
In This Episode
Automated grocery prices increase depending on the shopper, Target follows suit in abandoning DEI initiatives, ICE officers issued an arrest quota, and the legacy of Florence Price – the first Black women to premiere works by a US orchestra.
News
Automation in Retail Is Even Worse Than You Thought
Meet Florence Price, the first Black woman to have her work premiered by a US orchestra
Target rolls back DEI initiatives, the latest big company to retreat
Trump officials issue quotas to ICE officers to ramp up arrests
TRANSCRIPT
[AD BREAK]
DeRay Mckesson: Hey, this is DeRay, and welcome to Pod Save the People. In this episode, it’s me and Myles talking about all the stuff that happened this past week. There’s so much and shout out to our two other hosts on the podcast, De’Ara and Kaya, who are not with us this week, but are always here in spirit. And if you do not follow us on Instagram, please go follow us at @PodSavethePeople right now, here we go. [music break] Today is a special episode because it is Myles and I. It hasn’t been the two of us ever in the history of the pod. I don’t think it’s ever been two people. But shout out to De’Ara and Kaya, who we love and will be returning obviously. And we are pumped to bring back the Blackest book club in the coming week.
Myles E. Johnson: Okay. I’m excited about that. I’m so excited about the Blackest Book Club.
DeRay Mckesson: Woop woop! But this is DeRay at @deray on Twitter.
Myles E. Johnson: And I’m Myles E. Johnson at @pharaohrapture on Instagram.
DeRay Mckesson: Now, Myles, a lot happened this past week. It feels like there are a million things to talk about.
Myles E. Johnson: It was five years.
DeRay Mckesson: So let’s just start from the top. Um. Did you see that Mr. Pete got confirmed as his secretary of defense despite the allegations of abuse. Even Mitch McConnell voted against Pete. J.D. Vance had to be the tie breaker for him to be secretary of defense. That’s never happened before in 100 years for the vote for secretary of defense to be that close. People are definitely nervous about this, as I am. And, you know, it’s been interesting because when people talk about white supremacy or meritocracy, I’m like, this man’s only qualification is that he’s white. That literally he hasn’t like served in a service long enough. He hasn’t managed people. He has a bad record when he was in any position. And yet here we are. So I don’t know if you I want to know if you saw that or what that looks like.
Myles E. Johnson: I have the only thing I can really produce with these moments are the deepest shallow reads. So I was telling my my boyfriend, didn’t ever watch American Psycho? Have you seen American Psycho?
DeRay Mckesson: I think I did. It’s old though.
Myles E. Johnson: It’s very old and it’s like–
DeRay Mckesson: Okay.
Myles E. Johnson: –the man it’s like a satire. The man has his quaffed. He’s like a caricature of a Wall Street man. But it’s almost like a–
DeRay Mckesson: Okay.
Myles E. Johnson: –Pulp Fiction of a movie. And um we were watching, me and my partner are watching Fox News, and he said he was like, well, you like those um white men really be quaffed on Fox News because they’ll have like the hair and the perfect suits. And they’re almost like they’re a caricature of Bob Hope, like Drag Bob Hope. And I connect that with what’s what’s going on because that’s all that is necessary. Are you able to strictly perform whiteness? Are you able to strictly be able to perform conservatism? If you can do that, you have a place and that is the calling card. And it’s not. And it’s no it’s none of the other things that whiteness has created as like a symptom. So it used to be like a college degree or, you know, your grandpappy lost his leg in Vietnam. All this other stuff that made you qualified as white is no more. All you need to do is be is a white man now. And that’s what this is reminding me of. And that what it signals to other people culturally, too, is that we’re you know, what was what were people saying DeRay? We’re so back? [laugh]
DeRay Mckesson: We’re so back.
Myles E. Johnson: What were they so back from? Talking about blond women and skinny people, that they’re like they’re like, oh we are so back. We are no longer competing with y’all no more.
DeRay Mckesson: It is you know, it’s funny you say that because I forgot that Pete was a Fox News host.
Myles E. Johnson: [?].
DeRay Mckesson: He came from Fox News.
Myles E. Johnson: There’s an economy and a and a ecosystem there that is well run. And it makes sense how come so many people once because I was thinking about this too, how come once people go right, they don’t go back? Like the left has a lot of back and forth and and between and purple and oh that was a little racist. But you have a really good environmentalist stuff. Like so there’s always it’s a lot of that kind of stuff sometimes. But like in the right, it just feels like they once you get to that space, there’s like when we’re never going to experience Amber Rose in any other way again. But this like this, this, this Pamela Anderson character for the right.
DeRay Mckesson: I want to ask so, you know, when we talk about the performance of conservatism, what do you make of the performance of sort of what people call the far left or sort of I’m asking because I’m struggling with seeing people online, on on ostensibly on on the side that I’m on, say things like well Trump and Kamala were the same anyway or, you know, I know I told people not to vote for her, but I didn’t think it would be this bad or and I am you know, I’m a pretty patient person and I’ve been an activist long enough that I’ve seen people sort of shift their positions. But I’m truly like I don’t know Myles. I’m a lil, I’m I’m not as sympathetic in this moment and only not because I want to apply blame, but I actually don’t know what it means to organize or build community with people for whom this is their analysis. Like, I just struggle. Like if you say things like, you know, Kamala and Trump are the same thing, I’m like, well I don’t maybe similar on some very narrow things to the but the same? I that just feels like too far to me that doesn’t feel true and I and I only bring it up because I don’t know what it means to build community with people who continue to say that. But I wanted to ask you what you thought?
