DOGE places AmeriCorps staff on administrative leave, Google in the hot seat for its search engine monopoly, ‘Sinners’ dominates the box-office with $45M on opening weekend, and lab-grown chicken nuggets make its way in rotation.

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DOGE comes for AmeriCorps staff in Washington and across the country

This week in science: Drumming crabs, lab-made nuggets and LSD without the trip

‘Sinners’ is a box-office winner, making $45 million on its opening weekend

The Justice Department is about to make its case for a Google breakup. Here’s what to know

Follow @PodSaveThePeople on Instagram.

TRANSCRIPT

DeRay Mckesson: Hey, this is DeRay and welcome to Pod Save the People. In this episode, it’s me, Myles and Sharhonda talking about the news that you don’t know from the past week with regard to race, justice, culture, and equity. And make sure that you follow us on Instagram at @PodSaveThePeople. Here we go. 

[AD BREAK]

DeRay Mckesson: If you are a believer, happy Easter everybody. We are recording this on Easter Sunday and it is good to be back. This is DeRay at @deray on Twitter. 

Myles E. Johnson: This is Myles E. Johnson at @Myles.E.Johnson on Instagram. And he has risen. 

Sharhonda Bossier: This is Sharhonda Bossier, you can find me on LinkedIn. 

DeRay Mckesson: There was, you know, unfortunately, an eventful political week, as there always is. If you all remember, there was a man from Maryland who was deported to an El Salvadorian prison. And shout out to Senator Van Hollen, who is one of our senators from the great state of Maryland. He said he was going to El Salvador to see the guy. They were like, you can’t get in. Next thing we know, there’s a picture of Van Hollen with the guy and you know he is freshly shaven, got on new shoes, new clothes. Van Hollen actually got to see him. He is still not free. So there’s that. And Trump and the president of El Salvador met in the White House, literally said that um they would not release him. It was impossible. I honestly thought he was dead. I thought that some of the charades was because he wasn’t alive anymore, but I hope that uh that he gets to come back from El Salvador and all the rest of the people they put on that plane can come back from El Salvador. But what was y’all takes on that? 

Sharhonda Bossier: One, I was glad that the senator made the decision to go there. I think it’s important to keep this story in the news. Um. I think, it’s also really interesting that there is the Senator’s office is saying that some of images that we have seen coming out of that visit. Um were uh doctored to include margaritas did you see this to like make it look a little more festive right so all of this we know is a PR stunt we know that the president of El Salvador was also in the United States visiting with Trump at the White House and so like the coordination between the U.S. Government and the Salvadorian government around the optics of these deportations and incarceration of people, I have found to be truly, truly fascinating. I don’t know what you do here though, right? And I’m seeing a number of, you know, articles where people reporting that there’s been an uptick of people choosing to quote unquote “self-deport.” Um. And I think that part of what the visuals of seeing people in these prisons is meant to do is say, you have a choice, you can leave or we will send you here, which is terrifying. Um. But yeah, I think I do think it was important that that he went, I do think it’s important that he was able to leverage his visibility and his position to continue to shed light on not just this individual case, but the broader set of decisions and actions by the Trump administration. Uh, but I am terrified that they seem to, you know, be outright refusing to follow the court’s orders to bring this man back. Ooh, Myles, that was a big eye roll. Go, Myles, that was a big– [laughing]

Myles E. Johnson: It’s just so, I just do not like Trump presidencies. I mean, you know, and I don’t like Republican presidences. And and and one thing that I make a pattern of when Republicans and conservatives are in power is to set the language on fire, make it as inflammatory as possible and make it as literal as possible as what you’re seeing. Because I think sometimes the language we talk about things can kind of cloud how serious it is. And I remember when these ideas were first being presented by the Trump administration. My first comment was, oh, this sounds like legal um this sounds like a public legal slave trade. This sounds like about a bunch of people who are legally um discussing um trading slave labor. So we have these immigrants here. We do not want them in our country, and we will give them to another country so they can be a part of your slave force. And I think contextualizing this as anything else just makes it a little soft. And I know that everybody talks about it and says it’s bad, but I also think the language has to be really, really, really clear and connective to the history of America. So America is not in the evolution process right now. It’s in a de-evolution process right now. And what we’re seeing right now is a return to America to old tricks, which is intimidation, which is violence, which internment camps, and is also is slave trading. And this is what we are seeing, just the 2025 version of it. Um. It is disgusting to witness, but I think, again, the thing that will always bring me the most alarm is that Trump is actually [pause] the least, the person who I’m least afraid of, I guess I should say. I think because of these things are being so normalized with Trump, I think when Mike Johnson has the power, when um, it sounds like a joke, but I’m not joking. When Barron Trump is old enough to run for president, when he has the power. What is this making pathways towards when we’re 20 years old or 30 years older that are more blatant and and and more blatent, more bold, but less surprising, because we’re used to it. 

DeRay Mckesson: In other news, there was a trip to space and you know, it has been the talk of the town. 

Myles E. Johnson: How crazy that segue is literally a manifestation of how crazy that trip was, just how inappropriate that segue felt, is how inappropriate that trip was. 

DeRay Mckesson: I will say that Katy Perry, as you know, went. Katy runs some summer camps. I’m obviously involved in um, I’m on the board of the foundation. And Katy did bring camp Firework bracelets to space with her, which she posted about. And I’m excited to see her give them out to kids uh at the next camps. 

Myles E. Johnson: Shout out to all the great work that Katy is doing on Earth. [laughter]

Sharhonda Bossier: That’s right. 

Myles E. Johnson: I don’t know if she has so completed her work on earth that she is now ready to go to space and do new work. I think she still has a couple of more years in her. I don’t think she’s quite at Jerusalem to to–

Sharhonda Bossier: Wow. 

