LaBeouf Takes Louisiana. Plus, Colbert, Crockett, and Talarico.

Summary

Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay

Episode: "LaBeouf Takes Louisiana. Plus, Colbert, Crockett, and Talarico."

Date: February 20, 2026
Podcast by The Ringer

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into a blend of headline and cultural topics, ranging from a viral Shia LaBeouf saga in New Orleans and incisive commentary on Black representation, to the shifting landscape in progressive Democratic politics. Hosts Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay unpack everything from wild dreams and pop culture controversies, to in-depth political analysis with special guest Congresswoman Cori Bush. The episode maintains its signature blend of playfulness, nuanced debate, and advocacy for Black perspectives.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Dream Sequences & Symbolism

(00:07–07:47)

• Van opens with a surreal dream involving Ozark characters, "Niggertown, USA," and Kenya Barris tipping off the police.
  • "So you know what happened at the end of this dream? I was arrested for eating illegal foods... Kenya Barris is the one that tipped them off." (01:12)
• Rachel shares her own symbolic dream: a post-apocalyptic world, zombies (all women, inc. Hannah Storm), and Hidden Valley Ranch bottles as protection.
  • Van interprets Rachel's dream through an Afro-pessimist lens, discussing the symbolism of “mayonnaise” and assimilation pressures on Black women.
  • "You're being attacked by white women who are zombies... their secret sauce, mayonnaise. They want you to be one of them... but you say no." – Van (06:52)
• Memorable Quote:
  • Rachel: "What ranch? What's the base of Ranch?" – "Mayonnaise." – "Boom." (06:25)

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2. Tyra Banks & Accountability in Pop Doc Culture

(10:36–20:24)

• Rachel and Van discuss the new America’s Next Top Model documentary, critiquing Tyra Banks’ lack of accountability for some controversial show moments, especially a storyline involving participant Shandy and questions of agency and consent.
  • Rachel: "I feel like something was missing... accountability, the truth, more people from the cast." (11:32)
• Van critiques the nature of modern celebrity documentaries, arguing they have become “vanity pieces” lacking journalistic objectivity.
• Quote:
  • Van: "If you actually had a journalist do a documentary on a subject or on a thing, then what you are going to get is the controversy of that, the sort of cultural considerations then and now..." (16:13–17:14)

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3. Reflecting on Jesse Jackson’s Legacy

(21:51–32:45)

• The hosts thoughtfully commemorate the life and impact of Rev. Jesse Jackson, tracing his civil rights activism, progressive politics, and enduring legacy.
  • Van: "It wasn't essentialist in any way in terms of from a racial or even class or even political lens. Jesse had a message for everyone." (23:40)
  • Rachel extends on the “American quilt” as Jackson’s metaphor, the importance of unity among all marginalized people.
• Discussion highlights the struggle of progressive “rainbow” politics in today’s context and the enduring challenges facing Black Americans.
• Lighthearted detour into Eddie Murphy’s Jesse Jackson impression from SNL.

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4. The Shia LaBeouf "White Hurricane" in Louisiana

(34:07–43:04)

• Van delivers a humorous but pointed plea for “the Louisiana diaspora” to rally against Shia LaBeouf, who’s making a scene across New Orleans during Mardi Gras.
  • Van: "There is a terror in Louisiana that we have not seen in a long time. And his name is Shia LaBeouf. He has to be stopped." (34:07)
  • Rachel balances the humor with concern for LaBeouf’s addiction issues.
  • "He clearly needs some help. And I hope he gets it." – Rachel (42:43)
• This opens up commentary on cultural appropriation, outsider influence, and the importance of local ownership of Black cultural spaces.