Myles E. Johnson: I think the digital sphere is so strange. So I have all the love in the world for and all the like understanding in the world, for somebody who protested their vote because of how they feel about the genocide, how they feel about the Democratic Party and all all those different things, I really have um a deep understanding and oftentimes agreement like usually that’s where I am. But the the the Internet and social media is a place of intellectual homelessness, meaning there’s a whole lot of people who didn’t really find what theory fits them. You know, there’s a lot of things that I was doing and saying. And, you know, a lot of us were during the Obama era in a certain type of class of thought and stuff like that. And I veered differently and I found different thinkers and I really found my intellectual home. But because on social media, everything is about likes and profit and who’s going to um say the thing or be the most right, or get people to see them as um a intellectual messiah to lead them into clear waters. Everybody’s chasing to say the right thing, which is often on the internet, is the most left of center thing or the most far left thing. But then you don’t actually have the knowledge or practices to prepare yourself. There are people who said, we know that we were, um in the sense politically setting ourselves on fire by by voting for Trump. And we are okay with that because we saw a literal place get set on fire. Or literal children get set on fire, and we’re okay with that. But we will not stand with a nation who does not stand with the people of um, the people of Palestine, even if it means harming us. I respect that. You don’t really get that kind of um I don’t know the right word for it, huh on the Internet. You don’t really know. [laughing] You don’t know what you’re really doing. And you see a lot of people go from don’t vote they’re the same they’re the same to crying. And I’m like, well, that’s a that’s an emotional gap that you should have filled way before you let people know your politics. You know, I’m all ready I’m ready for everybody to hate me when I say certain things, but way before I even said it, because that’s my politic. But most people are are are just prepared to go viral, get growth and stuff like that, where where where we’re treating our own personal, political, intellectual evolution like it’s Wall Street. And each quarter we need more and more people. And that’s not how intellectual or political evolution works.
DeRay Mckesson: I wanted to bring up too, I don’t know if you saw that there’s a hiring freeze. So if you got offered a job by the federal government, uh that job is no longer happening. And that he got rid of all the DEI people in all the executive departments and also put out a call that if you know somebody who’s still working in the government, who does DEI work and we missed them, then you need to email this email address and tell on them. It’s a result of–
Myles E. Johnson: It’s minority report meets like Nazi Germany. Do you have your papers? It’s like both of those things at one time.
DeRay Mckesson: At one time and then I they reversed this. But did you see that uh the Air Force Academy actually said that it was stopping, it was removing any mention of the Tuskegee Airmen. It was taking them out of the curriculum as a part of the response to the executive order around DEI. And then as a result, a backlash this morning, the Air Force said that they put it back. But I wanted to bring this here because I’m interested in your read around this attack on what Trump is calling DEI, but seems to be an attack on anything Black. And I think just today, Rutgers announced that it is no longer doing like an HBCU conference because it cannot do it, given um Trump’s executive order around DEI.
Myles E. Johnson: Why can’t he do it exactly?
DeRay Mckesson: So the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institution said it was asked to cease all work it was performing under the auspices of DEI at Jobs for the Future, which is funded by the Department of Labor. The decision was directly influenced by recent actions taken by President Donald Trump in his first week, said a spokesperson for the university. And this is about his executive order with DEI.
Myles E. Johnson: Got it. Um. I think the first thing is I don’t know my brain goes straight to pop culture all the time. DeRay something’s wrong with me. Um. So Tyler Perry Tyler Perry just came out with a film starring Kerry Washington called the um the Six triple eight, which um if you watch it, it’s some imperialist American Black propaganda, and it’s made to make you feel warmer about America and the project and also kind of amplifying these stories that, of course, they make us feel warm and oh my goodness, we did this and we carry the mail to the soldiers or we did this for NASA. But it also is supposed to kind of keep Black people in love with the empire that rejects them. Even like I think about uh uh Taraji P. Henson’s uh speech and monologue around segregation um during the during the um The Hidden Figures uh movie. And mind you, that that speech never happened. Like so they just like they invented a a race story to make sure you drive home like you should be happy to be working in the empire and have these jobs because we didn’t have it and stuff like that and and and whatever. And this reminds me about how we’re actually like regarded. And I think the question that is a kind of, I guess like just underneath these like instant instances is how did Black people get get so attached to something that hates them? You know? And I know that. And see feel like even when I see people who I respect bring it up or comment on it and and sometimes things can be a little ambiguous about um just create your own institutions or we need to have our own stuff and and and we need to have our own economic systems and and and schools and medicines and and hospitals and stuff. But it’s really like a urgent thing because these institutions are made to not like you. And it’s it’s just a return back to factory settings. It’s not an advancement to a new advanced form of white supremacy. It’s a return to factory settings that was always this the nation’s right to do so if you found yourself interwoven. Um. I really struggle with this. I struggle with this since don’t ask, don’t tell. And I was a little kid, like not a little kid, but I was like a teenager, just kind of getting my political awareness on. And I’m like, wait. So they don’t want me in the army because I’m gay. But I don’t want to be in the army because they racist and and they don’t want me be here anyway. So that’s very simple.