Myles E. Johnson: To give us a little um biblical reference. [laughter] Um. The one thing that I want to say about all this is people’s reactions to it. And I think the reaction is obviously uh symbolic, or like I’m losing the word, I’m hopped off with Jesus juice, but um it’s obviously just referencing the, just the temperature of America when it comes to people who are class and celebrity. And I think that Gayle and Katy, they’re getting a lot right now from the public, but I think that they’re really getting a a lot because they are symbolic of just overall class resentment. And I want people to remember celebrities to remember, public people to remember. People who who get their money off of showing their class positions to remember that that kind of thing only works when there’s a middle. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: Because the middle and just like just in human nature, that we always want something to aspire to. Most people don’t want to be Beyonce. They want to be the Beyonce of their world, which might be economic mediocrity to most people, and they want to aspire and be inspired by Beyoncé, but if they’re not able to accomplish being the Beyoncé of their world, the Gayle King of their World, the Katy Perry, if they are not able to be a firework, or be able to roar, or live their own teenage dream. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Come on [?]

Myles E. Johnson: People are not going to warmly take to seeing those kind of gestures of grandiosity and I think that that’s what we’re seeing is a lot of that resentment and I guess I lied. The second thing is, Gayle, I need for you to have one, two, three, four, maybe ten more Black people on your team because this feels so out of touch for Gayle. And so such like a misstep for Gayle, because if something were to happen to you in that sky, I don’t think that we imagined. Here it is. I don’t think all Black people have this kind of Gil Scott-Heron, why do you win on the moon feeling? 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: I know that’s what’s being said. I don’t think most Black people had that feeling, but I do think that in our heads, Gayle King, if she’s going to go to space, she’s gonna do it with a, I don’t know, a fucking cut out with Maya Angelou and Oprah. Like she’s got to do it while reading some Toni Morrison like we see her in that way. And it seemed like she had such a, um, uh, a blurry vision of how the world sees her. And I feel like that is a part of this backlash that we’re seeing publicly too. 

Sharhonda Bossier: It’s interesting because Gil Scott-Heron is actually the first thing that came to mind when um I started seeing all of the reactions, right? Um. And I think some of what is a struggle for me in this moment is sort of asking myself the question, like, to what end, right, because I think to your point about there not being a middle, it’s like, you know, they were like, well, we did this to encourage young women to pursue STEM and STEAM education, et cetera, et cetera. And it’s like, there are no viable pathways to that. If you are going to space, we can debate whether or not they actually did, right? That’s like a whole other thing, right. But on a mission funded by someone who supported the president, who was trying to end all of the programs that are meant to get girls into STEM careers and education, right? Like y’all just not connecting the dots enough for me, which is you cannot talk about girls and women’s empowerment and wanting to ensure that there are specific and targeted interventions to ensure that girls and women are entering into these fields of study and careers. While doing so in collaboration with someone who is supporting an administration that is doing everything they can to tear down those very programs and interventions, right? Like it’s, you cannot have it both ways in this moment. And I think that that is, that’s a big reaction that I’m having. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: And also your the point that you just made, um, DeRay can’t talk about anything. [laughter]

Sharhonda Bossier: Again I don’t think our friends are beyond reproach, but we make different choices, you know? 

Myles E. Johnson: Also, what I see now, and it’s not just this situation is such a good example, but I saw it during the um I saw it during the um Kamala Harris run. I saw it during certain um rollouts of my favorite superstars. There is a um I saw it with the Keke Palmer stuff. Like I don’t think people are really ready for this 360 degree publicness that’s out right now. So it’s like, if you want to do something, it can’t just be like, 20 years ago, this was symbolically been great, but now the audience is so um well researched. We see everything. So you can make, do some symbolic bullshit and it can just kind of get torn down really quickly with logic. And you kind of got to be prepared for that, you know? So it can’t just look good on the front end. It has to also make sense on the back end. Like you can’t do a film that’s pro-Black. And then we find out that the person who produced it is a white, like that used to work, or the person who produces it is a white supremacist. If that that used to work but now it doesn’t work, people kind of need that 360 degree transparent authenticity in order for it to resonate with people and that’s not what this gave at Blue Origin. 

Sharhonda Bossier: I think some of that is because we are living in the aftermath of the failure of representation politics, right? Like we now know it’s not enough to just have us in the room, right, and we, I think particularly millennials are walking into spaces, seeing executives or leaders who came before us professionally. And are like, I’m still having these experiences. And in fact, in some ways, you other Black women are the person holding the line on the problematic thing. Right. So I think we have come to really feel that in a different way. And I think, to your point, are calling out the limitations of that. And this was a good example of that too. 

DeRay Mckesson: I will say I’ve been surprised at how um how much the press run that the people who went to space I’m surprised that they’ve actually participated in so much of the aftermath press. I’m sort of  like y’all I don’t you know people have really strong feelings I think we should just you know look at it and keep it moving and and um and they’re actually participating in fueling it being talked about and that has confused me. I think Gayle’s, have you been to space quote actually made me laugh. I thought that was really funny. And I’m like, why would you say that? That is like a no girl, we haven’t been to the space. [music break] Don’t go anywhere. More Pod Save the People is coming. 

[AD BREAK]

DeRay Mckesson: In the same vein of you know how could you how could you support a trip like that while supporting a guy funding it who is supporting administration rolling back so many things, I’m sure that you all saw that Harvard stood up and said, you know Trump. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yup. 

DeRay Mckesson: We’re not playing games with you. And they did it really publicly, they did it really big, it was a they redid the Harvard website. I don’t know if you saw that it was a, they took a real stand on this. Um. And I don’t know if you saw that the White House responded by saying that they actually sent the letter to Harvard by mistake. They were like, just kidding. 