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5. FCC, Colbert, Crockett & Talarico—Media, Campaigns, and Free Speech

(43:46–68:18)

• Detailed breakdown of the FCC/Equal Time Rule controversy tied to Stephen Colbert's interview with James Talarico, and Jasmine Crockett’s campaign’s response.
  • Rachel delivers context: "The FCC has opened an investigation on The View... and now they're doing it again with James Talarico, with Colbert.” (45:44)
  • Jasmine Crockett’s statements and Van & Rachel’s opposing interpretations: is this about campaign strategy, anti-Trump resistance, or media bias?
  • Notable Quotes:
    • Rachel: "She changed the opportunity a little bit between the first and the second one." (51:00)
    • Van: "The problem is... we are having identity brawls across the party... All of those things come secondly to whether or not we are looking robustly into these people's history in terms of what they voted for..." (65:35)
• Spirited back-and-forth explores divisions within the Democratic Party, the uses and misuses of identity politics, and the meta-strategy in contemporary campaigns.

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6. Race, Relationships, and Representation

(76:07–85:34)

• Responding to Patrick Bet-David’s viral commentary on Black politicians marrying white spouses.
  • Rachel pushes back: "I just think it's such a lazy argument... It doesn't take away from what they're able to speak on when it comes to the culture." (77:14)
  • Van poses an uncomfortable hypothetical: "Do you think that Obama would have been elected president if he had a white wife?" (81:09)
  • Both agree a Black president’s marriage to a white woman would likely have complicated Black community support, exposing issues of perceived authenticity and kinship.

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7. Introduction to Afro-pessimism & Black Identity

(87:48–111:46)

• Van introduces Afro-pessimism via an explainer video; the theory posits that Blackness in America is rooted in social death and inherited property status, and asks whether liberation is possible within (or outside of) that construct.
  • Van: "The original unifying theory of blackness was for a purpose... that black people were property." (91:14)
  • Rachel: "Other than how she's taking what we know and saying, because of those things, we are the walking dead... which I would just push back against." (95:51)
• The hosts explore tensions between pride in Black cultural creation and the structural persistence of anti-Blackness.
• Van’s “hoe and pimp” analogy (110:00) is used to discuss self-definition under oppressive labeling.
• Both express skepticism regarding the idea of “rejecting Blackness” as a pathway to freedom.

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8. Interview with Congresswoman Cori Bush

(112:08–151:57)

A. Bush vs. Bell in Missouri

• Cori Bush shares her history as a fighter for her community, her legislative record, and the contrasts between her and primary challenger Wesley Bell.
  • Cori: "I care about people getting their needs met... I'll run to the front and push for the issues. He'll just participate." (113:24)

B. Dark Money and AIPAC in Democratic Primaries

• Discussion of outsized pro-Israel money in Democratic primaries targeting progressives like Bush; she vows to counteract with grassroots organizing.
  • “$15 million was spent against you?” “Yes.” (118:26)

C. Priorities for her District and Nationwide

• Focuses on local recovery after natural disaster, food deserts, economic justice, gerrymandering (voter suppression), and making utilities a human right.
  • "We should be making sure people have access to get to where they need to go... This is just making sure that we provide decency." (127:57)
• Sees opposition to ICE as a priority, warning about the expanding carceral state.

D. Democratic Party Divide

• Bush observes the lack of support from Democratic establishment for progressives, attributes it to money and seniority rather than best ideas or expertise.
  • "We're not seeing that. It's the same people over and over again. Well, it's my turn. Well, no, it's the people's turn." (136:36)

E. Voter ID Laws & Suppression

• Van and Bush break down why strict voter ID requirements are a method of voter suppression—disproportionately affecting the poor, Black, and Southern voters.
  • "If you have to put forth money to be able to vote, that becomes a poll tax." (139:23)
  • Rachel asserts: "Anything further than where we are right now is voter suppression, period. Because voter fraud is not an issue." (155:38)

F. St. Louis Food Culture (Lighter Moment)

• Cori details local delicacies: fried (toasted) ravioli, St. Paul sandwich, duck fried rice, and ribs—making the political personal and local.
  • "A St. Paul is a sandwich. It's egg foo young... white bread. It is the best." – Cori (147:24)

G. On Nelly performing at Trump’s Liberty Ball

• Cori weighs loyalty to St. Louis icons against political choices:
  • "I had feelings. I just think as a community, we have to figure out what that looks like. And I would love to have that conversation with Nelly about it..." (149:30)

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9. Pop Culture Round-Up: Tyler Perry's Beauty in Black