DeRay Mckesson: But are Black, do Black people love it? Or do you have a choice? Like, is it just sort of like you’re in it and you just sort of accept that like this is the government? So you at least wanted it to not be–
Myles E. Johnson: I just don’t–
DeRay Mckesson: –racist.
Myles E. Johnson: So I guess I just don’t understand like what the and I guess there is no strategy, right? I guess the strategy has always been I’m we’re we’re Black people. If you can get out the mud, get out your mud your way, your way, your way, your way and nobody wants and I’m and I can say kind of clearly nobody, you know like once getting out of the mud has created an alternative to this the original stick that got you out the mud. You know, and I think we’re really starting to face the brunt of it because this is not ours. And if it doesn’t happen with Trump and he just, you know, excuse my language well fucks up this next four years, he’s already revving up bearing. They’re already prepping up J.D. Vance. Like this is–
DeRay Mckesson: Yeah.
Myles E. Johnson: –not going away. We have to figure out alternatives. That’s where [?].
DeRay Mckesson: Or it might and it might be now or that we actually did do an alternative. And we called that period reconstruction, which nobody remembers because we don’t teach it, but that we did have this era of like Black political power building. And the response to it was so wild that white people literally just killed every Black person that participated in the power building moment.
Myles E. Johnson: Reconstruction was a long time ago. And I also think that because we’re–
DeRay Mckesson: I mean it still happened though.
Myles E. Johnson: I know it still happened, but I’m like it’s either we gotta we got to have one, one or two. Either everybody ain’t the millionaire or as powerful or as smart as they say they are or, you know, we haven’t done anything since Reconstruction we like we like we haven’t really made these alternatives since maybe Black Wall Street. Like it’s [?] how I think about it now specifically because it’s so many things are digital, so many things are air, so many things aren’t things you can easily burn down. I’m like, this is a high time to rethink certain things. You know, you can do things that benefit Black people without health care or getting Black people money or resources or whatever, without necessarily building something like a church that needs to be burned down. Those brick and mortar places could just be symbolic. I think we need to revisit those things. I understand, obviously, that we faced white terrorism, but I think you only you continue to reconstruct until and just like, you know, we’re both we’re both we’re both praying gay folks, and God believe in gay voting, I think–
DeRay Mckesson: Who’s gay?
Myles E. Johnson: Oooh.
DeRay Mckesson: Ooh. Just kidding.
Myles E. Johnson: Just me just me. But but I think that’s one of the things like you kind of learn in scripture through God and through your ancestors, is that you kind of get rebuilt up and you get take down and re get rebuilt up and you go higher, and then you get take down and you learn your lesson and you go into like, that is the story of the birth, the crucifixion and the and the resurrection. And I just don’t think that just because it got destroyed one time, that we just have to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue.
DeRay Mckesson: Yeah you know, it’s interesting um hearing you say that it almost feels like because there was an anticipation that we would do that is is one of the reasons why Elon bought Twitter. You know, I think about the protests is just like re– this sort of first moment in our generation where the Internet was used to organize all these people who had not come together before. And, you know, the left was pretty powerful. And on things like Twitter. And then all of a sudden Elon comes in, you know, the digital space is no longer like an easy space for us to organize, you know?
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, but I it’s just we can’t be the party who understands the complicated versions and complicated ways that, like, capitalism works and then and how conservatism works. And we’re we’ll be all heady. And then also be surprised when somebody says, oh you ain’t doing that shit on my app. You can you about to go on to that blue sky and blue sky they’re going to be like, Yo, you can’t say all of that. You know, [laugh] keep it cute. You know, we you, I think it’s great to strike gold on these platforms, but I think that it should always be about how as quickly as possible do I uh bargain this power for something that’s independent and something that is not reliant on the whims of these billionaires and conservatives?
DeRay Mckesson: I want to bring up too you know, I actually like Hakeem Jeffries. He is hopefully going to be the speaker of the House when the Dems have a majority in the House. But he is the leader of the Democrats in the House. Um. But I will say I was disappointed in his tweet, Myles. I don’t know if you had a chance to see his tweet.
Myles E. Johnson: The Jesus tweet?
DeRay Mckesson: But he tweet– yes. He tweeted, presidents come and presidents go, through it all, God is still on the throne. And it’s like, Hakeem, Trump is trying to tear this thing up. Tweeting that God is still on the throne is not the leadership or strategy that people are looking for in this moment. That does not feel like a rallying cry. And I am team shout out to God. I think, you know, we [?] before. You know. I’m I’m in. But I was like–
Myles E. Johnson: I’m team God, not I’m in. [laugh]
DeRay Mckesson: But I’m like, is this the plan because baby I’m seeing people spiral. I think it is not only misinformation that’s happening, it’s misdirection. Like people don’t even know like where the source of the thing is that is the problem happening. And his God is still on the throne. I was like, oh no, this is a bad strategy.