Sharhonda Bossier: A mistake. 

DeRay Mckesson: The letter that was signed by everybody. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

DeRay Mckesson: Da da it was a joke, a mistake. And Harvard’s quote is like, we anybody would take this–

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

DeRay Mckesson: –letter as a serious letter from the White House. We would not take a formal letter from the White House as a mistake, and they’re like, just kidding, they didn’t they didn’t take it back. The White House is not stepping back from what is in the letter, but they did say that they submit the letter by mistake. And as you know, this is in stark contrast to Columbia, which caved at the moment that Trump said anything about anything. They just caved. And the last thing I’ll say, and I’m interested to see what you all have to say, is that um donations by the alum base to Harvard increased dramatically after their public pushback to Trump. 

Myles E. Johnson: I am constantly critical of Harvard because, you know, here’s the thing about institutions and maybe I just haven’t, my consciousness has now matured to the space it needs to be around this. But um some of these institutions, including Harvard, have also been hubs for conservative thought and and oppressive thoughts and stuff like that. And maybe this is also because I just saw Sinners and I’m in this metaphysical Easter thing. Sometimes I’m like, a lot of y’all getting y’alls karma because a lot y’all really participated in stuff that was just as oppressive as the thing that you’re being threatened with. So I hear the Harvard news. Of course, I don’t think that there should be any institution, specifically institution that is saying that it’s around thought that should be pressured by the federal government. But also I’m just not stimulated or or encouraged by this news no matter which way it goes or Harvard pushing back, because at the end of the day, Harvard pushes back and we still got to deal with it being a Harvard. We still got to deal with there being this institution that um is is is a white supremacist, imperialist institution, the first corporation of America, who gets to also say what is intelligence, who gets to be intelligent, who gets to pursue thought, who has to pursue labor, all those things are still baked into it. So I think for a lot of Black people, there’s a inner um uh civil rights leader in me that’s like, Oh, we’re gonna integrate this school. But there’s also an internal Black savage in me. that’s like burn that shit down. Good, good, good. Hope they gut you. Oh, I hope the people who made other Black people’s lives more oppressive in that institution are feeling that burn. It’s a really hard place for me to be in sometimes. 

Sharhonda Bossier: And I feel that deeply, but I also feel like it is a big deal that it was Harvard that that held the line, right? Because I think about the cover that it allows for other universities and other research institutions, right, that don’t have the capital, reputational or financial that Harvard has. Right? And so what Harvard is doing is carving out a lane for other people to follow and other institutions to follow their lead. And so in that way, I think it matters significantly, right, that it’s a choice they made. But like, I don’t think any of us are naive enough to think that there are not people who have a financial stake in Harvard or its investments, et cetera, right? Who didn’t support this administration, right. Like you cannot become the president of the United States without backing from somebody who’s got a tie or five to that institution, right. Um. But I if I’m thinking about, you know, being a state you know, university chancellor and wanting to hold the line, being able to follow Harvard’s lead, being to say to my regents or to whoever else right that like this is a viable pathway towards like resisting and holding the line matters. 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah. 

Sharhonda Bossier: So. 

DeRay Mckesson: I will say too, and you know as much as it is true, Myles, that there have been some conservative thought leaders from Harvard who have, their ideas have just hurt a ton of people. I don’t I would not characterize Harvard as a conservative institution in terms of like they are the base of professors, or certainly students. And I think about everybody from Du Bois, to Henry Louis Gates, to the range of Black thought that has been produced and championed at a championed in a place. 

Myles E. Johnson: Well you just. 

DeRay Mckesson: Championed in a place. 

Myles E. Johnson: I don’t mean to inter–

DeRay Mckesson: You don’t have to agree with them. 

Myles E. Johnson: I don’t I don’t want to interupt. I mean.

DeRay Mckesson: But like you know I Du Bois was a huge thought leader for the moment.

Myles E. Johnson: No, it’s not even about disagreeing or agreeing with them. Du Bois is brilliant. Henry Louis Gates are brilliant. They’re also picture perfect people of Black conservatism in our version of it. Like that is those are still conservative intellectual figures. Du Bois came up with the 10% uh uh. 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, but not conservative in the way that–

Sharhonda Bossier: Talented Ten. Yeah.

DeRay Mckesson: In the same way that the trickle-down theory is conservative. 

Myles E. Johnson: I think where conservative and fascist are maybe two different things, but when it comes to conservatism in the Black community. 

DeRay Mckesson: What about Cornell, give me Cornell. 

Myles E. Johnson: It often does not manifest as a [?].

DeRay Mckesson: No, no. He was at Harvard. 

Myles E. Johnson: Is Cornell West a conservative? Um but are you what’s what do you mean? Oh, give me Cornell as far as a progressive, radical–

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: –Black [?] Leader. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

Myles E. Johnson: Yes. No [?], despite his whole thing being led in Christian doctrine and his whole patriarchal sexist things that he said, but I love I love I love his um book with Bell Hooks and [?] so. 

DeRay Mckesson: And I do, let’s talk about the Google anti-trust lawsuit. I do think that um what Harvard does sets a tone for the rest of the academy and the idea that Trump can pick off who gets tenure or not, which is what he’s trying to do, that like he can decide if professors ever have tenure or or not. I think Harvard will probably survive. It’ll be smaller institutions and it’ll be like places like HBCUs that will not be able to survive some of these cuts in a way that these places with a $50 billion endowment will be able to, and they need the cover and the fight. But let’s talk about Google. So um I’m actually surprised that the Justice Department even still has a team around antitrust because it feels like nobody is a yeah, it feels like– 

Sharhonda Bossier: They’re going after Meta too right now, yeah. 

