An inside look into a white supremacist militia, GOP Congress member goes missing, housing costs force employed people into homelessness, and a new documentary on the late Luther Vandross.

 

News

The Militia and the Mole

Critically acclaimed Luther Vandross documentary now streaming: How to watch

High Housing Costs Force Many Employed People Into Homelessness

Driver who exploded Tesla Cybertruck at Trump hotel in Las Vegas was an active-duty Army Green Beret, source says

Texas Rep. Kay Granger, 81, who missed six months of key House votes — found living at retirement community that specializes in memory care

Republican congresswoman, 81, falls down marble stairs at the Capitol

 

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TRANSCRIPT

 

[AD BREAK]

 

DeRay Mckesson: Hey this is DeRay and welcome to Pod Save the People. And welcome to 2025. We are pumped to be back. And this year, whew has started off with a lot going on. As you know, we talk about all the news that is underreported with regard to race, justice, culture, and equity and make sure that you follow our Instagram at Pod Save the People. Here we go. [music break]

 

De’Ara Balenger: Family. Happy New Year. It’s 2025. We’re back. I am De’Ara Balenger. You can find me on Instagram at @DearaBalenger. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I’m Myles E. Johnson. You can find me on Instagram at @pharaohrapture. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: And this is DeRay @deray on Twitter. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Well, we’re off to [laugh] y’all I’m just going to need these years to settle on down. I feel like it is January 6th, so obviously much to talk about of the four year anniversary of the insurrection of January 6th. Donald Trump will be inaugurated on January 20th. And one of the first things he says that he wants to do is pardon um all the January sixers. I think he calls them hostages now, actually. The folks that are–

 

DeRay Mckesson: No way. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yeah, he does. The folks that are in D.C. jail and that it was a day of love and that he wants to get all these folks out um anywho so that’s a thing. I think something very near and dear and so profoundly tragic was what happened on New Year’s Eve in New Orleans, a place where you all know, I spend a lot of time and have a lot of love for um and and I mean I’m sure everyone has seen sort of the details of this story. But what we’re left with is sort of, the how we got here and why. Um. I believe ten people died, um including a young man who was a football player at Princeton that played with my brother in law. So it really. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Whoa. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: It’s wild. Absolutely wild. So so that happened. And then, you know, a host of other things. But, I mean, those are certainly top of mind for for me this this morning. Um. How are you all doing first of all? Happy we’re over the holidays. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Woop woop, woop woop. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Is it still Kwanzaa? I hope so. Um. January 6th. New Orleans. Oh and then there with New Orleans, they’re also and they’re trying to figure out if they’re connected. But the explosion of the– 

 

Myles E. Johnson: The cybertruck. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: The cybertruck, and it was at like it was at a Trump Hotel. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Trump Casino in Vegas. I don’t know how connected they are, but I was just telling y’all off line and I want to mention it. Um her name is the the Knitting Cult lady and she is fascinating. And she was in a cult in her younger age. And then she went on to go into the United States military, which she called another type of cult. And she makes some fascinating arguments about how, A, some of the institutions that we are used to are already very cult like, but we’re just used to them. So we don’t see them for um the cult that they are, and that also these institutions prime the mind and the spirit to be able to do some of the things we’re seeing being done. So you don’t just um become okay with dying for something or killing for the sake of something like like your nation, like that. Whatever neural pathways that are open to make one be able to conceive of that they don’t just close off, you know, your own, that is something that is always able to be manipulated and to um and to be reasoned, reasoned with, to be able to do whatever you think is right. So it’s it’s interesting to see that a lot of these cases have people in the military. You know, a lot of these people have a military background. Um. And I think, again, I just think that everybody should listen to her and and start asking some tougher questions about the culture that we live in. Because, you know, I hate to say it because it is January 6th anniversary. I’m like, this ain’t even the this is obviously just the beginning. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I think I’m interested, you know, so much of what drives people to vote or not vote or think about politics or not think about politics or it’s certainly what consumes the news is violence in communities. It is like the ever present thing. Somebody it’s like these never ending stories of some sort of violence happening in communities. And I have been so interested about that at the beginning of the year, because the way the media covers, like the violence that happens around the state is just so different. And what strikes me about New Orleans is ex-military, what strikes me about Vegas is ex-military. And, you know, you saw people talking about the amount of crimes that happened on these military bases. They got swept under the rug like I, you know, one one person reported a reporter reported something about Fort Bragg. And it was just like voluminous amounts of just crimes and assaults and those sort of things that he wanted to write about. And he was like, well, nobody would pick it up. And it is not lost on me that in the first attacks of the year, these were people trained by the United States government. And this conversation about the like the violence that the state supports and trains and inculcates, I think is actually really a big deal. So that struck me. Um. And New Orleans is a reminder of the like importance of just being able to run a city. And this is no knock to the mayor. I like the mayor. But when I learned that there were barricades to stop somebody from driving down the street, but they were removed from maintenance and nobody replaced them with anything is just a failure of the bureaucracy. It just is. And that is, you know, I’m I’m sure she didn’t personally say that, but there are a million you know, I think about all the cities we’ve been in where there are cinder block things. You know, there are a lot of ways to block it. But somebody knew that this could happen, which is why they had those metal rods that come up to stop you and the sidewalk um I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the sidewalk things that they put up that like stop people. But there was they were renovating and just didn’t put anything. And you’re like, this is why the government matters. It’s like these small things that people don’t pay attention to that. All it takes is one day for it to be gone. And I don’t know if you saw, but the guy who did the New Orleans stuff, they have all his Ray Ban, he he like had scoped out the scene and and like with his Ray Ban Meta glasses they have all his videos and and uh that is just it was a wild way to start the new year. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, I think hindsight is probably always like 20/20. I think there’s probably so many practical things we can think about that could have made everything better or tried to make things better. But I just think the the matter of the fact is that he was going to do that. And I think the more disturbing thing like he would have walked like he like even when they went to his apartment, all the bomb the the the just the things that he–

 

DeRay Mckesson: IDs. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –had. Yeah. Just everything that he had, he was just going to do that. And I and I think the thing that I’m most um paranoid about and I’m sure everybody else is, is that if there’s one person thinking about doing that, then there’s a lot more people thinking about doing that and the permissions that certain presidents in certain leadership give to the culture to participate in certain things. So having people uh exonerated. I don’t know what to call it. To have people not like have to go to jail for January 6th. As uh as these things are happening, I don’t know. I just see it as like a permission, as a permission slip. I don’t do you all feel that way at all? 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Mm hmm.  I mean I do. Um. I just think this underlying issue of mental health and wellness is just becoming more and more central to to our like every aspect of American life, particularly when it comes to politics. And, you know, I’m I am I have a military family and um my uncle’s been deployed, I think, six times over his career to either Iraq or Afghanistan. Um. I have a cousin who also is currently, you know, getting ready, getting ready to deploy. It it’s pretty wild what we ask of people to do. And then they come home and there’s no support system or structure what whatsoever. And so, Myles, I’m really interested in listening to um that woman’s podcast just sort of tying these pieces together. Um. And I think yes, like I think, Myles, to your point, I think there’s sort of like a loosening of our rule of law in this country. Um. And I think that loosening is most susceptible to people who are the most vulnerable. And I consider those folks to be people who are struggling with their mental health. And then on top of that, it’s just hard as a mofo out there for folks right now. It just is. Things are more expensive than they ever been. It’s we have our our biggest income gap between, you know, the rich and the poor at this point. Where is the middle class? I have no idea. So it’s just sort of all of these. All of these conditions that are just ripening um and making us susceptible to people acting out and the most people, the most hurt of those people acting out. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, that is wild. Oh I wanted to ask, did y’all see Coco? Switching topics. Coco Gauff? 