Myles E. Johnson: I’m of, I’m of two minds. My first mind. It’s hard for me. And maybe this is just, you know, hyper normalization gone wild in my brain that it’s hard for me to critique anybody but specifically him um for a tweet, specifically something that is like nowhere near anything that I’ve seen from conservative politicians. It’s just hard like it’s just hard. Like, it’s like honestly, if I’m being like, how I read it was more trying to bring levity and keep the temperature cool and like be like and like how I because I read it and I was like, Yeah, Jesus is king. And I, I just didn’t read it as like a call to action or anything. I don’t know of X because X is X now, so I don’t even know of X even has the power to be used how it was used ten years ago as a rallying cry. So I just thought as something as like as being like, oh everything’s going wild and everybody’s panicking. I’m actually going to bring some like levity, some Christian humor and some like Black wink wink to this because maybe that will keep the temperature like calm. That’s how I read it. Maybe that’s just too kind of a reading um, you know you know you know. Somebody got to be kind to uh–
DeRay Mckesson: Man that was a that was a–
Myles E. Johnson: To Black people.
DeRay Mckesson: I didn’t I don’t know what I expected you to say, but it was not that. So shout out to–
Myles E. Johnson: Whatever they’re whatever they’re doing for Trump and all the lies that they’re talking about what Elon was doing. And that salute, I’m doing the same thing for a Negro. [laughter] So.
DeRay Mckesson: I like that.
Myles E. Johnson: So what are–
DeRay Mckesson: I like that.
Myles E. Johnson: What are you saying? Yeah. So I’m going to use my intellect to protect the to protect the Negroes in this in this case.
DeRay Mckesson: Are you doing that for all Black people? Because I did want to bring up the one, Candace Owens, who inspired the latest school shooter. So I will ask you to, you know, lead us into that conversation since you said that you were here to defend the negroes.
Myles E. Johnson: I’m here to defend. I said all people on the left and the thing but before we even move on to that, I do also want to say that I think it’s hard. I’m not even in a, I mean, I am in a place of privilege, but I’m still affected by these things. So I’m not saying the type of place where nothing will touch me, but I am able to see how it’s healthy that a lot of Black, just a lot of people in general see how maybe incompetant the people that they’re hiring are and their who they’re electing are. So if there are people who are seeing what he said in in in that way. I think I think it’s good. I think that people have been able to afford to be too detached. And I think whatever frustration you’re feeling, I think I think it’s actually healthy to be to be riled up, you know.
DeRay Mckesson: Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned. There’s more to come.
[AD BREAK]
Myles E. Johnson: I read the whole manifesto. DeRay did you did you even, like, look at it?
DeRay Mckesson: I only saw the pieces online. You read the whole thing?
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. So on that article that I sent from Channel two, they have a link in the middle of the article that links to the whole um manifesto. And I looked at it it’s really disturbing. I wouldn’t say you have to read it, but that’s where I got um he like talked about being raised like he [?] he doesn’t really name that he has any type of connection with that uh theory or anything anymore obviously. But um it’s it’s interesting that it seems as though. It seems as though one cult was able to do a cult off. And the woman, the culting knitting lady who I talked about says how often um people do cult jump is what it’s called and how once you are um your brain is uh–.
DeRay Mckesson: You really are in on this cult, what’s the cult woman stuff again?
Myles E. Johnson: Her name is Cult Knitting lady.
DeRay Mckesson: I might need to actually watch her.
Myles E. Johnson: I have her book. I’ve been reading. Yeah. And I’ve been reading her books. It really has been um. It yeah has been put language to a lot of stuff that I’ve felt and that I’ve seen. But she’s really been able to put language to it in a way that’s really grounded and interesting. But um yeah, cult jumping is a thing. So it makes sense that somebody who was a Hebrew Israelite was able to jump to um Nazism, Nazism despite their race. What I thought was interesting about him naming Candace Owens as his most powerful influence was here because we always talk about things theoretically DeRay, and we’re like, you don’t need to be um a white person to function in white supremacy. And I think some people sometimes people get it. But this is just so clear. You have a Black boy listening to a Black woman and this Black woman is helping the radicalization of the annihilation of his own like race or the desire to see his own race annihilated. And there need not be any white people involved. That’s where we’re at today of what’s possible. And that is also what um the Internet can facilitate. There was a lot of warnings to other people who he’s in community with on those um sites that they’re being more and more um watched all the time and and giving them pointers of how to do it. So I’m yeah, I just that that is the portion that really um just stuck out to me that this is something that is still a white supremacist, white terror, domestic terror moment if you read if you read that. But there are white supremacist ideologues with Black bodies amongst us. You know.
DeRay Mckesson: He wrote Candace Owens influenced me above all each time she spoke, I think she responded by saying that the manifesto wasn’t real. What do you make of her response?
Myles E. Johnson: I haven’t seen anything that Candace [laughing] luckily, I haven’t seen anything that–
DeRay Mckesson: I wish y’all could have seen Myles lean forward like somebody’s old grandpa. Just [?] like like excuse me?
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, no, it’s it’s it’s either one or two things just because we’re we’re live. So of course if that from that news source isn’t real then you know, it’s. It’s. It’s it’s not. It’s not real. And if there’s enough proof of it not being real, then, you know, whatever um and everything I said still holds. Because at the end of the day, it was a Black boy who was radicalizing the white supremacy from the Internet. Um.
DeRay Mckesson: Well I don’t think that–
Myles E. Johnson: I think that it is–
DeRay Mckesson: –[?] said it wasn’t real. I just think that her–
Myles E. Johnson: No no.