DeRay Mckesson: Nobody is really at work anymore. But um in 2020, the Justice Department started accusing formally Google of illegally stifling competition by paying the makers of web browsers and phones to set Google as a default search engine. Probably on all of our phones, Google is the default search engine. It is certainly the one on mine. Now, this is one that obviously Google is fighting very intensely because they have a vested interest in being the default search engine, and they don’t want to be convicted or found guilty of um violating antitrust laws. So, this is still going on with the Trump administration, which again, I thought that they had just gotten rid of this team of people. I do think that the only reason it’s continuing is so that Trump can use leverage over Google to get them to pander to him or to change the search results. I don’t think he cares about antitrust at all, frankly. Um. But I wanted to just bring it up and see what you all thought about it. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Well, Google is a trash search engine these days, right? Like most of the results are promoted or like the same things over and over again. Like there are times when I have gone back to try and find something I know I found a couple years ago and like just cannot find it in the search results. Um. And I do think that, you know, Google is saying like, look, you know, we have just figured this out, we’ve cracked the nut, we just are the best at it. And you know trying to break us up or trying to force us to do x or y or z just means that the consumer will have an inferior search experience, which I don’t think is true. Um. I also think that you know competition is is is good, right? And like we have said that we are a country that believes in that. Um, I, what I find really interesting about it is to your point, the Trump administration continuing like this fight. And I don’t know what other than, you know, wanting to see more conservative or more favorable search results for the things that they care about the goal is here. Because in my experience, the attempts at breaking up these companies just mean that they sort of they break up in one iteration and then sort of form the same monopolies in another. And so I just don’t know how we, when people have amassed that level of resources, the ability to buy or kill their competition wherever it pops up. I mean, it feels like the it’s too late at this point, you know? And the real question is like, what can the government do to help support the creation of something that might at some point scale to be a real competitor, right? So like, you know and what’s the government’s role in doing that? I just think that whatever you do to break up a company like Google and all of its subsidiaries, uh I think is optics and I don’t know has a significant impact on the consumer experience. 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, oh, my tinfoil hat. [laughter] Oh, it matches my outfit too. But because I got to put it on, because this just sounds like like like um likehostage. Like it sounds like a way for the Trump administration to me, in my opinion, allegedly to me, my opinion alone. Um. It sounds like a way for uh maybe the Trump administration to get Google to pay some money or get them to get, because I don’t think that the Trump administration cares about um monopolies. I think that, oh, if you want a monopoly, we’re gonna put you in a position where you have to pay to have a monopoly and you have be on our team and payment does not just mean money in this situation. It will be interesting to see a Google search engine that uh that favors conservative points of views, Trump points of view. I think there’s a whole host of things that can be done in order to make this thing go away. So I feel like it’s being resurrected. Ok, Easter. In this moment and in this day. Uh. So there can kind of be some quid pro pro, how do you say that word? 

Sharhonda Bossier: Quid pro-pro. 

Myles E. Johnson: Quid, yeah, whatever. There could be some exchange for um uh for Google’s power. That’s what I see. I don’t see like there being some honest care about the search engine. The last, the other thing that came to my mind too when reading this article and just reflecting on this news was just like I’ve seen Google’s decline in just the culture when ChatGPT came on, so I don’t know who’s better when it comes to searching ChatGPT or Google. Whatever y’all say is the better, which one, I will believe you, but I can tell you which one people like more. Which is the one that um, which is what really matters. And more people are liking ChatGPT. I’ve been on the internet so many times, seeing just, you know, regular Black folks, un-regular Black folks and different people talking to their chatGPT, doing different things, doing different things making the um chatGPT talk like them, research like them. And again, the AI can be so uh, just not trustworthy and you have to double check it. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: But but I don’t think that actually matters when it comes to the success of something replacing Google. I think that people like it. It feels fresh. It feels new. I think people resent the Google. When you go through high school and middle school and you have to see that freaking Google sign in order to do stuff and that Wikipedia. I’m sure. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Ooh yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: Wikipedia is due for um a brand change because I think the resentment that kind of gets formed when you have to use these tools, but they’re attached to assignments and work and stuff. People are thirsty for something new. And I think something like this can also be a little um opening for there to be a new search engine master, if it goes that way. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Interesting. We are, you know, I’m always fighting with my HOA. That’s like a whole other thing. My neighbors are wild people. But, you know, anytime there’s like, a dispute right now, it’s a dispute around our CCNRs and like who has to pay for window replacements on the building, right? People literally are like, I’ve uploaded our CCNRs to chatGPT and chatGPT’s read and assessment of the, you know, language here is that it’s the HOA responsibility because it’s structural. I mean, people literally will tell you that they have put it in chatGPT and take that assessment and like put it in the like email or bring it up in the HOA meeting as like the literal final decision or interpretation of something which I find both fascinating and terrifying. 

Myles E. Johnson: Sharhonda, I don’t got the I don’t have the HOA stories, but I can tell you, I’ve been in conversations with a whole bunch of dumb niggas who are [?]. Who think they won an argument with me and try to and try and and try and win an argument with me and they’re trying to win it through what they’ve learned on ChatGBT and me having to show, this is an error and also it is biased. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: But again, when it comes to situations like this and even what we see on the internet, on Facebook, on YouTube, just the culture war moment we are in, we’ve been thirsting as a nation, as a digital community for a thing that–

Sharhonda Bossier: For something else. 

Myles E. Johnson: Not. Yes, for something else but for a thing to be judge and jury. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: So we can talk and argue all day on Twitter, but we’ve been wanting something to be the the–

Sharhonda Bossier: The decider. Yeah.