(161:33–170:41)

• The hosts preview a commitment to cover Tyler Perry’s Netflix series Beauty in Black, humorously noting the show’s wildness, soap operatic plotting, and meme-worthy moments.
  • Rachel: "It's so bad, it's good." (171:34)
• Van: "This is the preeminent podcast of Tyler Perry's Beauty and Black. We cover it here. We cover everything else that involves Tyler Perry too." (169:19)

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Notable Quotes

• On Black identity:
  • Van: "For me, right now, the most important thing about black people is shared safety... what black means is that we view each other as human." (105:44)
• On Democratic infighting:
  • Van: "We are having identity brawls across the party. It is leftist vs. centrist, black vs. white... what we are doing... will be tremendously destabilizing if the Democrats do not find a way to put their arms around it." (65:35)
• On activism and effectiveness:
  • Cori Bush: "You use your words, I'll use my actions to bring about change." (124:56)
• On voter suppression:
  • Rachel: "Anything further than where we are right now is voter suppression, period. Because voter fraud is not an issue." (155:38)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Time | |---|---| | Opening Dream Sequences | 00:07–07:47 | | Tyra Banks/ANTM Documentary | 10:36–20:24 | | Jesse Jackson Tribute | 21:51–32:45 | | Shia LaBeouf in Louisiana | 34:07–43:04 | | Colbert, FCC, Crockett, Talarico | 43:46–68:18 | | Race & Relationships | 76:07–85:34 | | Afro-pessimism Discussion | 87:48–111:46 | | Cori Bush Interview | 112:08–151:57 | | St. Louis Food/Nelly | 146:35–151:35 | | Tyler Perry & Beauty in Black | 161:33–170:41 |

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Overall Tone & Takeaways

The episode blends irreverent humor with deep, incisive cultural analysis and passionate political advocacy. Van and Rachel move fluidly between personal stories, trenchant social critique, and policy debates, always foregrounding Black perspectives and voices. Guest Cori Bush exemplifies this commitment to local realities and progressive vision. The podcast closes on a note of solidarity, self-reflection, and a pledge to spotlight lesser-acknowledged Black popular culture, serving as both educators and passionate fans.

Transcript

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yo, yo, yo, Thought Warriors. What is up? Higher Learning is on. It is I, Van Lathen Jr. And

[Rachel Lindsay]

it is me, Rachel and Lindsay.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I have a question for you, Rachel.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Uh oh.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Where do you go when you want to play but you don't know how to stay? Where do you go when you want to move but you don't know what to say? Where do you go when you wanna play? It's Nigger Town, usa.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Thought I was gonna get to answer the question. I'm unfamiliar with that town.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I had a dream.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And was that in the dream?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

The dream?

[Cori Bush]

Did the song come?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

The song that was playing in the background of the dream when I did everything, was that song Niggertown, usa.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What were you doing? What did it look like?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Just me doing different things now, what

[Rachel Lindsay]

the town look like.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So you know what happened at the end of this dream? I was arrested for eating illegal foods. I was arrested. So at the end of the dream, the people I went to dinner with, the characters from the show. Ozark.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Nice, right?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Marty Bird. The Bird family. So I went to dinner with them. And when I was at dinner, it was like a Thanksgiving dinner. When I was at dinner, the cops bust in. The cops bust in and arrest everyone. They arrest them for doing what they were doing.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You were with criminals, right?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

And they arrest me for eating illegal foods.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What was the food?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Just Thanksgiving food. Like, I was eating. They said.

[Cori Bush]

Soul food.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

They said, yeah, exactly. They said, you're arrested for eating illegal foodstuffs. And then later on, it turned out that Kenya Barris. I don't know why this was. Is the one that tipped them off

[Rachel Lindsay]

that he was there. What you trying to say?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

No, nothing. I mean, it was just weird, I think, because last night I was, like, watching Black Blackish.