DeRay Mckesson: I was interested that her response was to say it wasn’t real.
Myles E. Johnson: No I’m going to follow up. Because I just want to like–
DeRay Mckesson: Okay okay.
Myles E. Johnson: I was [?] I was kind of backing myself up because I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next seven days. But I think that it is real. And I think that Candace Owens is full of, you know what. And I think that she. You know, I was watching her and she was during the inauguration and she was like going like America, like just like this. Like, just had her hands in the air going, America. We’re so back. And we’re so back. And I looked at her and I said, this is a performance artist. I was like, [?] she’s just playing the game because this is where the money’s at and she doesn’t care. And she’s saying the things and you when you listen to what she’s saying, you can hear her trying to. The only reason she fell into pro-Palestinian rhetoric is because pro-Palestinian rhetoric happened to align with her anti Semitic rhetoric that she likes to dog whistle inside of everything that she says. Because the reason why she gets paid is because there are white supremacists who who listen to her and who feed onto her. And she says those things and and and pushes certain types of politics in a very covert way, that she could just wrap as just arguments or just freethinking. And and yeah, yeah. It just if I was playing the con show that she was doing, I would want to distance myself from the real harm too. What do you think?
DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, I was you know, it I honestly, this is one of the first Black school shooters we’ve seen. So I was shocked by that in general. I was shocked by the portions of the manifesto I read. Um. And, you know, I was talking to one of my friends about Candace is that Candace is you know, we do not agree, but Candace does give you actual arguments. They’re wrong. They’re not like informed by the right things. They lead you to the wrong place. But unlike some of the people on the right and the left who just tell you to believe a thing. She gives she like she manufactures reasons. And I get that that convinces people of the so, like, I wasn’t confused by him being like, she convinced me of, like, above all. But it goes back to your point about the cult is like, this is a death cult. Like I think we will soon see, continue to see the consequences. Even with the the January 6th people being pardoned, it’s like, what message does it send that these people literally. I will never forget, Myles, that man putting his feet up on Nancy Pelosi desk. I will remember that until the cows or those people climbing the Capitol wall, the fact that they all just got released is and you trying to tell me that the boy that stole from the corner store should be locked up? Oh no, this is a joke. This is a joke.
Myles E. Johnson: I just mourn the power like just the erosion of political influence because how do you tell somebody um to fight for this, to vote for that, to do these different things. And there are people who want to see certain things happen strictly because of the message. You know, it’s really not about like, what message it sends? It’s just a clear message. It’s it’s Trump doesn’t do nothing. With a with a with a with a question mark. It’s all a period. So we it’s terrifying to say what message it sends, but we know what he’s saying. You know, it’s almost like um whatever in Harry Potter where you can’t say the person’s name, like we don’t want to say it. But he’s like, no, he is saying that if you are interested in any type of white terror. I got your back. If you’re interested in any type of political white domestic terror, I got your back. And and and if you know who to direct it towards because you know who my people are. I got your back. That’s what he is saying. And that and that is scary because everybody I don’t care if you live in Harlem, I don’t care if you live in Kentucky. You are a neighbor away from somebody who is a couple of YouTube videos away from not being all the way there in the head anymore. And I think that is the the the thing is specifically, you know, when you see that map, the voting map, and you see all that red.
DeRay Mckesson: Yeah. You’re like–
Myles E. Johnson: And you’re like oh we surrounded oh we doesn’t it feel like zombie time? Like you’re like, oh shit like lock everything up. That’s what this feels like. And then him releasing those people feels like this, too. Feels like, oh they’re amongst us.
DeRay Mckesson: Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned. There’s more to come.
[AD BREAK]
DeRay Mckesson: Going back to the performance actually um the same thing with ICE. So ICE now has quotas. They have to arrest a certain number of people a day. And I don’t know if you also saw that they have been instructed to dress for the cameras.
Myles E. Johnson: Didn’t I say that? I didn’t, can you tell me more about the about the instruction? Because I didn’t see that part about the attire instruction.
DeRay Mckesson: Oh yeah yeah. So they so the instruction was a source said that they have just literally been instructed to, like, dress nicely so that when they do the arrests, it looks orderly like that they, the ICE officers look good. Um. And that is like part of the strategy that the Trump administration is employing. Even I don’t know if you saw the press secretary, she tweeted, the new press secretary tweeted a picture of people being deported and people and he’s like, you know, we started the deportations and they were like, that was scheduled before Trump. But he’s like, he is using this imagery around–
Myles E. Johnson: People want to see it.
DeRay Mckesson: Ice and deportations.
Myles E. Johnson: If we were in a feral world, I would. A fairer world. I would like just pray that he just do some AI and just have and I was like his supporters will believe the same thing Like like you don’t actually need to do it.
DeRay Mckesson: Why do you think people want to see it? Like, what do you think is so what do you think is so interesting about people wanting to see like why he leans into the performance and lies about it being a landslide win? And what should the left’s response be?