Myles E. Johnson: The thing that says, this is what decides it. And that’s what it is, even if it’s um imperfect and and and deeply flawed. [music break]

DeRay Mckesson: Don’t go anywhere, more Pod Save the People is coming. 

[AD BREAK]

Myles E. Johnson: Saint, saint, saint, saint, saints. I come to you to talk about one good piece of cinema. And I don’t use that C word lightly. This was a piece of cinema. I’m talking about Ryan Coogler’s new film, Sinners. And hopefully I’m not the first person to tell you that this is a good film, that this a beautiful film. But in case I am, it’s a good film. It’s a beautiful film and [sigh] I wanted it to be my news because we are in a post, let’s say, Get Out world, right? And when I would notice post Get Out and really a post Trayvon Martin, post um post a lot of things as culturally as Black people that we went through, you have a whole lot of people me saying people, white people, Black people, Black people who uh who are from Africa who want to tell Black American stories, a lot of people who’ve seen a opportunity to exploit Black Americanness culture in order to profit. And then when I would see these films, I would always have to be painted to dark hateful critic because I can also see how much you don’t like Black people. Because their, if you really knew what the average Black person sees during um during their lifetime when it comes to cinema and television, there will be certain things that we would not need to see. Even if you’re dealing with that time, you know, there’s times I’m you know I’m not a big fan of 12 Years a Slave. One of the reasons why I’m not a big fan of 12 Years a Slave is because it came out 25 years after it might actually have moved me or or after it could have, to me, um shook me. It felt like such a a masturbatory expression of Black pain in order to get an Oscar, in order to get money. And there were so many times in this film and I’m trying not to say spoilers, where I can feel the love from Ryan Coogler. So I’m talking about the time where there’s an old man reminiscing about the violence that has happened to a um to a friend of his, which was white supremacist violence via lynching and they didn’t show a thing. All you can hear, all you can do is hear. I’m talking about a time where you have a heavy set, dark skinned Black woman being loved on and having sex and and and being seen as beautiful right after she does [?] work in front of in front of um in front of her uh her lover. I’m taking about a time where you see two Black men talking about sexually pleasing a Black woman and it not having any words that sound like violence in it. So there was no language like beat it up. There was no language like um stick her. There was no language that made it sound like something violent. It sounded like two Black men sharing details of intimacy with a Mississippi Delta background. And there was um and there’s just countless scenes like that that would that for a horror film were so baked into love. And then my geeky part of myself, when I think about Dusk Till Dawn, when I thinking about Ganja and Bess, the 1970s Black exploitation vampire film that I believed was my news last year. Um uh there’s so many references, how the how the blood pours, how it spurts like a water fountain in the film, direct um lineage to uh to Ganja and Bress and how they did their um how they did their blood. And uh when I think about certain scenes, um there’s this beautiful scene uh when the when the music happens and the mysticism comes in and there’s this um this beautiful visualization of of ancestors and ghosts and and it’s just and it’s just a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous representation of what it might look like to uh uh be in a music and that music resurrect ancestors and that music um uh make you feel like those ghosts are are right there. And I just thought, there was just so there’s just so many times in this movie, so many points in this movie, that I thought, wow, Ryan Coog– Ryan Coogler really loves us. I’m thinking about the lighting. I’m thinking about the dialog. I’m thinking about the desk that we see and the desk we do not see. I am thinking about the cathartic experience of seeing um certain things happen to Klan’s members. I’m thinking about just just when I tell you I saw this movie and I was so impressed and I felt so respected as a film viewer, I felt loved as a film viewer. And even though it is genre film and it is horror, I still felt uh just so hugged and warmed afterwards, which was a really weird thing. The one thing I do want to say um, wow, while I have this thought too about the Ganja and Bess in in in this film. So I’m a huge Grindhouse, 1960s, 1970s film lover. I wouldn’t call myself a buff, but I love that film. I would go on Tubi and watch those films like it wasn’t nothing. It was such an a obedient representation of those films. So in those films, often the budget was lower. So the actual film would be riding on the story because there was only so much room for special effects budgets. So the fact that it gets set up so beautifully and um and so gorgeously is great. And then when I think about even newer films, so I was I will put that with like Ganja and Bess in the ’70s, but when I think about um newer films so Francis Coppola’s um uh Bram Stoker’s Dracula when he did that film. And when I think about Dusk Till Dawn. Specifically, when I think about Dusk till Dawn, Dusk Till Dawn does a whole genre flip. So if you’re not familiar with Robert Rodriguez, Dusk till Don, that also has Quentin Tarantino and George Clooney in it. It goes from a crime film to a vampire movie towards the last half. So the last third of the movie is a um vampire film, but every  all up into that it’s just a crime movie. And he kind of pays homage to that. And then also um when I’m thinking about, again, Ganja and Bess, and I keep on saying that because I feel like I’m not seeing a lot of people reference that film, and it seems like such an obvious reference point, but when it comes to um Ganja and Bess, again, this was a lot of drama. So yes, there was blood there, so there was a vampire, but it was also a story about ancestry, power, about reflections on church, Jesus, class, and what it’s doing to Black people through the um through the story of vampires. So it isn’t what we have come to expect from vampire movies in the last 10 years I would say, because we are so addicted to this ADHD slop that’s been given to us that we are so afraid that uh uh somebody’s attention won’t be there. So we just kind of give them more blood and gore. But it’s actually extremely obedient to the tradition of horror movies, specifically in America, that really have to be built on stories and really wait for that monster or that violent impact to happen. So this is me telling you to go see it. This is me saying um, it’s a sanctified horror movie. It is a haunted horror movie, haunted with our ancestors, and it was just beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Did y’all see it? Do y’all wanna see it? How do y’all fell about it? 