 

De’Ara Balenger: No. I didn’t even know tennis was happening. What’d she do?

 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, she was killing it. Um. Lord, she played on the well, it’s called the United Cup. It’s the one where the team plays. Um. Like the, it’s like four– 

 

De’Ara Balenger: I did not see that. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Four of them represent the United States, the United Cup. Um. And Coco, you know it’s a team. But Coco is killing it. So if y’all, go look at the highlights. Coco swept the floor. The girl wouldn’t even like shake her hand right. But Coco is a class act. And, you know, Naomi uh had to pull out the last thing she was in because she has, like, some back issues, um which made me sad, but that is a small tennis highlight from our wonderful Coco and Naomi. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Shout out to tennis, shout out to the girls who sweat. [laughter]

 

DeRay Mckesson: Oh goodness. I don’t know was did anything else happened this uh, this go around. I know we’re talking about Luther, which I’m excited about. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: I mean I think I am excited about having two Black women in the Senate so that they got confirmed um over the last couple of weeks, which is exciting. Um.

 

Myles E. Johnson: Mike Johnson too. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Oh God. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Mike Johnson yeah. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Did you all see that sister from the–

 

Myles E. Johnson: He’s about to tear it up.

 

De’Ara Balenger: –US Virgin islands that stood up and said, why weren’t U.S. Virgin Islands, D.C., Puerto Rico–

 

DeRay Mckesson: I did see her. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: –called in for the vote? That was pretty amazing. Did you see that, Myles? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I didn’t see it. I don’t like these rhetorical questions. Was this a Negro asking this question? We know why. We know why. Puerto Rico knows why, we know. We are tired of these rhetorical questions. They are electing Ku Klux Klan members. Why are they not I wonder why they’re not doing this? Because yo Black ass shouldn’t be in the voting ballot, the ballot, they don’t want us. [laughing] 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Because we’re colonies. Which is nuts.

 

Myles E. Johnson: I’m so I’m so disillusioned with these kind of like–

 

De’Ara Balenger: I liked it though. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Retort–

 

De’Ara Balenger: Because I just feel like we have to be there have and also to, you know, to the young folks as we, you know, no, no shade to the young folks. It’s not their fault. But since I know in New York City, they’re not requiring kids to read books, you know. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: It’s good to have these this imagery around so folks can be like, oh,  just let me give gives me something to think about. Um.

 

Myles E. Johnson: But I think we I think we saw I think my big thing with those kind of comments is that we’ve thought about it. We’ve talked about it. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Right. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: There have been years and years of these kind of gotchas. And I wonder why this don’t happen or how come we’re not part of this. I’m like, because they have codified your oppression and they don’t want you to do it. Now now, what are we going to like do about it? Um. I think we’re long past the time where you can like where you can gotcha candidates for being racist or um or xenophobic. That that they’re okay with it. They’re okay with it. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: That’s right. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I wanted to bring up, too, since we’re talking about Congress, I don’t know if you saw Kay Granger. She is a congresswoman who went missing for six months. She did not vote for six months and they found her living in a retirement home. She didn’t run for reelection. So that is good. But the six months prior, she’s a Texas Republican. Um. She just was she was missing. And, you know, she was still tweeting. Her team was tweeting stuff on her behalf. She was gone. And the news is reporting that she is in a memory care unit at the retirement home. And then um Virginia Fox, another Republican um fell down the stairs and she’s from North Carolina and she is slipped, fell down the stairs and 81 years old. I just bring this up because we will have to have a serious conversation about the age of the people running the country. It is really it’s a thing. Even I think about Gerry uh Connolly, who beat AOC and he just did the interview that was like, I never got to chair a committee. You’re like, well, that’s not I don’t know if that’s the best argument for you to be the chair of the committee over AOC is that you just never got to do it in all your years in Congress. Like that feels sort of wild. But I wanted to bring them here to talk about. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: I’m really I’ve been thinking about this and it’s like, how do I want to enter 2025? Do I want to mind my business and keep my peace or I do I just really say what I feel. Even though I know there’ll be repercussions to that. And I think where I’m leaning since yesterday, I was in the gym and O’Jays Backstabbers came on. Is that maybe– 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I that went so left, I was like, what? O’Jay’s who? How do you, you know everybody De’Ara? 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Smile in your face. [laughter]

 

DeRay Mckesson: Backstabbers. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: All the time they’re trying to take your place. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yes. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: The–

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Maybe we need maybe I need to let people know. And with that I just I really. These folks. DeRay just there are two articles. So there’s one of this woman that’s missing, and then there’s another one of Congresswoman Virginia Fox who fell down the stairs in Congress. She’s okay. And then Nancy Pelosi and O’Connell [correction McConnnell] also took a tumble in December down these stairs. You know, I’m obviously by no means am I ageist. I also conceptually don’t understand how you. I just I can’t wait to retire. If I could somebody said today’s your last day working. I would say, thank God, now I can do more with campaign zero. I just don’t know why these folks keep keep on keeping on and po– and I and obviously it’s like this this posture around power and especially for Nancy Pelosi who what good she’s done us in the last couple of years I don’t know. So I think part of it is yes, there is a con– there I have a concern about their age. I also have a concern of like, when’s the last time any of these people have pumped their own gas or gone to a grocery store or cooked their own meals or, I don’t know, do anything that most of us have to do every single day. So I think it’s it’s the age, but it’s also how long you’ve been in Congress and how long you’ve been disconnected from actually how people are living. Because what you get when you’re in Congress. And also keep in mind, these folks can get these they where else are they going to work now at this at this point? Well, I guess they if they’re not in Congress, they’re lobbying. I’m over it. And I don’t know what I can do to be more helpful in terms of getting more people into Congress. Maybe that’s the first step. But these folks have got to go. I’m sorry. This is it. All of them, Republicans, Democrats in between. If you’ve fallen down the stairs every week, either take a elevator or stay at home. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, it seems it seems right on um the money for Republicans. You know, it just doesn’t really seem like it matters who’s in, you know, who’s a part of the Republican team. So I kind of the the the age argument kind of falls flat for me when it comes to Republicans, because the whole party is built off of like these antiquated thought forms and ideas. So it doesn’t matter if it’s somebody who’s 21 or 81 it um saying them. That uh so in that way, it’s who cares. It’s more disappointing when it comes to for for me when it comes to the Democratic Party, because there is such new ideas and new energy available and there is just this weird cult like allegiance to the pageantry and and the um and the ways that things need to happen. And I don’t it’s like these like old weird vestiges from like like the British or something. Like I’m like, I’m like. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Who cares? I’m like, who cares you didn’t get to do that before. I’m like, this is not kindergarten. And like, you were line leader yesterday, so you get to be line leader or you can’t, so you can’t be line leader um today. Like, it’s not like that. This is um. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: American politics and it should be new. So that’s disappointing. But I know, but you know, you know, hopefully I don’t wish harm on anybody, but, you know, let gravity be our justice. And if you got to take a tumble to leave, take a tumble. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Let gravity be our justice, Myles. That’s crazy.