Myles E. Johnson: That’s just a that’s a really deep question. DeRay like, because that’s like a question that I’ve been that I always write about. That’s what I really want to know. We’re in a country where the foundation of our entertainment is um freak shows, minstrelsy, lynching postcards. Um. There is something baked into our entertainment culture and how we consume things that we enjoy watching terror, that we enjoy watching um the brutalization of others. And we love anything that extracts us from um from it and be able to observe, like to be able to observe it. That is just something that is baked into American culture. I like I you have to ask somebody who’s who’s smarter than me like the though the why, the why, the why. But I do think it’s there. You know, I think if we’re trying to figure out why in 2025 this is happening right now, we’ll always come up short because it’s just too shallow. The legacy of this is very long. I might just not have been gone deep enough in my own kind of internal shadow to really be able to see why people love seeing the brutality. But they do. But what I will say about this, too, is the boy who just did the domestic terrorism at this school is just one example of somebody kind of doing something that is not at the benefit of their own race and their own culture. I think with these immigration policies and what’s happening right now, what to me feels the most disturbing is that I know a lot of people who are immigrants or the same race of these people are enjoying it. That is what’s the most disturbing thing to me. I can I can do white versus Black um and white people are doing something horrible and brown people are looking in astonishment. Black people are something’s happening and the Black people um and white and and and white people are responsible. Like all of that kind of makes sense, what we’re at now because we’ve been able to so remove um white terror from race is you see a lot of brown people, legal immigrants, people who thought, oh I’m not a criminal, illegal immigrant. Cheering on the humiliation and the brutalization and the and the inhumane treatment of people who are of their same race and of their same heritage. That’s what’s so interesting about that. In real time, we’re watching people extract themselves to fall into whiteness, extracting and removing themselves from their identity in order to be with power. And it’s something that you talk about theoretically, but here you are seeing it like it’s like in a freaking comic book. That to me is what’s most interesting.
DeRay Mckesson: Let’s turn uh the topics and can you take us to two cultural moments of the week? Tabitha, Target and [?] academics.
Myles E. Johnson: [sigh] Y’all it’s been a week. It’s been years in this week. I’m, so Tabitha who I love. I’m gazing at Tabitha seasoning as I’m speaking right now. I support everything. I’ve supported everything Tabitha But essentially Tabitha got online once Target had announced their DEI rollbacks. Tabitha got online and she told Black people, and I want to say that she meant well, but she told Black people, Hey, when you’re boycotting, do what you got to do. But also let’s be reminded that next month is February and there’s a lot of Black businesses who are going to be involved in Target for February. So when you are boycotting Target, also remember that these are also um there’s Black business owners who you’re going to be um affecting when you do those things. Um. Horrible timing, right?
DeRay Mckesson: Really bad timing. Twitter is tearing Tabitha up.
Myles E. Johnson: And sometimes, and you know. I hate how the social media works because it just doesn’t it just doesn’t work. But I do miss the days that you can have a conversation with somebody and they’re close enough to your side, which I feel like Tabatha, obviously is that you can–
DeRay Mckesson: Yes yes yes.
Myles E. Johnson: Maybe just get them more to the left or a little bit more radical or just kind of expand their imagination a little bit more or be able to brunt certain sacrifices. Because the real story is Tabitha, you aligned yourself with a corporate monster like Target. And part of integrating yourself with a corporate monster like Target is, A, you don’t have the agency that you want. But then also, if we got to do something as Black people, you got to be like, you know, do what y’all got to do. And, you know, I put this money in a high yield savings account and some stocks and I and I was already prepared for the day if because I was just doing this until y’all we’re ready. Or I’m just doing this–
DeRay Mckesson: Right, right right right.
Myles E. Johnson: Until we had the call. I think that we I thought that all Black people kind of had that same thing. Where like, okay, DeRay, tell me hit the streets I’m hitting the streets. But until then, I’m going, I’m going to get my paycheck. And it just seems as though that hasn’t been the agreement. And maybe us not discussing that being the agreement has facilitated a lot of ignorance. What was your take on it?
DeRay Mckesson: So I actually didn’t see the original thing. I just saw people talking really critically about Tabitha and I you know, the Internet has generally liked her, even if they are like sort of annoyed at her being an auntie it’s sort of the annoyance that you have with your auntie. Where you’re like, I get it. That’s my girl. It’s just auntie. But people are really pissed about this. And I did think it was like really, really it was bad timing on Target’s part because you’re like, Black History Month is coming up. They pulled out of the Pride parade and, you know, they’re from Minnesota. They pulled out of the Pride parade in Minneapolis. They’re one of the biggest employers in the region. I used to live in Minneapolis. So like, I’m shocked at how quickly this happened with a place like Target, especially because Black people ride for Target, you know, so I’m like, oh we expected better from you on this one, you know and people people defending Tabitha have been like, well, she isn’t necessarily that rich. And da da and I’m like this these are the wrong arguments y’al. This is not the moment. And you know in a moment of solidarity where we need to figure out what power looks like. I also think that this moment highlights that there’s a real leadership gap in our community on our side, that people are looking for like a message or like a strategy. And in the absence of there being any strategy to latch on, I think we get moments where one strategy comes up like the boycott Target and it becomes the only thing that’s in the room because nobody’s doing anything else. And I don’t know if you saw Sharpton do the buy in at Costco. Did you see that?
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah I did.