[Rachel Lindsay]

But then I was watching Black as Fuck.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Black as fuck. See, look at this. Kenya Bears tipped them off. And then I see Kenya, I go like, I. So I break away from them. So this is what happens. So I get arrested and I'm. And I'm, like, handcuffed, and the feds are still searching the house. And then I lift the table up like I. Like the strength of the Hulk. Lift the whole table up. Mashed potatoes fly everywhere. And I run away. I get away. And then when I'm on Twitter, people are like, he is dumb. Like, he got arrested on some minor shit. He should have just, like, fought it. He would be out of jail already.

[Cori Bush]

Fair.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

But then I go to Kenya's house, and by the way, Kenya, for some reason, looks like Trayvon.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

It's Trayvon, but I know him as being Kenya. Okay, so Kenya looks like Trayvon. Trayvon free. Shout out to Trayvon. Free. So I go, I'm talking to Trayvon. But Trayvon asked Kenya. Kenya asked Trayvon. And he goes, they just asked me where you were. Like, I didn't tell them anything about. They asked me where you were. And he was like, I saw him with the birds. He's hanging out with the birds. Like, I didn't know, but they were the cops.

[Rachel Lindsay]

He should.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Maybe they were the cops or maybe they were undercover. So after that, we pieced it up, and then I was like, oh, shit, my bad dog. And so then I left. And when I got outside, that's when Niggertown USA picked up again. So that's the song. And then I went.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And you just, like, walked off into the distance.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I walked off into the distance. Like, I don't know what happened. Like, what happened in the.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What you eat or watch before you go to bed. You know what? I dreamed about skiing.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Oh.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Which makes sense because I haven't been able to ski this year. And normally this time of year, I'm in Aspen skiing, and I haven't. So my dream makes sense. Or I know where it's. What it's rooted in.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I don't know that dreams are supposed to make sense sometimes.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I mean, like, sometimes I can listen. I have wild dreams. Like, I had a dream like you. I had an end of the world dream the other day. I have a lot of end of the world dreams. I dream a lot about tornadoes. But in the dream, long story short, it was like I turned on the water and blood was coming out of the water, just, like pouring out of the water fountain. And then something else happened. And when I went outside and it was like, I had a feeling and I said, this is the end of days. And when I said it, it was like it resonated over the whole world. Like, the whole world said, like, the sky lit up, and the whole world heard me say, this is the end of days. And so people started freaking out, and it was like, I don't want to get into all the details, but, like, I went to the house, I was packing stuff up. We were running. I don't know where we were going. But then it kind of became a zombie kind of thing.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

That's what I'm talking about.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And then people were giving us tips on, as you keep going, you're gonna run into the zombies. This is what you do, you know? Kind of like a walking dead. Like, you Knew how to kill them

[Van Lathan Jr.]

as things went on, stab them in the head.

[Rachel Lindsay]

But the way to defeat them. It was weird. And the zombies were only women. It was all women. And the num and the zombie that attacked me. Don't know why. Was Hannah Storm. I don't know why.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

This is my type of shit.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It was Hannah Storm.

[Cori Bush]

This is the type of shit that

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm talking about, Rachel. It was Hannah Storm. And the tip that they gave us, the tip that they gave us to defeat them, to defeat them was you have to stand up with your back against the wall, and you have to have. If you get the lime green bottle, you have to have. There has to be orange in your hand. And if you get the regular bottle and the bottle was Hidden Valley Ranch.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Oh, shit, Rachel.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And if you get the white, like, with the white, then you could do it with. So people were handing out bottles of, like, Hidden Valley Ranch. And so as soon as, like, the walls, like, we were walking through this tunnel and the walls turned around and the women zombies came up, and the Hannah Storm one came after me and I grabbed two Hidden Valley Ranches whites, and I put my back up against the wall. And they were like, all in your face and talking to you and trying to get you to let go of the bottles. But I stood firm. And then when you. When they realized that they weren't going to get you, the walls turned around and you were like on the opposite side. And everybody was chee. They had with stuff.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I know what this dream is. I know what this dream is.

[Narrator (Afro-pessimism video)]

They understood.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

This is great.