 

De’Ara Balenger: It’s not. And it’s also just like Myles, to your point. Sheila Jackson Lee, may she rest in peace, was a long serving member of Congress. Great deal respect for her, but her daughter is now serving in her seat. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, it’s just. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: It’s just. It’s just it’s like. It is almost like a monarchy in some respects where–

 

Myles E. Johnson: Not almost. Not. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: It–

 

Myles E. Johnson: It’s not almost like if you look at how the Clintons, the Bushes, just just how it is. It’s it’s not it’s it’s it’s almost as though if we aren’t relentless about being critical around. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Turning into a monarchy, that we will just kind of turn into one. You know. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Right. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: It’s almost as though America is oriented towards fascism and you have to do some actual steering the other way, because if you just let the ship do what it wants to do, it’s gonna it’s going to find a white sheet and it’s going to tell you that, you know, the Aryan race is superior. That’s just that’s that’s just the culture we’re on. And there was something that you said earlier, De’Ara, that reminded me of this and like kind of the tension I always feel specifically with um just with who I’m friends with, what I see and I always think about in this weird Aquarius moon way, how we are always having brunch on top of the native graveyard. We’re always we’re always trying to do something celebratory or do something on top of the violence. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yup. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And it seems as though now we’re in a place where the violence can’t be. You can’t there’s not a tablecloth long or thick enough. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: That’s right. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: To put over the violence that we’re trying to celebrate on top of. And you can’t you can’t you can’t suppress the stench of what we are operating and living on top of. Um. And to me, politics is just one of those one of those symptoms. Um. I guess we’ll go into brighter and happier news, which is my news which is to let you know that homelessness is on the rise and on the expansion. That’s right. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Ugh. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Back like cook crack is homelessness. 

 

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

 

[AD BREAK]

 

Myles E. Johnson: So in all seriousness, I wanted to bring this story and I seen this story in different iterations. Um. I wanted to bring this up because what I thought was the the most, most, most interesting because people were talking about the economy late last year was that so many people inside of um inside of certain bubbles were talking about how great the economy was. And this article um and the article that I found around the rising um the rising of homelessness shows that a lot of these people who are experiencing homelessness now are fully employed people. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Right. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: There are people who have multiple jobs, there are people who have um cars, there are people who are um going to their good jobs and their coworkers have don’t know. And there are people who are at these jobs with other coworkers sharing tips um about how to survive um and be homeless. I went on a rabbit hole on YouTube because I am at odds with my mental health and there are loads of videos with people giving other people advice on how to be homeless and they’re not people who, as whatever your stereotype of what homeless what homelessness looks like, these are average everyday working people um who look like me with, with, with, with button ups and sweaters over their um button ups looking preppy like me. If you can’t see me, it’s a shame. Um. But that’s the people who are telling other people how to be homeless and how telling people how to survive these things and that it feels different. And it also feels embarrassing to um uh as not embarrassing to me personally. But it should be embarrassing to us as Americans that there are people who are doing this. It’s it’s it’s laughable of us trying to kind of announce our national or global authority in leadership, and we have people who are living third world realities in our very um in our very country. You know, I feel like we um we forget about that. The other component of this is that the median um rent price is just rising. So you have people who are in New York and I and I, I don’t know if I said this before in this podcast, but I’ll I’ll kind of repeat it shortly again. You have people who are maybe living somewhere in the Bronx, right? And you got and you lived in the Bronx and you were in the Bronx when your apartment is just for an even number, $1,000. And now ten years later, or however many years later it’s incrementally gotten up to $2,500, which you cannot afford because you are the price of what your income has not shifted like that. Now you’re kind of gridlocked from moving, right? Because in order to move, that’s going to cost you $10,000 that you do not have. You absolutely do not have. But in order to stay it’s costing you everything. And it kind of keeps people in these prisons where they have to wait for evictions. They have to wait for um some some kind of like financial calamity to happen to get freedom. And once that freedom from that particular housing happens, it’s not like we have a um comprehensive place for you to fall. You fall on the streets and more and more people are falling on the streets. I wanted to bring this um to the podcast because just for like for obvious reasons, but also because of this Martin Luther King quote, I found I was reading a lot of Martin Luther King towards the last year of Barack Obama’s presidency, and I was asked to write about um Barack Obama and hope and all this other um bullshit that he was saying. And I felt that that language and that kind of like millennial, you know, that kind of like millennial core 2000s language was so dead and empty. And I never understood why. And it was, in King’s words, who, if I’m being honest with you, I found King’s words dead and empty. The ones that were in commercials more I was reading him the more I was kind of illuminated where I was like, oh I don’t know the actual Dr. King. I don’t really know his words, but I wanted to share these quotes. Um. This is from the drum major instinct on his sermon called The Drum Major Instinct on February 4th, 1968. He stated, if America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God’s children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell. King also said, and um and Beyond Vietnam, a Time to Break Silence, which was delivered on April 4th, 1967, a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. So these things were said in 1967 and 1968, like I said in that essay and like I’ll say now, I think the real project is to contend with that we’re dealing when we’re talking about America, we’re dealing inside of a dead thing. We’re dealing inside of a culture of death. We’re dealing inside of a culture that is um that is rotting. And these are the symptoms of living in something that’s rotting. But it feels as though certain people are still trying to make gardens on a corpse because they’re in denial. And there’s other people who are like, no, we need to totally let this thing go because I can’t breathe. I can’t do this. I can’t live inside of this. And I just I just that is just speaking of what we’re facing in 2025 and the reality that we’re facing and it being January 6th um anniversary. It just feels like that is the truth to recognize is that, you know, The Walking Dead is a fiction. But there’s something to the idea that the culture of America that we’re walking inside of is a zombie culture is a culture that is um that is feeding off of the mistakes of America’s ancestors. I think that is what we’re looking at. When I look at everything that’s happening from the terrorist attacks to the home, the homeless, um uh the homeless population raising and the exploitation, everything that’s going on with the oligarchies and all this other stuff that is come that is the culture that we are that that, that we’re karmically drinking up right now. And I want us to be real about that and not pretending that it’s lemongrass soup when it’s when it’s not. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yo Myles. I think all that is right. And over the holidays, I went to Montgomery where my aunt and uncle live. My uncle was in the Air Force. The last place he was stationed was at Maxwell Air Force Base. You know, big part of my family is from Minnesota. So when it was like Auntie Auntie Rita and Uncle Troy are moving to Alabama. We all were like, what? Alabama? But anyway, 16, 17 years later, we’re now we go there all the time, spend lots of time there. Um. And I did a long run downtown and I was like, I’m just going to do the sites, all the historic sites in Montgomery. Um. And I started with where Rosa Parks did not get off the bus and then went to the Baptist church, Dexter Baptist Church, where Dr. King was a pastor at one point and where they organized a lot of um a lot of the um civil rights activity down there. Um. But the thing that I was sort of most impacted by, right. It’s because there’s been so much work, particularly by Bryan Stevenson and E.J. I, to demarcate the truth of American history. Right. So there’s EJI, if y’all if y’all have not been to Montgomery, you have to go because now the legacy museum is an expanded space. It’s even bigger and more compelling and more droppy to your knees. And then there’s also the Freedom Sculpture Park, which is a sculpture park that is incredible. So Simone Lee, Hank Willis Thomas, Wangechi Mutu, like all these folks have massive scaled sculptures in this park. And then there are also um these replicas of cabins where enslaved people would have lived their lives. But it’s all very compelling, right? So you have all of this, all of this and there’s and there’s also a great deal of sort of reverence and storytelling around Indigenous people who were first there in Alabama, obviously, and then forced to leave. Trail of Tears, all these things. And then that’s when it started, sort of that’s when the cotton production started. And then Montgomery became sort of the, the hub of, of the selling of, of African bodies, like the hub, like a train was brought in. Boom they’re right there. And all of this is there in Montgomery, right? Like it is all there for you to see and feel. But the overlay of that is the placards that exist that the white folks done put around town. Right. So it tells this sort of mystical um fairy tale version of what happened in Montgomery, Alabama, from the founding of the first ci– from the founding of the city to it become to to cotton production starting to um to these early settlers. Um. I forget what the exact language was about how they got all the acres from Indigenous people, but it was, you know, but it’s very like this transition happened. And Myles, I think to your point, like there is this very live tension happening in America where it is, there’s the truth of what happens, and then there’s what others want us to believe is happening. And that’s what we see around banning books and CRT and all these other things. And it’s a real tension. I and until I say all of that to sort of lay the groundwork, I was on a plane going somewhere and I was I sat next to the loveliest white man, and he was with his daughter. And we got we talked the whole time. I think I was going to Houston. We talked the whole I was going to Houston because I also saw Hot Boys holiday over the break. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: And that was spectacular. Okay.