DeRay Mckesson: So, like, you know, that’s interesting because Costco did not get rid of its DEI thing, but then people criticized him because apparently the employees at Costco are striking. So they were like not the not the right moment to do that. Um. But I do think this highlights like a leadership issue. And I was really shocked at Tabitha. I don’t know if she said something since, but I think, you know, I’m interested to see what Aurora says. You know, Aurora and the [?] I you know, I know I’m friends with Aurora, but the 15% pledge?
Myles E. Johnson: No, no no no.
DeRay Mckesson: So it came right after 2020. Aurora is in fashion and and the beauty space. But she got all these companies to um to devote space to Black owned businesses and companies. Huge deal. Like big thing you know.
Myles E. Johnson: No no I do know about that. I do know about that. Yes, oh and we had dinner with Aurora before.
DeRay Mckesson: Oh a while ago. A long time ago.
Myles E. Johnson: A while ago. Yeah yeah yeah but no I remember like no, yes I know exactly. Yes yes yes yes.
DeRay Mckesson: And like, what do you do when you know it was, it was these initiatives that supported her and able to bring all these products to places like Target. You know what I mean?
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: And you roll them back and it’s like ugh.
Myles E. Johnson: Kind of. I think. I think, I think that we are in a weird sticky web when all of our protests and political power seems to be the most energized when it’s around consumerism and and what and what you should buy.
DeRay Mckesson: Tell it.
Myles E. Johnson: And not buy and not get it just kind of feels like, oh we going not buy here. Hey, everybody go to Costco and da da da da and I’m like you need to be learn how to grow your own food I’m not hold like because I’m like I’m like because Costco can be telling you they ain’t doing DEI, but they got the technology to say all these Black people their apples are $10. Not to, you know. We’re at a stage right now where the performance can be the best performance of of of, of liberation ever. And the actual system can be destroying not just their workers but their consumers too. So we really have to detach from consumption. That’s the thing with the apps too. You jumping from one app to another app to the other app and the the the the the problem is the damn phone. We have like we had like that just we can’t we we have to get we can’t get around that. So that’s the thing too and the with this Tabitha situation too, it really bathed the whole situation in the Black community with Windex around the class part. You know, there is just–
DeRay Mckesson: Yes.
Myles E. Johnson: –this deep seated resentment that um I’ve that I’ve felt not even I haven’t felt it for anybody else. I felt it towards me because I’m usually seen as somebody who, you know, I’m articulate, I dress well, everything’s going well. You know, things are great. I’m in a privileged place in my in my life. Um. But even when I’m not, it still appears that I am. And I can feel the resentment from other Black people to other Black people. I’ve seen it. Um. Even how we interact in clubs and in parties, how we um kind of dress to observe and to compete. Like I just seen a different shift in how we do things and we do things, how we consume things and we consume things like Amazon and Tinder. So we’re all just kind of there showing ourselves as the best product possible to be judged and to be liked. And I just I don’t know, there’s some there’s just something there that just has made this the the air in Black culture so strange. And it’s not just Drake. It’s it’s it’s it’s other things too. Um. And I think this Tabitha situation made it clear that there’s this last thing that I’ll say that I wanted to say that I want to say to you. I and this is just speculative, but I think we’re going to see individualized class revolts. I think we’re going to see in individual people’s communities, be Black, be you gay, be you Brown, whatever. I think we’re going to see moments and instances of people who are seen as have nots in those communities do something to the people that has. I think we’re going to start seeing internalized, internalized um things. So I think that the the whole thing with the health care CEO and Luigi is like a macro, but I think we’re going to see micro things in other people’s communities. And I and, and this Tabitha conversation has just kind of gave me the courage to articulate that because I felt it for a long time. But, you know, I try to be responsible for what I speculate.
DeRay Mckesson: Especially when the gap is so big. You get CEOs making $600,000 and employees making 50,000 and you’re like.
Myles E. Johnson: But that’s not even the big gap. DeRay That gap is big, right? I’m not trying to say it’s not big.
DeRay Mckesson: Okay. Okay okay.
Myles E. Johnson: But to me, the big gap is somebody who is making 25- 30,000 living next to somebody who’s making 100- $150,000. Those those type of gaps in communities cause a lot of tension and they’re and because of housing’s horrible. So those people are now living on top of you because now we’re in this hyper surveillance society. So you can go on Twitter and see how somebody is living and you can see how your neighbor is doing in the vacation and stuff like that. I think those are the gaps that um that are going to be actionable, in my opinion.
DeRay Mckesson: Don’t go anywhere. More Pod Save the People is coming.
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DeRay Mckesson: My news Myles is sort of it actually talks about a lot of the things that we talked about, but I didn’t know that Kroger, there’s a long story in The Nation. It’s a great story uh in the sense that it’s really well written, but I had no clue that they have facial recognition technology in grocery stores now that Kroger is piloting, that changes the price of the items depending on who the face is. That is so wild to me. I you know, when I read it, I was like, hmm this can’t be real. And then I was like, oh this is this the way that we will sort of um crystalize disparity at every level. It’s actually shocking to me that I, you know, like there’s a part of the surveillance state that I’m like, okay I, it’s just happening. It is what it is, not great. But I’m like the idea that the prices change by who walks up to the item is just so dystopian to me that I wanted to bring it to the pod.