Sharhonda Bossier: I have not seen it. Uh. I’ve not seen it. Uh. And, you know, I think hearing from you, Myles, makes me say like, okay, I might give it my money. I um I’m worried that it’s going to terrify me and and make it hard for me to sleep. I tend to avoid horror and gore. Like that’s just it’s, I just tend to. And so when I saw the advertisements for this, I was like, oh, I might have to sit this one out, even though I love Coogler. And I had seen like as a person and I think I love how he shows up and walks in the world too, right? Um. And I and there was a pretty big press run in the lead up to this and so, you know I had seen him in interviews, etc, etc. But I just wasn’t sure if like visually I could take the movie. And so I’m excited to see it and and share my reflections with y’all afterwards. But um I was not interested if it was, if it didn’t have the elements in it that you had described, right? And I think in some ways, given what I think I know of Coogler and the art he tries to make, I should have trusted that there would be something deeper there. 

DeRay Mckesson: I will say, before I talk about the film directly, I love, there’s so few Black directors that get multiple swings like he has gotten. And they’ve been good swings. He, Fruitvale Station, uh the Black Panther movie, you know he’s had a he’s had a good run and and there are not a lot of, like Ava is the only other director I just, I can think of in this generation who has just gotten a lot swings. Like Ava’s gotten to do a lot and we just don’t get a lot of like certainly Black directors, who are not from a generation or two ago who get to do this. So shout out to Ryan. 

Sharhonda Bossier: If you’re not Spike. Yeah. 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah. If you’re not Spike, who like and like who was who was next to Spike in that generation? 

Myles E. Johnson: Spike wasn’t allowed to do shit either. Remember, he had to publicly fund for Malcolm X to be made. A lot of his films are, Bamboozle were underfunded films or independently funded films. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: So even though he’s famous to us and loved by us, he did not have a good time financially or have a good uh relationship with film studios. 

Sharhonda Bossier: We going to have to talk about that loved by us at some other point, but go on, DeRay. [laugh]

DeRay Mckesson: I will say I was nervous about the film, not because I didn’t think I would like it, but because the hype was so big and we all have been through these conversations about things about race the last decade. We can probably count on our hand the number of things where the hype has matched the reality. So I went into it a little nervous. I was like, you know, I’m gonna go see it. And I get invited to a lot of screenings and stuff. I feel like I see a lot things about the police or, you, know, Black people and da-da-da, and I’m I’m not even underwhelmed, I’m just whelmed. I’m like, okay, like I’m, like, that was okay. And then I saw this and I walked out, called TeRay, my best friend, and I immediately was just like, uh this was brilliant. And then I called CJ, another best friend. Brilliant, brilliant. I think that this is actually a movie about race that uses horror and vampires as an introduction and as a cover for it. So, Sharhonda, you will be no more afraid of the horror in this than you are of white supremacy in the world. Like that is the avenue to it is vampires, but like the actual tragedy and horror is white supremacy. And I think that they nailed it. I if anything, I’m shocked that it got made. I don’t know if Ryan did the okie doke on the people. I dunno if the people didn’t quite understand what was happening. But what I saw, and I’m like oh this is I thought it was a beautiful entrance. I hope somebody puts together like a syllabus. I hope people you know I’ve seen a lot of conversation, Twitter, the Black people on Twitter have been doing these beautiful dissections of it and like really thoughtful. I hope that somebody puts them somewhere so that there’s like a teaching and learning guide to this. I think that I’ve seen very few pieces of art that I would be like, people should assign this as homework in high schools, not just in colleges. Colleges will do it because colleges do this. But like parents should have this, high school should have it. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

DeRay Mckesson: They should get walked through the decisions the characters made. I am, they need to put me on the panel. I’m in, I’m sold, sold. 

Myles E. Johnson: DeRay, I want to I want to um I don’t want to spoil the movie, of course, but what I will say is, to your point, there were so many decisions that were made. So there’s Asian representation in the film. Obviously there’s white folks in the film and stuff like that. But the things that those characters do feel representative of maybe a bigger critique of Blackness and our um relationship to those races, or that relationship to that white supremacy. And then to your point, just because I want for Sharhonda to stay on the hook of wanting to go see it, is that it is a cathartic horror film for Black people. I think Get Out is an excellent film, but it was not cathartic to witness. It was horrifying to witness, but I did not go out feeling better. The violence and the way and the horror it is exercised in the way that it gets something out of you. And it leaves it in that movie theater, which I think is a specific type of thing that is also representative of hoodo. That’s what voodoo and hoodoo do is take your darkness and take it out of view and you spit it up and Black and the preacher says the demons over there. It does that in a I’ve just never seen it done before in a film. 

DeRay Mckesson: And if you did not know that um that Ryan Coogler loved Black people, you will walk out of that theater knowing that he loves Black people. That is what you will know. Ten toes down. Don’t question it. Don’t don’t think twice. He loves Black people, and that is really cool. Don’t go anywhere. More Pod Save the people is coming. [music break]