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: So um but he his perspective was because somehow we start talking about schools and where his daughter was at school where I had gone to school in D.C. and how he said. He said and so in a way, and in a very earnest way, if we keep teaching this history, we’re going to continue to be divided. And I was like, wow. Like this lovely, regular, schmegular white man on the plane I’m with like, actually, actually believes that a reckoning wouldn’t make us better. It would it would drive us further apart. But, Myles, to your point, I think I think that and I think that’s very much– 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Oh he was saying. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: The sentiment. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. Wait let me. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Let me let me follow. Let me follow. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Because I’m sure if I’m confused, maybe the listeners might be confused. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Everybody is, everbody is. Yeah.

 

Myles E. Johnson: But just to be clear, this is a lovely white man, Mr. Rogers. You would never expect anything. He would have voted for Obama three times if he could. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Oh he did. He did.

 

Myles E. Johnson: So so yeah so he would have voted for Obama three times if he could. But when it comes to the teaching of American history, Black American history or um critical or critical race theory is what some people want to whatever that means, that that um he doesn’t believe in the teaching of that. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Yeah, but that that is white people. That’s whiteness. Whiteness is this is this surrendering into this great big nothing. That’s what Irish people have done. That is what Italian people have done. That is what um many Jewish people have done. It is about surrendering whatever makes you identifiable and trading it in for a house, a mid-century house, 2.5 kids and a dog and a fence. That’s what whiteness is. And Black people who want to do that get get uh privileged– 

 

De’Ara Balenger: They do it too. Yup.

 

Myles E. Johnson: And Black people and Black people who fight against that get get demonized. That is what it’s all about. And you can’t have that and still remember history. You can’t have that and still remember what’s happening. So there is this kind of um desire for a cultural dementia from white people and whiteness, because that means you don’t have to talk about what you did 60 years ago because we don’t even remember it. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Remember yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: But my mom does because she was born in 1960. You know, my grandmother does because she was born in 19 you know 40 like that. That is just the the fact of it. But it makes sense that somebody can still be an extremely pleasant, great person to interact with and talk to. But they’ve been taught to be white and we’ve all been taught to be white. It’s a miracle that there’s anybody on this in this nation who thinks otherwise because we’re all taught to leave it in the past. Don’t talk about it. Oh my goodness. You know, mm mm stop bringing up old stuff. We have to move beyond be together. And it’s like, no, we can’t move beyond because the past is literally sitting down and eating breakfast with us and blowing up cyber trucks in front of stuff. The past is here and talking and shooting. [laugh]

 

DeRay Mckesson: Did you not see–

 

De’Ara Balenger: Word up. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: You know, I wasn’t going to bring this up and was going to potentially propose this for next week. But David Frum in the um in the Atlantic, he wrote an article that just came out yesterday on the fifth that is called Against Guilty History. And he makes this argument that you were saying De’Ara that like one of the lines literally is like no country has a um like a clean past. And this idea of rehashing it over and over um just isn’t very helpful. That’s sort of like what his thing is so he said, I’ll read, he said settler, he’s he’s like settler colonial is not intended purely or even primarily as a description of a particular path of social development, is it it is intended as a condemnation of the new societies that have been created by that path of development. And there’s something very peculiar about this critique of Canada and elsewhere in the new world. Moral critique is always based on an implied moral alternative. He goes on, but I was like, oh this is in the Atlantic. This idea that like, settler colonial is like a, is saying that is a bad thing or having some moral sense that, like we probably shouldn’t have colonized all these countries. And later he makes the argument that like at some point somebody was going to discover the new world, like it was inevitable. And you’re like, well, that is really, really interesting.

 

De’Ara Balenger: But if you’re doing all of that analysis to avoid the truth of the matter, it’s just I think, Myles, to your point, like that that is the whiteness whiting because it’s just like just come to terms with it. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That’s that’s the big thing about. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: And and move and then we can move on from it. But just the the con– the aggressiveness to which we’re seeing people push back on the truth of the matter. And luckily we have someone like a Bryan Stevenson who actually has been doing the the deep work of understanding how many Black people were lynched, how many Black people actually arrived here? Also, there’s so many stories at EJI, just of like stories from enslaved people and people once they were free trying to find their families. Like we don’t even have an accounting of what has happened to our people. So it’s not only do you not want us to to to to understand what we know, you don’t want us to continue to try to understand what more can be told about the possibility of this place, which is what I thought this place was all about. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And that’s what happens with this whole thing. It’s a whole it’s a whole big flattening of the past. You know, where as like the the terrorism that happened during um uh in the Deep South in the in the in the 1900s [laugh] is separate from the it’s connected to but separate from chattel slavery, which is separate– 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yup. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –from the discovering of this. But if it’s everything’s just the past. So anything that has happened prior to the year 2001 didn’t happen then it just looks like all of this is just is is just one big glob. And that is what happens, too. And then the other thing that that that story or De’Ray’s summarizing of this story made me think of too, is how sometimes because we’re on the Internet and we are passing around so many texts and language, we think that the language is the primary point where the language is the reason why we are uh the point of reminding somebody that we’re in a settler colonial state, the point of um reminding people about racism is because we are trying to uh uh let the public cultural know that something happened wrong and there’s debts owed, though those those things are not just being talked about just because they’re fun to discuss. It’s because we’re trying to get reparations it’s because we’re trying to get Indigenous people to um have uh have adequate housing. We’re trying to connect the wrongs that we’re experiencing today to uh historical wrongs. So that’s why we’re doing it. We’re not just doing it just to because we love a love a label. [laugh] We’re trying we’re trying to show people um right and wrong and get us to do the right thing in the present to correct our past wrongs so we can manifest a better future. Look, I’m like, I’m thinking, is, does that do people not know that or are people–

 

De’Ara Balenger: They don’t. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –not knowing that on purpose? 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Well I also feel like people–

 

Myles E. Johnson: Because once you get to the Atlantic, I’m I’m I’m–

 

De’Ara Balenger: They don’t. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –prone to think that you don’t know it on purpose.

