live for and you’re over here hoping that a pump and dump scheme helps you afford a house or make a girl like you. Of course, you’re not really, you’re more nihilistic or ambivalent around going to jail or around consequences because society has already failed you and jailed you in so many words. So we have to be real about that. [music break]

DeRay Mckesson: Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned, there’s more to come. 

Myles E. Johnson: In hopeful news, um you know, hey, thank you for this podcast and being a part of it because it really makes um part of my work each week to be to find something positive, which may not be what I inherently do, specifically what’s happening in outside of my world that’s positive. My life is positive, but it’s good to dig in the world and see what’s happening that’s shaping things for the positive. And I love that. And this story warmed my heart because, A, it is an example of something that I think needs to happen just more of. And then also, it kind of reminds me that if we’re going to be saved from certain types of cultural realities that I always kind of howl about on this podcast, that it’s going to take us. And I think there’s such a um a deficit of of of soft power, of communal power, of things that are not just around like organizing or protesting or these kind of like, huh things, but yeah, I think we need some softer power. So anywho, the headline of this is from the um the failing Associated Press. At this, the head line is, at this summer camp run by grandmas, kids learn cooking skills and life advice. I wanna read a little bit from this article. When I was growing up, my mom used to make this a lot, she says, showing a chicken stir fry recipe. At this intergenerational summer camp in a Southern California suburb, the grandmas are in charge. Every week, they taught a group of eight to 14-year-olds how to cook a new dish and do a handicraft such as sewing, embroidery, clay, jewelry, and marking. Um. It goes on to say, isolation and loneliness is something that seniors are challenged with and they love having younger people around. And this article also expresses how not only are skills being shared, but also advice is being shared. And also, I think the gap between um younger people and older people has to be reduced if there’s any chance of survival. So, even as I said on this podcast before, I’m 34 right now. If in 30 years there is a new generation that we haven’t even named yet who don’t know all the things that Trump is doing now and don’t know about Nazi Germany before and there is a new type of leader happening, that means I will be 64 in a state that is going red and that means that I will be relying on young people because my literal body may not be in the same position that it is now. And I think bridging that gap between young people and of course, across race, but specifically across age, as this story shows, is so invaluable to keeping us connected and keeping us safe because we just don’t know what the political uh I’m going to stop. I feel like we probably do know what the political waves are going to look like in the future. And we have to start making um asserted effort to close those gaps where it’s possible specifically because we know as people age, they could become more conservative. So I wanted to bring that to the podcast and let you all know that there are great things happening and maybe you know, steal stuff. Like, I think these are, I was reading this and I was like, oh my goodness, most of my um people in my community now, where I live now, are people over the age of 65, older Black folks, and I hadn’t done anything formal around me being in community with them, but this makes me consider, oh my boyfriend works with younger kids. I’m always in conversation with older Black folks. Maybe this is a way to make it so it’s not necessarily about just the other things that might, you know, teaching school, like that kind of stuff, but a way build community, learn new skills, but also just get advice and have a space with people who are not your age that’s not um built on hierarchy, I guess is what I wanna say. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. I thought this was a, was a cool story. Um, and you know, I was raised by my grandparents and so feel like my entire life was like grandparent bootcamp, you know? But I, I also think about, um, some of the things that I do with my nieces and nephews that they think I make harder than they need to be, but are really important skills. Right. And so like, I think kids now and the way that all of us are, right. Are so used to instant gratification, are so used to things that are quick, are so used to like, why do we have to make the pancake mix? Can’t we just use Bisquick? You know what I mean? And I’m like, let me tell you about Connie and how she would have smacked me if I tried to pull some Bisquick out of a cupboard. Right? Um. But there are moments where I do wish that we had more time and space in our lives to pass down the things that we knew or learned or retained. Um. And I’m glad that there’s been this intentionality around creating this space. My grandparents said all the time that like being responsible for us is what kept them healthy and moving like into their later age, right? Because it’s like, you know, you’re in your 50s, 60s, you know you got grandkids, you gotta get to church, you got to get to school, you got to get to karate practice, you got to get to softball practice like your life is just completely different than that of your peers. You know um and so I do think that connectedness and the ability to stay connected to young people um can give people purpose. And I do think that often we put our elders out to pasture far too early. We pretend as if there isn’t anything to learn from them. Uh. And I’m glad to see that this space is shifting that a little bit. So shout out to the elders who stay connected to community and are willing to impart their knowledge, even when we complain about it. 