[Rachel Lindsay]

The women zombies. And then after that, we were like, but what do we do next? Like, what do we do if they come back? And then I woke up.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Rachel, let me tell you what this dream is. First of all, what ranch? What's the base of Ranch?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Mayonnaise.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Boom. Right?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I don't eat ranch.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Mayonnaise. You got mayonnaise, right? You got mayonnaise. You're being attacked by white women who are zombies. They don't realize that they are zombies in their own culture. They think they powerful, but they zombies. They're the walking dead. Afro pessimism. We'll talk about that a little later on. They don't realize that they zombies. They want you to be one of them.

[Rachel Lindsay]

They were.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

They have their secret sauce, mayonnaise. They're coming towards you. When they come towards you, they don't try to eat you. They try to pull you and make you one of them. They want you to be a white woman. They thought they had you some years ago. They were wrong. And then what do you do? You say no, you turn around. So this is the brilliance of the dream. You resist white. But that's not enough. Because now that you with your people, the question is what do we do? Because resisting white isn't enough. We gotta do our own thing or else we'll be our own walking dead zombies. Afropessimism that's a deep ass dream, Rachel. That's a dream. That's a dream that says no more One Nigga Nights. No more One Nigga Nights.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It's two of us now.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Who is the two? You got another? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That's two. It's facts.

[Cori Bush]

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[Rachel Lindsay]

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[Cori Bush]

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[Van Lathan Jr.]

this episode is brought to you by TaxAct. Like an expert coach, TaxAct offers step by step guidance and guaranteed accuracy when filing taxes. Get tips along the way. Add expert Assist to talk to tax experts and let our experts do your taxes for you. With Expert full service, TaxAct helps you find the deductions and credits you deserve tax so you can get them over with. Visit taxact.com to learn more. Conditions apply. See taxact.com for details. So I'm looking in the chat here on Substack and people just said this van I listened to the pod this week. Do you think that Rachel has a burner account? In KD's group chat she was pretty quick to say it wasn't KD and wouldn't listen to any evidence. Almost like she was covering up for him. They had a lot of people that have reached out that were disappointed, not just in you but in me too, because they said that we were too quick to cover up for KD because they think that it's actually him. Would you like to say anything else about this before we move on?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Kevin answered and said he doesn't pay attention. He was asked about it. He said he doesn't pay attention to it. He said he's cool with his teammates. They know what's up. And then, of course, people were like, oh, he definitely did it. Now that's a dead giveaway. No, it is not. People are. I said people. This on the podcast. I think people are gonna believe what they wanna believe. Nothing he says is gonna be enough. They have made up their minds that it is him. I believe it's not. I am not in the group chat. We all know I'm not on X. We all know that I'm not in the group chat. This is nothing other than me just looking at what's in front of me and making a conclusion that it's not him.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah. Are you biased in any way?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Absolutely.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So look, so we can move the fuck on. People are asking questions. Can we criticize without erasure? Like Tyra Banks? People want to know about Tyra Banks.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Ooh, have you seen it?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I have not seen it. What is happening, Jade?

[Rachel Lindsay]

What episode are you on? I'm on episode two, I think. Okay, I'm not going to give anything away, but I posted on threads. I said, I'm trying to sit with. Trying to find the exact thing that I said, because this is just going to give you the response of what people are. Everybody's pretty much saying. And this isn't giving it away to you. I can't find it. I'm just going to paraphrase. I said, I'm trying to gather my thoughts and sit with how I feel about the America's Next Top Model documentary. And I said, I feel like something was missing. Every response. Is accountability the truth? More people from the cast.

[Cori Bush]

It.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I think that collectively we all understand that what Tyra did. Tyra's a part of it. I can't. I don't know if she's a producer. I'm gonna assume she is a producer on this, But I think we all understand that Tyra and the executive producer, the main one that's in it, do not take a little bit. She does, but 95% of it is her not taking accountability for how she did that show.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

How did she do the show? I don't know. When I used to watch the show, all I would see is, you know, people Walking around, they're trying to be models. They're doing different stuff. I didn't realize that there was this underbelly of inappropriateness that existed with the show.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Well, I mean, I believe it was the second season where that's at issue that Tyra asked. First off, when they say, let's talk about Shandy Cycle Cycle two, she has to gather her thoughts. Shandy. Shandy. Tyra knows good and well she knows who Shandy is. Not only was Shandy a person on the show that had a big moment happen that you don't see on any other episode or any other season, Tyra also, after it was over, had her on her talk show and made her relive the very moment that people are talking about right now. So Tyra knows good and well who this person is. Todt. Shandy gets really drunk. They have these Italian. They're in Milan. They have these Italian models. She's drinking wine. We don't know how much she's drinking, but she's clear that she's very drunk. She's making out with one of the guys in the hot tub.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

What guys?