 

De’Ara Balenger: They don’t care. And another thing. We got to go to Montgomery. Another thing that EJI has set up there is you can click on a state. Go search last names and find your relatives. You know white people, how you all have Ellis Island? We don’t have that. We don’t have it. Now we sort of do. And just like understanding what that does for your identity and underst– like it, it is. It’s miraculous. And so I think, Myles yes, it’s to it’s to tracing and and and and being able to point to this this is happening because of this but also from a very like spiritual emotional self preservation perspective. It is for Black folks to have a place to go to, to say, oh I am standing here because so-and-so. But anyway. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I want to read the um De’Ara you brought this in. I do have something to say about homelessness, but since you brought up Montgomery, I’m like, here we are. Um. I’m going to read the way that David ends it because it directly ties to what both of you have been saying. He ends it by saying there are passages of guilt to remember and [?]. History should always be told in full, but we don’t correct past wrongs committed in a liberal democracy by defaming the ideal itself. Like Americans, Australians, and New Zealanders, modern day Canadians live in a good and just society. They owe honor to those who built and secured that good and just society for posterity. To the soldiers and sailors and airmen who fought the wars that kept those societies free to the navies and laborers who built their roads, laid their rail, dug their sea ways to the authors of their laws, and the framers of their constitutions, and yes, to the settlers and colonialists and colonists who set everything in motion. In the Atlantic. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Also, who you think built the roads over there, David? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That’s that’s–

 

De’Ara Balenger: What are you talking about? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That’s why it’s so hard to even–

 

De’Ara Balenger: Shut up. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –engage with this as an actual because what this sounds like is somebody who–

 

De’Ara Balenger: No. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –has who has white supremacist ideals, who has these racist ideals, who is who has got sophisticated enough to wrap this kind of this imperialist white supremacist reframing of America and and did such a good job that it landed into the Atlantic. So when you’re able to and that goes both ways you know when it’s when you read certain things by Bell Hooks, you’re like, oh Bell Hooks really went there. But she knew how to wrap her language. Now, of course, that’s something that I find righteous and good, but the same thing can happen when it comes to white supremacy and evil. Like you can learn how to wrap your language around saying we don’t. We want everybody in America who’s an American to believe in this story. And and just like you could look at your grandpa and still have Thanksgiving dinner with him, we want you to look at George Washington like that or Christopher Columbus like that. That is what the request is. And most people are saying, no, I don’t want to do that. And it’s obvious that even the comparisons, it doesn’t even make any sense. There’s obviously something wrong with America. Look at, things are blowing up. Things are getting shot. People are homeless. Like it’s obvious that the culture in America is not good. So and we need to excavate the guilty and dark stuff because if we were living in this kind of utopia and the only thing we had to care about is frickin kangaroos and big spiders, we we will be different, you know? And not to mention there’s a whole Indigenous population of Australia who is silenced. That’s how come you don’t hear any critical things about Australia because the whole Indigenous population is, is, is–

 

De’Ara Balenger: Word up. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –is silenced and what we’re seeing. That’s what Israel does too, right? Like we we are seeing of we are seeing a we’re seeing a pattern. And America is unique in the fact that the people who are the most exploited are not the most silenced or we have figured out ways to not make ourselves the most silenced through culture, through through, you know, we know–

 

De’Ara Balenger: That’s right. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –Black American history. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: That’s right. I just was going to say that. I think part of it also, Myles, is that he also has to defend a meritocracy where his mediocre perspectives and writing can actually give him his livelihood. Right. So I think that’s the other thing that they’re holding on to is that like, they want this seemingly meritocracy where they’re, you know, we do all the things and we work with where they want that that system to continue. Because otherwise you have peoples who have been living through genocide, chattel slavery, Jim Crow, etc., who are who have somehow figured out how to thrive and be better than you. That’s what you’re really scared of. We’re coming. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: So um to Montgomery. You know, I went, too, during the protests. Um. During the protest De’Ara. And one of the most interesting facts I think about Montgomery. Myles, have you been? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: To Montgomery, Alabama? 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. Oh yeah. I’m from Georgia.

 

De’Ara Balenger: So um you know that Dexter Dexter Church is very close to the capital, and they say that that is the only reason why it was not blown up. Is that to blow it up would necessarily mean that you probably blow up some of the Capitol and the Supreme Court, which is also on that street. So they they talk about that as like sort of the unintended insurance policy with that church that like it kept it safe during the craziest parts of the civil rights movement just because it happened to be so close. And I asked them why was it built there? And they were like, because back then, Black and white people couldn’t go to same church. So diagonally across the street from Dexter is a white church. So that’s where the white people would go. They would drop their slaves off or like and then they would go to church right there. So. And then De’Ara did you go to the uh White House of the Confederacy, which is behind the Capitol?

 

De’Ara Balenger: I refused. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Went in, the centerpieces uh are cotton. That was crazy. And then there’s a there’s a picture book about Jefferson Davis’s family, and there’s a little Black boy in it. And I’m like, I’m asking the tour guide like, who’s this little Black boy in the family? It’s like a it’s a picture book about the family. And they’re like, oh that’s their adopted son. They adopted a Black child. I’m like, y’all get me out of here. This lying they did not adopt a–

 

Myles E. Johnson: Burn it down! 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Y’all are lying in here. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: To the ground. Okay?

 

DeRay Mckesson: It was a mess. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: And and and for–

 

Myles E. Johnson: Let’s not say nothing like that. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: And for years and for just saying because I’ve been going to Montgomery for a while now, when you would come off that highway, that’d be the only sign you see. White House of the Confederacy. Keep in mind. I mean, like the historical. The civil rights trail that goes through Montgomery, Alabama. There are endless sites. And you know what else is there, too? And we actually reported on it and I saw it in person was the Mothers of Gynecology. That’s there. That is incredible. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I did not know that. [?]. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Oh I didn’t see that. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Incredible. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I need to go. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Sculptures. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I need to go see that. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Oh my God. But that’s but it’s like. It’s we got to go. We got I just. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Can we have like Pod Save the field trips because people people want–

 

DeRay Mckesson: We should do that. I love it.

 

Myles E. Johnson: People people want people want third spaces. People want places uh that are not Starbucks to meet up and to talk and to do things and I think people are thirsting but want to be together. But the world is scary and I think we should do Pod Save the field trip for for–

 

De’Ara Balenger: I love it. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: For learners of all ages and sizes. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I love it. Um. Here’s what I have to say about homelessness. So um recently there’s a blog done by societal analysis uh and the blogger is a um is a researcher there. And he talked about a luncheon he went to at the Columbus Metropolitan Council, a club, and asked how much would it cost to solve homelessness. As you know, they’re about a little bit over 600,000 people who are homeless. Um. And the median rent in January 2024 was about a little bit under $1,400. That means that it would cost it’s about 650,000 people are experiencing homelessness. Sorry, um it would cost around $11 billion to house all those people. Just as a reminder, we have spent over $60 billion in the Ukraine. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: It’s actually cheap. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I say this because for the cost of incarceration and services and all these things we do, that is not providing homelessness. It would be far cheaper if people actually cared about the fiscal policy. But I say this also because the fiscal narrative and the whatever is actually like I think the lie that people say in public. I think truly underneath it, people think that people deserve to be homeless, that like, you made a mistake, you didn’t work hard enough, you didn’t like something, you did something wrong, and therefore you’re homeless so to help you would be giving you an unfair advantage. A help out like a handout. Like I actually think that that is what’s underlying the way people treat the issue of homelessness. So that’s like I wanted to say that here, interested in what you have to say. And the second is going back to the bureaucracy problem of homelessness. So in New York City, for instance, um they the city tracked a thousand people who applied and got approved for homeless for um for spots. And tracked, did they actually make it into the spot? Of the 955 people, only 18% ever made it into the spot. There are 4000 homeless units or units in shelters in New York City that are sitting vacant today because the city has not figured out the matching. Some people died before they got to the housing. Some people never got a call back. They’re homeless, so the city hasn’t figured out how to find them again after they approved them because they might not have an address. But there is a real bureaucratic issue happening because even in New York City, which famously has a right to shelter law, if you’re homeless, you have the right to a room. The city can’t actually match the people. And that is just a huge indictment of the the like, city infrastructure that’s supposed to help people. And, you know. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: But we. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Eric Adams is a nightmare. So there’s that. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And we see all these damn drones. So if you wanted to go ahead and find somebody, we know that you could. It’s just not a it’s just not a um it’s just really it is not a priority. And what you were saying earlier about homeless people, um just like around that like people not wanting people to be um uh to find to find housing. Like I do think that’s right. And I know I was supposed to wait until next week to maybe talk about this and I was going, but I did want to maybe interject this really quickly about the reason why I wanted to um alert people to Marianne Williamson is because she’s talked in multiple platforms so earnestly and um and and and just and just really, really well, like there’s just no other way to put it. She talked really, really well about these type of things. That was the first politician to say something that I’ve said before on this podcast as far as you shouldn’t have to be, she said verbatim well not definitely verbatim, but very, very close. You shouldn’t have to be talented or work hard or any of these things in order to live, um live well or to um or to have a house or to have food in America like that is interes– that to me was just um uh baffling to hear somebody say, and I saw the comments and the reactions to people her saying that she talked about how there’s blood plasma centers in the poorest of countries um coming up. And that’s because people can’t pay their rent. So they’re selling their blood regularly in order to pay rent. Like all these different things that I just had not heard politicians say. And I’m like, yeah, that’s what we’re facing. We’re not facing stocks. We’re not facing, you know, uh I need $25,000, $25,000 down for a house. You know, that’s a privilege problem. We’re really facing I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m I’m selling my blood for both groceries and to pay my rent and these yeah. Yeah. I just. I just wanted to interject. Interject that into the air, because I think that whoever is able to grabst onto those narratives, whether you’re Republican or Democrat, is going to really have a lot of power because that’s what people are um that’s what people are really dealing with. 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