Myles E. Johnson: No, that article was so good, had me from top to bottom. I’m always very honest about if something with a little bit, you know, it doesn’t necessarily deserve a Netflix special, but I guess I need to know it. This one informs me and was riveting. The first thing I thought about was RFK Jr. Um. Listen, I don’t know everything thing about RFK Jr. I really don’t. I probably shouldn’t even before I set this scene, if he has any kind of like crazy allegations like sexual allegations at the time of me saying this, I don’t know about anything um around that. But what I was thinking about is how he was trying to infiltrate the Democratic Party, you know, and I think how we dismiss people with influence and power has to change because he was such a ridiculous figure that you’re like no and then he ends up like amassing so but he had so much power and influence around make, make America healthy again and around um uh the food industry. And he’s just been able to give all that power and influence to the Republicans and give it and give it to them. And I think that um, you know, Sunny Hostin, who I love and because the only reason I know I’m saying her name is because I love her and I watch her all the time on The View. But like seeing her every single time insult him and say he has a earworm and da da da da da. And you know, most Americans have dealt with something that’s a little embarrassing. Most Americans have no somebody who’s a felon, like these like kind of classed insults don’t work. And they’re they’re they’re making us leak power because it’s making it feel like only a select few elite few get to be a part of the Democratic Party. And that’s not how popular votes are won. You know, um so I that’s what this made me think of. Oh let me connect it because I feel like I said this uh two or three times um already. But the reason why it made me think of that is because I remember seeing during my own health journey um and just diet journey, different people saying different things around, oh if this company finds out you’re on food stamps, your groceries will already be higher or this company’s price gouging this neighborhood and stuff like that. And it was all um dismissed as depending on what part of the Internet you were on it was just it was dismissed as far right conspiracy theories about, you know, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories or it was um far leftist political um conspiracy theories. But either which way now we’re seeing that, in fact, those technologies are here, are happening and are going to be affecting people. And and yeah, I just I just think that these are these are the kind of stories that we can use to create power, but we can’t be so elitist about who holds that power and influence, um in my opinion. So that’s those are my thoughts.
DeRay Mckesson: Boom. Yeah. I’m well, it’ll be interesting to see what people in communities think about this when they learn about it. But you’re in this–
Myles E. Johnson: If they learn about it.
DeRay Mckesson: If they learn about it. Right. Your news to close us out.
Myles E. Johnson: Yes. So I wanted to bring a, you know, some good news to the podcast. And right now I am obsessed with Florence Price um she was a pioneer. She was a she was a pioneering African American composer. Um. And what makes her music so interesting is that she combines classical music and she also combined um African spirituals and blues with that classical with that classical music. If you look up um Florence uh Florence Price, you’ll see that in the last few years a lot of composers have been began to um create her work and and record it and and reimagine it. So it’s just a good thing to delve into. But I’m always interested because I’m just a I just kind of made it my thing this year is that whenever a Black person who’s creative has gone, I want to know about that space too. Even if it’s metal, even if it’s classical, which are my kind of like I don’t care about those things or opera and you know Leontyne Price for opera and Florence Price. No relation, by the way, for um for for classical composition. It’s so interesting. It’s so relaxing. And I think we just need to know that Black people have been reimagining things and using tools to reimagine. Just on close out, to be a little lunar and be a little bit maybe even pessimistic though too, I also see I think I’m also fascinated with Florence Price because I see her as like a musical prophecy, like the extent of um that stuff. So she so she integrates the African and the spiritual and the blues into classical music. But what’s interesting is when I listen to it, it’s still classical music and it kind of makes me think about Audre Lorde and the master tools that yeah you can use all these radical or Black tools and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, it’s still the master’s house. It kind of, it kind of scratched my brain there too. Did you get to listen to her? I’ve been begging you to listen to her.
DeRay Mckesson: I did not listen, but I did read up on her.
Myles E. Johnson: Okay.
DeRay Mckesson: And what I found is a really good um there’s a really good essay called the women who made Florence Price. And it’s a book called um South Side Impresarios: How Race Women Transformed Chicago’s Classical Music Scene. And the long and short of it is that there was a group of elite Black women who poured into women like Florence to create space for them, to create training, to great access, to make sure that they had the resources to compete on the stage with the most resourced white women, which is how you get a Florence Price performing. And there’s another Black woman, actually 20, 20 year old Margaret Bonds, who became a well-known composer in her own right. But she performed as the evening soloist alongside Florence Price, who is famous for being the Black, the first Black woman who had a symphony performed at a major American orchestra, which was the 1933 Chicago Symphony concert. But it was cool to see um the history. There’s a whole book about the history of this group of Black women who created space for Black art in Chicago, and they did it as a strategy. It was not haphazard. And what the what the author does is try and retell that story so it’s not lost so that Florence Price doesn’t become a lightning in a bottle. She becomes a part of a lineage of Black organizing.
Myles E. Johnson: Yeah.
DeRay Mckesson: That was intentional. [music break] Well, that’s it. Thanks so much for tuning in to Pod Save the People this week.
DeRay Mckesson: Don’t forget to follow us at 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’ll see you next week. Pod Save the People is a production of Crooked Media, it’s produced by AJ Moultrié and mixed by Vasilis Fotopoulos. Executive produced by me and special thanks to our weekly contributors Kaya Henderson, De’Ara Balenger and Myle E. Johnson. Our production staff is proudly unionzed with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]
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