[Rachel Lindsay]

One of the Milan models. They bring these models from Italian models. They bring them back to their room. All the girls do. They're all in the hot tub together. You see Shani making out with one of them. The next thing you know, you see them in the bed. And then when they wake up in the morning, Shani's like crying. And it makes it seem like when you were watching it in real time, that Shandi regretted sleeping with this guy because she has a boyfriend, which she did. And then they have her. They had Tyra sit and have a girl chat with the girls about cheating and how like everybody cheats and kind of like big sistering it. And then later they have Shandy call her boyfriend on camera and he just berates her. He's like, she's crying. She's in the fetal position. She's like hysterical. He's crying. He calls her a bitch. Like all this stuff, right? She's never the same. She pretty much leaves the show after that. She comes out later and says that she has no recollection after the hot tub. She drank two bottles of wine. This was all on camera. And she felt like the producers should have realized that she was too intoxicated to consent. And the executive producer is basically like, I mean, we told the girls what's up from the beginning. We're always gonna keep the cameras rolling. This is a part of your story. There's no Accountability of. Maybe we should have stopped. Cause the Bachelor in Paradise had a very similar situation. They shut down production. Executive producer got lost his job. Producers didn't come back. There was a lawsuit. Like, a very similar situation happened. That's not what America's Next Top Model did. Instead, they said, well, it was part of the show. It was part of her story. Her.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Her.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Her having sex with this guy. But they never were, like, pulled her to the side. Hey, are you sure you're okay? You look like you drank too much. Maybe you're acting out of character. Is this what you want? They just kept the. It's all on tape from the. From the hot tub to the shower to the bed. And so it's all on tape. It's all on tape. But it didn't.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

And I also watched in real time.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It didn't air. They didn't show all of that airing, but they recorded the whole thing. And instead of taking accountability or maybe having some reflection, hindsight 20 20, they were like, it's a part of the show. And then Tyra was like, well, I'm an executive. She was like, I don't really get into the production side of things. That's not my thing. But then you watch three episodes of her talking about how she was involved with every single detail and the production. So, like, people are just like, there's just not a lot of accountability taken. And you have other models telling their story about things going too far, how they felt uncomfortable in certain situations, how people made them feel about their weight, their appearance, how they would play into their fears and their insecurities. And, you know, it started off one way. I think Tyra really was trying to create a show about diversity, diverse models, and give people the opportunities that she had to fight so hard for. I believe the intention was there in the beginning, but in making a TV show, the people keep the producers. The networks are like, hey, we need more. We need more. You have to raise the stakes. And it just got out of control. It's a really good documentary, but I don't know why Tyra did this and thought she was gonna come out okay.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, it's probably not a documentary at all. And I'll tell you what I mean by that. There's a new wave of documentaries, and people understand what I'm talking about because they watch them. Documentaries that are produced on a subject, by the subject. Let's say I do a documentary on me. Do you know what the documentary is going to be called? Van the Greatest Pickup Basketball Player Ever. Okay, then I'm going to interview all of the people from LA Fitness and they're going to go. There was a three level scorer that used to come in here from 08 to 2015 and it was Van Lathan and blah, blah, blah. And everybody's going to talk. I might get into some of the controversies. Like the time there was the fight there and the Hollywood Fitness and the, the fucking MMA guy hit, the fucking guy, split his whole fucking shit. He ran out, he came back in the gym, we let him in the side door cause we like to play with him. And then they got mad and the whole night. So. But if I do my own documentary, it's gonna be from that purview. But if you actually had a journalist do a documentary on a subject or on a thing, then what you are going to get is the controversy of that. The sort of cultural considerations then and now, maybe a look back at how the culture has changed. It would be really interesting to know whether or not that version of America's test, Next Top Model would be palatable today and all of that stuff. But you're not going to get that if the person that is doing the documentary is Tyra Banks. It's a conversation to be had over the last couple of years, five, 10 years, whatever. It's like we're kind of selling these vanity pieces about celebrities where they look back at their lives, which is fine. There is a place for that. There's a place for that, right? It's a place for somebody to look back at their own life, sit down, talk to them, get access to them, get all the interviews. But there's also a different type type of doc that needs to exist as well. One that takes journalism, objectivity and real investigation into the documentary.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I do want to note there is an e docu series called Dirt and Rotten Scandals that's premiering in March that's going to be talking about America's Next Top Model. That has one. And it doesn't have Tyra. It doesn't have Tyra. It has Janice Dick Dickinson on, who was also extremely cruel to these models. But she's not on this noticeably. And everybody was like, where is she? And to Jade's point, she's on that one. And other models are on that one telling their story without Tyra. Also to note, bringing this full circle, I did not know this. This is the Vanity Fair article. America's Next Top Model was created by Tyra Banks, but developed by Kenya Barris. Kenya Barris didn't know that. He's not in the documentary.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