DeRay Mckesson: And I know we’ve talked about this for a long time, so I I will move on because I know my news is next. But um but, Myles, to that point, it is really interesting that the right just lies about so much of what happens with the subsidies and helping people out. And that becomes a narrative. So you remember the child tax credit. I don’t know if you remember, but one of the biggest reasons the Republicans have had against the child tax credit is that they were like uh people, parents used the child tax credit to buy drugs in 2021. That’s why they have like let it lapse and da da da. And uh there is a new study out that shows that people did not use the child tax credit. It just came out on January 3rd that people did not use the child tax credit to buy drugs. And I say this because, A, just think about all the smart people that had to stop whatever they were doing to prove this wrong, which is just ridiculous. And they use these racist narratives to stop substantive change happen for people. And it just becomes a nightmare. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That makes so much that makes so much sense. Think oh, sorry. I thought I was responding to you. Sorry. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: No, go ahead. You can. And then I’m going to talk about the militia. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. No, that that makes so much sense to me. Anytime I hear stories like that. I also think about the data from those elections, though, and I think about how many people who would vote Democrat were just who just who just didn’t vote. You know, so I do know that the Republicans lie and the people who are already oriented to uh believe their lies are going to are going to believe it. But I’m I’m very concerned about so many people just totally sitting them out. And this is where Black people are. Most Black people aren’t voting for Trump. Most Black people are just not voting. So when that is the circumstance, I’m thinking, well, we don’t need to convince those people that that’s not happening with the child tax credit because Republicans are lying. We need to be able to convince people who are not voting that your you going out and vote actually matters. And it’s hard to convince when you’re like, yeah it it you you’re you’re realilty hasn’t changed if you’re a Black person living in the rural south or if you’re a Black person who is living in poverty and like living in poverty in certain places, your reality hasn’t changed from Trump to Biden to Obama. So what’s the so what’s the difference? And and to me, that’s where at least my focus and my ideas like tend to go towards. Because the other thing feels so helpless because I feel like those people are believing things for reasons are not just data. Just because they have a underlying um desire to believe in uh to believe that Black people are doing bad things with free government money. That is that’s something that they want to believe. So, you yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Um. So with my news the it’s a very comprehensive article by ProPublica about a guy who infiltrated a militia at the highest levels and then got out and gave all the information to this reporter at the at ProPublica. Uh. There’s a lot to read there, so I will do the highlights for me. One is and he was in Utah. One is that he’s like a lot of people involved, every walk of life, doctors, police officers, you name it. And the common denominator is that they were heavily armed. That is one thing. The second is that uh I didn’t. What I did not realize is that he was like the membership of these militia organizations is much more porous than people think. So he’s like they sort of go back and forth through them. Like square dancing is the analogy that they say in the article. So like AP three is where the guy starts. He leaves there and goes to the Oath Keepers and there’s like a you know, the common thing they have is like the don’t believe in the government and sort of this, this veil of white supremacy and stuff like that. But the allegiance is not actually to one group. It’s to the idea and that the people sort of switch groups often, which I thought was interesting and that wasn’t what I had anticipated. The role of the police in this is something I did anticipate. And one of the leaders that he works under and eventually even lives with, which I thought was crazy, was a former Las Vegas metro police officer who had worked for over 23 years in the force and eventually was assigned to the black squad in Las Vegas, Metro PD. You might wonder what is the black squad? The black squad, according to court documents, was tasked with investigating crimes where the suspect was Black. The Las Vegas Metro Police Department has now said they no longer divide the squads by race. I just had to say that out loud. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: What? 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Because when I read it, I thought that was nucking futs. He eventually is um he his career goes on a downturn because on Facebook he writes that he would, quote, “welcome a race war.” And he said, “bring it,” quote, “I’m about as fed up as a man, American, Christian, white, heterosexual can get.” Um. He then goes to say that, you know, he just had an ax to grind and he was having a bad day. In 2016, he turned in his badge and before it broke. So I thought that was interesting with that guy. Um. The last things I’ll say is he turned over a ton of stuff like signal chats and all this other stuff. There was a sheriff who was involved that he gets all these members to brag about the law enforcement officers that they have connections to, which is why he goes to reporter and not law enforcement, because he’s like law enforcement is in bed with all of these people, which I thought was interesting. And then at one point, he tells a reporter that they are there are about 40,000 former members. That they have email addresses and contact information for. And at the very end, it ends with this really sophisticated doxing system they have for reporters who were critical of either issues they like or critical of them. So like, you know, they have this one reporter’s whole family, they have information about them, all this stuff. And it’s just like a routine part of it. And I thought that was really interesting. My personal connection to this is that I will never forget in Ferguson, the Oath Keepers came. We had never heard of the Oath Keepers. They just sort of showed up. There are white men with guns and they sort of like suggested that they were on our side. But I remember meeting them and being like, mm something ain’t right with these people. Like this is sort of weird. And it was actually the first real fight we had with other protesters because I remember people being like because I was critical of them on Twitter. Like, I’m not going to a meeting with them da da. And other protesters were like, DeRay, these people are fine. You’re just being da da da da da. And I remember being like, mm I’m not going to rock with oath keepers. And then later we realize these are like white supremacists. And people are like yeah those people were crazy. I’m like, mmm yeah, with these white men with guns just popped up in the middle of Ferguson. That feels not real. They are trying to like, wreak havoc. And they do talk about even in the article I it was interesting to see the way the police violence stuff came up. Is that one of the turning points for him was Tyre Nichols being killed by the Memphis PD and the protests that that ensued even in Utah. And like how the white supremacists were planning to infiltrate those protests across the country. Anyway, I brought it here because I was interested in your takes on this expose the vast network of the militia. And the last thing I’ll say about language is that if this was Black people, this would be called a gang. Just the language would be different. We wouldn’t say they’re heavily armed, Black. There would be like gangs across America are planning and da da da da da it wouldn’t get militia, which sounds just like a little more neutral and less overtly violent to a lot of people. These would be called gangs. And I was interested in how the language of white people organizing violence is just different. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That’s interesting that militia hits you as less violent because it it in my ear, it actually hits me as more violent [laugh], I think because of the hip hop culture and because of just like the overuse of gangs. Gangs have kind of like not necessarily gangs and thugs have kind of like lessened their. I don’t know. They just feel like empty words to me a little bit sometimes. And militia actually sounds a little scarier to me. And I remember that language being used a lot and um when it comes to like the Middle East, like things happening in the Middle East and stuff like that. So that’s that’s that’s interesting um too. [cough] The thing that made me the most concerned or not even concerned, but the thing that uh just struck me is the synergy. It’s always the synergy, it’s the fact that this type of radicalism, it has such a synergy with institutions that we’re supposed to be able to trust. And you have to look at why is you know what why do police officers and these militias, why do they go hand in hand? Why do certain occupations, certain um uh races certain um certain uh places of empowerment and disempowerment go so hand in hand uh goes hand in hand with this um type type of uh domestic terrorism planning? That to me, that’s what this like that’s what this um detailed and yeah. You know, it’s a it’s a boring old story, but we we know how come police officers exist. We know that they were um people who looked over slaves. And I think that we’re still living in the aftermath of that. And I think that that’s how come so much of the white supremacist terrorism and the uh and these other institutions go so hand in hand. What I am scared about too, um which I have always been scared about is what is going to happen when these militias and stuff like that get a hold of and understand A.I. and Dark Web and all this other stuff even deeper. So not just about how to make things, but problem solve certain things like I’m just I’m just yg I think we should have a healthy awareness around that as, as, as our technologies evolve, so do does evil’s. So that’s what this made me think of too, because if they’re already planning to infiltrate and do these different things, then of course they’re going to integrate different technologies to help them do those things. And that’s how come um I think [?] one of y’all Black folks who I’m talking about, DeRay, De’Ara, anybody who’s listening to me, I don’t think none of y’all should be telling where your address is. I think that um healthy paranoia is good right now because I, I think that we’re in a in a we’ve been in a weird time, but now we’re in an even weirder time. I’m trying to say it without being alarmist, but y’all get what I’m putting down.