DeRay Mckesson: And um to what you said, Myles, about the soft power and the organizing, you know, the seminal organizing text Rules for Radicals was written a generation ago. It is still the playbook for the left. People, even people who have not read it don’t realize that they are living out the Rules for Radical, like, mainframe. And, you know, he was heavily influenced by the civil rights leaders. He didn’t, like make this up out of thin air. He was just the guy who wrote it all down and but it was the civil rights movement that powered it. I think about how you know the organizing space largely has not figured out a model for the internet. That there are all these incredible things happening all across the country, and you know I was a part of the figuring out how to move a lot of people to do a thing. We did that. That was new and interesting. We hadn’t done it in that way on the internet, da-da-da, but the sustaining community building using internet tools, nobody’s figured it out. Like the membership models right now are all like, are you a member of my mailing list? That’s like when people are like, they’re a member, they’re like, my members we have a million members. It’s like, well, you have a million people on the mailing list, which is, you know, not the same thing as you know members. But I say that because there is, you know if we can figure out the, how do we get people to intentionally build community together and then link those communities to other communities, that is power. That is like how we build power that can topple all of the bad things that happen. But the system is invested in us being disconnected. That is like a part of, so like how do you get around the algorithm? You don’t need the algorithm in your living room. Like the algorithm doesn’t show up in the living room, it doesn’t show up in the basement of the church, it doesn’ show up in the third spaces that don’t exist right now. But, so your comments actually put a fire in me. I have this idea that I’ve been working on and as you were talking, I was googling the domain and I told our team like buy this domain real quick because I have been percolating on this idea, but it is great to hear like somebody who is not a day-to-day activist highlight this, because I’m like, I think we need this, and you know, the space this space sorely, we are screwed relying on the party. That is a bad organizing model. That is what I do know. 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, annd that makes me so happy to hear. But like, even with you saying it, I know this may sound like it has nothing to do with each other, but like, I know that y’all love me and y’all will go on this walk with me. But it made me think about the news around Soul Train that came through and how there is just so much uh just no creativity. Like when I think about Soul Train, don’t you just hear Soul Train and go to like, doesn’t that pop up in your head, Don Cornelius, the fact that we’re not using that so many millions of Black people hear a name and hear a brand name and we all think the same thing. The fact that we’re not using that brand awareness to maybe do something soulful, to do something train the movement. It just feels like such a loss of IP. And such a loss of um of just like potential. And I feel like it just shows how to me, sometimes behind Black folks can be when it comes to being a little bit more aggressive on this. And the last thing that I was gonna say too is the information and the skills exchange go both ways you know, because I also think there are some older people who I’m like, do not post that AI thing again. That is not real. And I think they both can keep each other sharp, too. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, I think the two random thoughts, because it feels like we’re in the like random thought segment of the pod today. Uh.

DeRay Mckesson: What’s on your heart Sharhonda? What’s on your heart? 

Sharhonda Bossier: Why does it like, you can’t rely on the party, right? And I’m thinking about the Texas Dems who have fled the state, right. And I haven’t seen anything from like national party leadership on what they’re doing. Maybe I missed it, I don’t know, you know. Um. But I lived in Austin, right, for two years and was a public school teacher there, you know, was a campaign volunteer there, was a precinct captain there, et cetera. And it really felt like the party had just sort of seeded that entire state, like there was no investment in like leadership and youth and anything, even in the quote unquote “blue dot” in the middle of the Red Sea that was Austin, Texas, you know? Um. The other thing about the intellectual property that Myles brought up and like, you now, the BET Awards and the Soul Train Awards and all of that is like, I am becoming increasingly wary of like Black people who want to own what has essentially become Black cultural public domain, right? Like things like the Soul Train, right. Like you can’t watch a Black movie, a Black sitcom and there not be some reference to it because it felt like it was so core to who we were and to our cultural experiences. And so the idea that like one person or one entity gets to own it and then shelve it, right, means that there are people who actually do have ideas about how to revitalize the brand. How to revitalize what it stood for, how to make us feel those feelings again, but they don’t have access to the capital to do it and they don’t have access to the people who have positioned themselves as the cultural gatekeepers, right? 

Myles E. Johnson: Are you reading my diary Sharhonda? What’s going on?

Sharhonda Bossier: No like there is imagination and I think that’s what’s so powerful about like getting back to focusing on local communities is like, we have everything we need. And I think we are much better when we are in like real personal like proximity and community with one another. And so it’s like, how do we divest from these systems that have like created, you know, one person that we’re all supposed to elevate this one person who has a platform because they have the most followers on X or Y social media platform. To say, like, who are the people in your community who actually know how to move [bleep] and move people, right? Because one of the other things that you learn as an organizer is there’s a lot of people who claim to be organizers who can’t put butts in seats. And at the end of the day, that is the thing that matters. And so, you know, that person probably doesn’t have the degrees, that person probably can’t you know has been locked out of their Twitter account for two years, they don’t know. But that person can actually put butts in seats, and that’s where real change happens. And so I’m excited to see people want to return to real life community. Yeah.

DeRay Mckesson: I will say the best organiser I’ve ever seen. Those parent coordinators, baby. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Baby. They know everybody. 

DeRay Mckesson: You ever see a parent coordinator at a school? You’re like, I don’t know how you got every parent in the neighborhood up at this boring assembly. I mean, this is dry. You got the whole big field. The parent coordinaters can, like they don’t make enough money. They be holding whole school communities together. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Exactly. And saving the principal’s job. 

DeRay Mckesson: Literally, that part. That part. 

Myles E. Johnson: You just said some like really interesting stuff, but I do want to just exclamation mark that the digital and the internet is so important. Like, I think that, and I’m not saying this is happening here on this podcast, just conversations that I’ve heard, that people, specifically if you’re orientated towards in IRL, then it’s like, well, we just need to get off the internet and be IRL. And then if you’re, you know, digital, and specifically, if you’re you know whatever community you’re from, queer communities, disabled communities, you’re saying, well you know the internet is where we can be free and where we can, um and and you know what about the people in the Midwest and the Deep South or whatever who can’t do things? And I think that, you now, it’s about both. You know? Like both, we need really robust um communities and ecosystems, both in the digital and in the um immaterial, because as we see with that WNBA moment, we’re seeing the collision of both, the singularity of both. So it’s not either or, it’s both at the same time, heavy hard. [music break]

DeRay Mckesson: Well, that’s it, thanks so much for tuning in to Pod Save the People this week, and don’t forget to follow us at Pod Save the People and Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. And if you enjoyed this episode of Pod Save the People, consider dropping us a review on your favorite podcast app, and we will see you next week. Pod Save The People is a production of Crooked Media. It’s produced by AJ Moultrié and mixed by Charlotte Landes, executive produced by me, and special thanks to our weekly contributors, Myles E. Johnson and Sharhonda Bossier. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.