Sharhonda Bossier: Um, okay. Well, my news this week is about lab grown meat. Um. And so, you know, at a time when I think lots of people in the US are thinking about how much meat we consume, the health and environmental impacts of meat, etc. Right. Um. There are scientists who are thinking about how we produce more meat, right, as there are more humans living on the planet than at any other time in history, as we are thinking about how to deal with hunger and food and resource scarcity, etc. And so a group of scientists have figured out how to um get these sort of basic cells that make up a chicken called myoblasts, right, to sort of naturally fuse. And so we’ve had lab-grown meat for a while, but the fusion of the cells to actually make like a nugget or a breast has happened on the backend, right, this is the first time that they have figured out how to make this fusion happen together so that you can actually sort of, naturally, you can’t see my air quotes, grow a breast or a nugget. And the real reason that I wanted to bring this to the pod is because I had a very visceral reaction to the thought of eating lab-grown meat, you know? And I was like, am I gonna eat some chicken they grew in a petri dish, or am I just gonna give up chicken altogether? And I do think about the environmental impact of like my choices around consumption, right? Everything from like what fashion I’m buying to what food I’m eating. And I do think it’s important that we think about how, look, the planet can probably sustain life if people weren’t hoarding in the way that they’re hoarding right now, right? Like hunger is an artificial thing and it’s mostly the result of like human choices and policies. But I am thinking about what it means to um to grow meat. And trying to understand my own reaction to it, even as somebody who will also eat other sort of like, you know, I’ve tried the Impossible Burgers, I’ve try all of that stuff, right? It doesn’t really stick for me. If I’m gonna eat meat, I feel like I want meat. But I just am thinking about. Um. Yeah, like is there an actual appetite, no pun intended, among most of us to actually take advantage of lab-grown meat if we think it reduces the suffering of animals, if that’s something you care about, and we think it probably has a less detrimental environmental impact. So I think I just wanted to bring it to the pod mostly for discussion. Like it’s a cool scientific breakthrough, but I also think that like these things can’t happen in a in a lab, right, we have to think about how they make their way into our culture and then how they make their way onto our plates. 

DeRay Mckesson: It’s interesting when I found some polling that Purdue did, Purdue University, not Purdue, the chicken company, did about this. And it looks like about a third of Americans are against trying cultivated chicken, about a 3rd against cultivated cow, a little bit more against cultivated pig, and then huge majorities against cultivated everything else, octopus, shark, ostrich, turtle, da-da. Um. And then I read that this is not necessarily new, as you talked about, and I’m like, well, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a sign that said lab-grown meat. And what I did learn is that it’s only legal to be sold in three countries, Singapore, the U.S., and Israel. I thought that was interesting. And only two California companies have ever been authorized to sell cultured meat in the United States. And Florida and Alabama have banned all of its sales. Florida even criminalized the cultivation of meat in this way. So. 

Sharhonda Bossier: I wish [?] could see our faces. 

DeRay Mckesson: So I thought that was really interesting. You know the only thing I have to contribute to this, besides that context for all of you, all of you listeners, is I couldn’t imagine doing lab-grown meat in the moment where the FDA has no employees. Like it would be a stretch in general, but not when the head of Health and Human Services doesn’t believe in anything and the FDA is running on AI. I like couldn’t imagine. Like who they who they–

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

DeRay Mckesson: –approve won’t even be about like ethics or science, it’ll be somebody’s cousin who has like a lab grown meat company who pays Trump a million dollars to have dinner with him and it’s like, you get the FDA, that is wild to me. I couldn’t, yeah, no, no. It’s a no for me. 

Myles E. Johnson: So just, and I’m sure as millennials, y’all have like, as millennials we’ve all experienced this and just depending on what age you were, I guess it depends on how it hit you. But I feel like we’re the first generation to uh have. So in the ’80s with jazzercise and exercise, it was a thing, but I feel like millennials uniquely got like the um the superfood marketing. So like I felt like um the coconut oil, the avocados, there was there were other vegetables where I’m like, I [?] never even heard–

Sharhonda Bossier: The acai bowls, yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: Oh yeah. Like it’s a lot of that stuff. And I remember, so I was a vegan, like a um, I was a raw food vegan for a year, then I was a vegan for four years, and then um then I stopped and I made my way back happily. And now I’m on my journey of just trying to discover what’s right for me and me also thinking about veganism. But my big thing is, when I was a raw food vegan, the thing that never left me was that to eat in America is to take a risk. Um. And I think being neurotic about what you consume in America is really just the beside the point because it doesn’t matter. And, you know, so now I’m the person who I’ll have broccoli in my refrigerator that’s fresh and whatever, but I also keep frozen broccoli too. Like, you’re not gonna get me to play this game of like, of purity. And um the reason why I bring that up is because I totally get your um initial reaction to this, Sharhonda. And I have the same reaction too, specifically as DeRay said, underneath this administration. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: But I just I if I’m being honest, I just think it’s where it’s going. And I’m and I’m sure those one thirds are religious one thirds. And I am sure those one thirds of people are are people who feel that way, but I think that sentiment is going to leave as more people are less religious. And I also think is the need is there, because I think that when it comes to America, America don’t get what they want to get or what they believe that God wants to get. It’s you going to get what you’re going get. So if it becomes that we’re going make more money from it to be in the lab, we’re going to figure out a way to grow it in the Lab and then we gonna walk it on the park so we can say that it was farm raised. And by the time it gets to you, you won’t know the difference. But we gonna do what the hell we wanna do. Um. So that’s just how I feel about it, and I think just just just kind of sitting with the non-choice of it feels different. I think the only other thing that I want to add is, you know what’s a great use of artificially made food to solve artificial hunger. I’m not saying that I wanna, I want those things tested out on people, but I do think that’s where our food is going, and I think while our food is already going there, let’s um think about ways, to have this technology serve us, because I just don’t think it’s going anywhere um at all. I think that’s just where we’re going to be heading. We’re going be eating fake food in 50 years, or lab-grown food in fifty years. 

DeRay Mckesson: And maybe on space. 

Myles E. Johnson: Unless you’re farming. 