 

De’Ara Balenger: I it’s interesting what’s happening to my body in this conversation, just as someone who has studied and supported movements in my lifetime. And I think, you know. Learning about the aggressive and violent dismantling, you know, sort of the try at dismantling of the Black Panther Party and how there are folks who are still in jail. Um. Kamau Sadiki, Joseph Bowen, Assata Shakur still on the FBI most wanted list. So is George Wright. And also like the children of these people, right? So like the children of revolution, Black revolutionaries who have had to deal with, you know, the violence against their parents, the murder against their parents, the aggressive use of the United States legal system to to crush their family members. Um. And then you look at how these militias are treated and how it’s just seen as folks trying to protect their Second Amendment rights um and how most of them are actually former law enforcement or former military. I think it speaks to racism in this country in terms of how that impacts how folks are portrayed, media perception, etc., etc.. Um. So this is something that really makes me angry, I guess, is how I’m feeling right now. Because it is to to to to really understand and to to hold the continued assault against our people. It’s just some it’s a little overwhelming sometimes I think.

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, yeah. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: It really it really is. And it’s like it’s people’s lives, you know? It’s people’s lives in terms of like what systemic oppression and the legacy of chattel slavery have meant in this country. But it’s also just like the people who are fighting and protesting and laying their bodies on the line and all of it like the happenings to them. Versus the happenings to these other fools, these January 6th rioters who Donald Trump, I’m sure, will absolve um when when when he gets into office. It just obviously it makes all the sense in in the in the the sort of enigma that is the United States. But from a heart place, it’s a hard thing to to make sense of. 

 

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

 

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Myles E. Johnson: You’re next De’Ara.

 

De’Ara Balenger: Thank God. Thank God y’all. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Turn this house into a home. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Turn any love. Can we have any love? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: It’s never too much. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Ah! 

 

De’Ara Balenger: My news is about Luther Vandross. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Woop woop. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Okay, I. My mom and I watched the documentary on CNN. Um. And. I just I mean, my first I’m just so happy to be Black. I just don’t know. I’m just so exuberant about it. I mean, thank thank everyone honestly that had a part in me being Black in America today. Um. I am so proud of Luther Vandross, like so, so proud of him. And I think I would go as so far to say that he is the most talented vocalist to have ever lived on the planet Earth. Okay.

 

Myles E. Johnson: Definitely male vocalist. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: I mean. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Ugh. So. You know, and this there are things that like I didn’t really know about Luther. I didn’t know that he was like straight up from New York City, like born like started his life on the Lower East Side, went up to the Bronx, grew up between the Bronx and Har–, like a New York City kid. And so much that like in his singing in the first group he was in that I’m forgetting the name, but they were fabulous. He ended, Jim Henson put them on Sesame Street like early Sesame Street, because they were like New York kids singing about, you know, we’re going to make ABC’s real cute. Then he ended up singing background for like, David Bowie, Bette Midler, like. And then the other thing I didn’t know about him is he is like a song, he wrote all the songs to just, name somebody. Aretha, just all of them. And so they’re just there’s just this incredible, endless talent that came out of him that we should all be so appreciative of. And then there’s the other side of this. Which again, we need to do. We need to come together as a Black family and figure out why are we responsible for killing this man? Because we did, Black people. We did. We did. We did. [sigh] And there’s so many things that were unsaid in this documentary. And it was it’s an interesting Dawn Porter, um who is actually a renown documentarian. She also worked on Good Trouble. That’s maybe where her her name is familiar to most folks. Um. But there wasn’t a ton on the personal side of it. Um. And Luther himself never came out. Um. And and what was also interesting, there wasn’t very much perspective from his family. Now, the person that came up for me that really had some alarms go off, who I’ve spoken about before is that Cissy Houston. So Cissy was very much around and we know how she felt. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: No, I’m Cissy talking to Oprah no. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: No. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I would not have liked it. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: No. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I do not like rainbows. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: No no no. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I do not like girl on girl. Boy on boy. Adam and Eve. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: And Dionne Warwick also.

 

DeRay Mckesson: Patti didn’t sign the waiver, which is why she’s not in it. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: There’s a whole thing with Patti. So then I, of course, I spiraled last night because I’m like, that’s such a short clip it clip of Patti. And there’s a beef happening right now because Patti feels like the way she was portrayed in it made her feel sort of like a bully, like she was the only one to speak about um his sexuality. Um. And she she she had evidently cut a bunch to be included in the video in the documentary, but wanted to have a take a look at what the final was going to be um and wasn’t given that privilege. Now, I’ll tell you something. Mariah Carey was in this. And you know who I bet you got to see it before it came out, is the Mariah Carey. I know that 1000–

 

DeRay Mckesson: Oh really? 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Percent. [scofff] 1000. I know my–

 

Myles E. Johnson: But Mariah. But Mariah green lights stuff. And I love Mariah, but she’s greenlighting stuff based off of what side you’re showing, not based off of what the content you are show–

 

De’Ara Balenger: So but she is. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: But I’m just–

 

De’Ara Balenger: But thank you, Myles, because that is exactly she’s having that last look. But anyway, so that. Okay. So that is. So there there there is that. But it is they also showed sort of, you know, like whether whether it was Eddie Murphy or Cedric the Entertainer talking about Luther’s weight over the years and the yo yoing of the weight and what I never really put together first of all, Luther Vandross was 54 years old when he died. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Crazy. I didn’t know that until–

 

De’Ara Balenger: 54. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I was like, oh my God, he was young. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: 54, and he had diabetes and then the weight yo yoing and he had a stroke. And I feel like it’s the same and Black people, you obviously I just said how much I love being me, but why are we so mean to each other? It’s the same thing that happened with Whitney when Whitney remember when Whitney got really, really, really, really thin. And how everybody talked about it like a dog. So I don’t I just I think that’s I I’ve watched I’ve been listening to Luther nonstop, and I’m just so proud and so overjoyed and so all these things. And like, because when you think of him, you really do think of love like you do you do like he just was– 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Absolutely. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: A like. We don’t we didn’t deserve him. And but the other side of this is like, gosh. We got to be kinder to each other. And I don’t know how we can figure out how to do that at scale, but we really, really do. And maybe that is part of us all going to Montgomery as a people. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: [singing] If this world were mine. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Listen. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Um. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Now [banter] De’Ray has such a raspy vo– 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Wait no. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: And I’m done. I’m done. I’m done. Y’all go–

 

Myles E. Johnson: Oh sorry. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Y’all go ahead.

 

DeRay Mckesson: Let me go before Myles, because Myles is way smarter than me on the culture. So let me get  my little two words in before Myles, you say something smart.

 

Myles E. Johnson: I was just going to compliment your singing voice. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Oh ah you know, leave it to my cousin. Um. Didn’t realize he was that young. The articles, the headlines back then. Oh my God. Brutal. I’m like the stuff they printed as just, like, news article headlines, crazy. Um. It makes me sad that a generation will never know Oprah. Like, I remember being young, being like, I want to do something important enough to get on the Oprah show. But like, you know, he the last interview he ever did was with Oprah. And to see him struggle to speak. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: I can’t. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I’m like, oh my God, that broke my heart. Like, we we not only let this happen to you, but we let you go like you were. They threw you out, you know, like it was and the transition to hip hop. Luther Vandross did like and I forgot that uh dance with my father was so late in his like, I forgot that was like the swan song, you know? Um. So that was interesting to me. I think I also was um obviously sad that he wasn’t able to come out or like to find love, but even like the little stories, like the fact that his assistant had to break in the house to find him on the floor after having the stroke, I’m like, you’re Luther Vandross, you know what I mean I’m like like we really like what happened? Um. And then, you know what I what I loved outside of all of his musical accomplishments and just the ear he had, and his um just the gift, you know, so few people can walk on a stage and just sing. He don’t need he don’t need any of the fluff is cool because he want he appreciates the pageantry. And grew up listening to Dionne and all those other people and like, I appreciate the artistry, but if you just gave him a microphone and a stage he could tear it down every time. And I respect that. That is the kids ain’t got that today. What I also love, though, is that his he had friends from high school and middle school that rocked with him and were there in the hospital on the last day like I do appreciate that he that those friends stayed with him like I love that like at the Grammys him, Rob, and that other guy they in the hospital room they’re in the hospital like that was really beautiful um to watch. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah um like, to your point De’Ara, uh Luther, he belongs in kind of a stratosphere that, to me reminds me of, like, Billy Strayhorn. And when I think about a lot of the maybe like bigger um even like when it comes to writing, Billy Strayhorn, um when I think about the way that he has positioned himself and I think about Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra, he really took that and and and and but Aretha Franklin did. And but he was just like that crooner. But he just had like a bigger voice and a voice that’s that was baked inside of the church. And it had just a just elasticity. Just elasticity. It’s 9am. His voice was like rubber okay [laugh] and and it was able to stretch to different places. And I think that was really it’s just amazing to look at. But, you know me, um very critical of all um Black American exceptionalism propaganda, and it’s something about the fact that we have so many stories around Black people who have been blessed with Black gifts and Black genius who who pursue this um this pinnacle of fame and celebrity and money and power, because, you know, we are living in a society that says, you know, if there’s homeless, you’re your fault. So of course you’re going to exploit your gift in order to um in order to make it so whatever. But everybody who chooses that path seems to have such miserable, miserable lives. And part of me is happy that we’re at the phase of culture eating itself, where culture um where I think the incentive to participate in that is just lessening. And that kind of makes me happy because there’s so many people who have sacrificed their sanity and their lives. When we think about Whitney, when we think about um Michael, I mean, it’s just like so many people to to list and to be Luther is in that because because of being closeted, because of um the ways that being closeted and not being able to be yourself and and uh manifested into other different ways, and that relationship manifested in bad relationships with food. Like all those things are interconnected. As a queer person with um, with, with, with, with who has diet and body, all the all those issues, those things are just so intimately um connected. And the last thing I’ll say is it’s also interesting speaking it’s also interesting speaking of culture, you know, American culture kind of being at this phase of eating itself is just that ’70s ’80s thing, never happening again. You have a slew of people who were so influenced by the by jazz by um so if you weren’t directly influenced by jazz, you were influenced by other people. So he was a he was a Diana Ross uh queen. So but Diana Ross is a Billie Holiday queen, you know, and then you Aretha Franklin but Aretha Franklin is a Dinah Washington uh Queen. And there is such a in jazz, there’s such a big thing around experimentation, but also excellence. So not only do you need to be able to listen to everything that’s going on around you as a vocalist and as a musician and create something new on the spot. But it also needs to be excellent because we’re also outdoing these white boys. And that tension, you know, I’ve got to rock my hips faster, move my feet faster. So I got to be James Brown. Like that tension really birthed some crazy talent, you know, and we’re just not there anymore. And I think for good reasons we’re not there anymore because I can see a Samara Joy maybe having a happier career, even if she never becomes the pinnacle of the universe like Aretha was at one point. Um. But it also makes me think about damn Luther and Anita, like even the people he’s beefing with like he’s like oh he’s being mean to invogue and I’m like damn because invogue is hot too. Like you know it’s it’s just now it’s it’s you know, we’re just in a different era and a different moment in that pressure cooker of jazz and and respectability and scrutiny, really birthed some miraculous music. Even if um the price were um people’s souls and sanities and their real private interior lives that make any of that even worth living in the first place. So those are my kind of mixed feelings on it. But I love big Luther, I love small Luther. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: I love all the Luthers. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I love all of Luther. And I hope Luther is in heaven loving all of himself. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Well and the other thing the last thing I’ll say on this–

 

DeRay Mckesson: 54 is crazy.

 

De’Ara Balenger: Is and DeRay this is for you too, is that there really wasn’t a theatrical release of this documentary. And I think it’s interesting with like the DEI stuff and the Donald Trump and all this like what’s going to happen to content over the next four years and the things that will be made and not be made and given theatrical releases and not like it’s wild that this did not have a theatrical release. And it’s also wild that it’s like on CNN. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: But we’re also in an era–

 

De’Ara Balenger: You know what I mean? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –where we can take back theatrical releases. Like we get like, nobody gives us–

 

De’Ara Balenger: Exactly. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: –anything anymore. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: We do, we can do it. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: We have enough people with enough money where–

 

De’Ara Balenger: We can do one. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That that can happen and I hope that this gap actually makes it happen because certain things are just so certain companies are just so corny. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And you can feel the like–

 

De’Ara Balenger: Anyway. That’s right.

 

Myles E. Johnson: The old on them. I’m like, this is a perfect thing. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: But this is Jamie Fox’s production company. I was like, that’s why he was in it. But um–

 

De’Ara Balenger: Well the distributor–

 

DeRay Mckesson: You know, I had to watch it on YouTube TV. I had to like. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: Yeah. Yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Save it. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: But the distributor is usually it gets bought and then the distributor is who does the release. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Oh. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: The etc. etc. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Okay. 

 

De’Ara Balenger: So it’s not the yeah, the producers just get it made. [music break]

 

DeRay Mckesson: Well, that’s it. Thanks so much for tuning in to Pod Save the People this week. Don’t forget to follow us @CrookedMedia 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 Myles E. Johnson. [music break]

 

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