DeRay Mckesson: But uh let me go to my news to close it out. So it is about AmeriCorps. It seems like Trump is on a path to end the AmeriCorps program. About 75% of full-time AmeriCorps employees were put on administrative leave last Wednesday. That means that 535 people-ish out of the 700 were just put on leave. As you can imagine, this is hard to run an agency this big when there are no employees at work. And roughly $250 million in AmeriCorps contracts have been canceled. So while the agency is still technically around, you know it started in 1993 during Clinton’s first year in office. And the agency has gotten about a billion dollars in funds every year. And AmeriCorp is a pathway to volunteering and service in communities all across the country. And internationally, it subsidizes some costs for people to go into communities or work in their own communities and volunteer and help out. It has been a powerful tool for change for a long time. I can’t believe it has only been around since 1993 because I you know I’m in the generation that benefited from AmeriCorps. So I think of it as like, of course it is around. And this is where the end game, I don’t always get it around Trump. Like I. There’s no real cost savings here. You know, even DOGE, if you saw DOGE changed their public website to like change the numbers about how much they said they had found in savings anyway. But AmeriCorps impacts so many people. It’s so many people’s pathway to employment or a bridge after college. You know  the only thing that I can hope in the end is that all of the people impacted by this stuff, like realize that they have political power and start to fight back. Because when it was just, you know, I think about my role in this last decade and it came up around the police. When it was Black people being killed by the police, there were a host of people who said, that’s not my issue, I get it, but like not really close to me. I don’t like not the thing I wanna fight for. And we can replicate that argument across a host issues. And then in this moment, the number of people impacted negatively by Trump stuff is just so vast. That it really does feel like an opportunity to me in the organizing world for people to get up and be like, okay, this doesn’t make sense. I got laid off, my cousin got laidoff. As you know, we’ve covered before, people have no real savings, certainly not savings to deal with an unanticipated termination by the federal government, especially government jobs, which you think are gonna last forever. And you know you you are protected by a union and all those things. People at universities who tenure used to be a thing that you got for life. Now, tenure might disappear because the university might disappear just because he’s trying to get rid of it. Um. All these things that people take for granted, I hope that they don’t depress people as much as they mobilize them. 

Myles E. Johnson: This feels like a confusing one for me too, at least at first. Um it just so I guess my my main thing is not just how why it’s bad or when I look at like left leaning or whatever you want to call it, media, why it’s bad [?]. I totally get that. But I’m also still a little confused as to what the right thinks those things were doing. And when I watch content about what the right thinks those places are doing, they just think it’s all corrupt and woke and nonsense and not really and people don’t feel it. And even when I was looking I’m I’m going to be really honest with you, I ain’t no Ameri- there’s so many things. I did not know what they were until now and I’m feeling like I’m getting my education because it just works and I liked that. But since that is no longer a thing anymore, I am getting educated and AmeriCorps was one of those things. And as I was watching different pundits and just commentators talk about it and looking at the comments. I’m like, oh the temperature around it all is that it’s corrupt. And if it was doing all these different things for veterans, then how come there’s one homeless on my on my highway? Anytime I’m in the Midwest, anytime I’m on the highway, the amount of homeless veterans asking for money is wild. It astonishes me. Um the when I look at the values of AmeriCorps, I can see how living in certain areas, it could feel as though those things aren’t actually happening, and that’s just an excuse for people to have um upward mobility via the government or say they’re doing a thing but not really doing it. And again, like with this moment, with this, it kind of reminds me of the Harvard thing. It just makes me wonder that once so many people are shaken off of these institutions established by the government, is just going back or trying to fight for our way back the remedy of it? Or should we be thinking about doing the harder thing, which is to make sure that if we are going to be talking to President Barron in 20 years or President Mike Johnson in 20 years, we are not so vulnerable to to this type of exploitation, this type of carelessness, that’s what it makes me um wonder. Not saying that they shouldn’t get their jobs back and we shouldn’t fight for them and all that other stuff, but it makes feel like we probably should also not just go back to like, oh, that was a crazy four years and I got fired, but that’ll never happen again. I’m like, oh no, no, it was gonna happen. It could happen again, it might happen when your ass is 70 and you ain’t got that. You don’t got the good knees. 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

Myles E. Johnson: To go to go protest. 

Sharhonda Bossier: I think about what it is doing to our sense of like connectivity and and investment in the public good right? To watch all of these service-oriented programs be gutted in this way. Um. I think, DeRay, to your point, it is a pathway to volunteering and to early careers for a lot of people. And a lot of those pathways lead people into service organizations, right, in to service jobs. And what happens when you, when we already live such isolated and stratified lives, right, along lines of race and class, those service opportunities were bridge-building opportunities, right? Through the Peace Corps, through AmeriCorps, et cetera. I also think about all of the education institutions that rely really heavily on AmeriCorps um funded support to, like, do things like deliver tutoring to young people, right? To ensure that after-school programs run, et cetera, right? Like the the very real impacts that are going to be felt by low income families and and schools and school communities because that’s where I spend a lot of my time. Um and I just I worry that we are watching an intentional like destruction of our social fabric and connectedness through like the economic policies through how many of us are working right now and then through like the destruction of these kinds of service opportunities. And I just think that the thing that we all have to fight fiercely for in this moment more than ever is our desire to be in community with each other and to be of service to and with each other, right? And so if AmeriCorps does not exist, what then are the pathways to exposing young people to more social sector and service jobs? And how do we replace that? Because it’s less about the career pathway and more about us understanding that our fates are are interconnected. [music break]

DeRay Mckesson: Well, that’s it. Thanks so much for tuning in to Pod Save the People this week. Tell your friends to check it out and make sure you rate it wherever you get your podcasts, whether it’s Apple Podcasts or somewhere else. And we’ll see you next week. Pod Save The People is a production of Crooked Media. It’s produced by AJ Moultrié and mixed by Evan Sutton, executive produced by me, and special thanks to our weekly contributors, Kaya Henderson, De’Ara Balenger, and Myles E. Johnson.