He's been around. He's been doing TV for a very long time.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I know that, but I didn't know he was tied to this.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So. So all I'm saying is, you know, we all like docs. We all like docs about people. We like to learn more about these celebrities. But there is a tendency right now for documentaries to lean into worship of these celebrities and not really getting into who they are. Real motivations. There's no journalistic thrust to them. We still have docs that interrogate things. Like if you guys ever saw the Alabama Solution, Perfect Neighborhood. Oh yeah, all of that stuff. If you guys watch these docs, there are still docs that are doing this, but on people that are of cultural consequence. It's changing and we're losing something. We're like, we're losing something it used to be. And they don't have to be salacious and scandalous in nature, but they should be at least neutral to a degree.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. I mean, she says at the beginning of this, this was created because in Covid, Gen Z started watching reruns of America's Next Top Model while they were at home and they were discussing it under the view of 2020 as opposed to 2003 when it came out. So they were hypercritical of it. They were, you know, like, we watched it and maybe we felt a certain way, but obviously things have changed in 2020. And so then Tyra decided to develop this. And what I feel like is it wasn't an opportunity for her to necessarily tell her story. It was an opportunity for her to get back in the spotlight because there was attention again on the show.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Tyra Banks, man.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Tb.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Tb.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And that is the one thing that they allude to is that Tyra is about Tyra. You see that from. From the producers that are. That are talking about it. Yeah, but not everybody's. That's. That's a stereotype.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

What's the stereotype?

[Rachel Lindsay]

You're like, yeah, I said Tyra's about Tyra. And you're like, yeah, she's a model.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, I don't mean to say that like models are inherently self centered, but it is a profession that deals in self. It's like it's about. It deals itself for the good and for the bad. Right. It might. It's something that probably makes you hypersensitive to certain criticisms about yourself, which then may maybe puts you into a defensive posture in a time that other people. It's not like that much different than this. Come on here you talk you try to connect with the people. They put pictures of your mama on the Reddit and then you like, what the fuck is going on? Right? So like you, you come up here and you try your best to deliver a podcast, deliver infotainment and entertainment and do all of this stuff. You sing songs for people, you do all of this stuff. Then what do they do? They kick you in your fucking nuts, call you a motherfucking sellout. The van sucks. YouTube videos, all about the worst moment that you had on the podcast when you said a whole bunch of shit. You didn't even mean it. You hurt your co host feelings. You love her. And what do people do? They just getting. You get your entrails out. They get the viscera of your blood all over that. And so like sometimes you have. You get a little defensive. So I understand that. I'm not setting myself apart from that. I understand what she's saying, but she's like a model. It's probably a fraught thing to be, particularly in that time. I apologize.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Way to bring it back.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I apologize. Okay. Jesse Jackson has died. It's. It's difficult to do justice to this life. Jesse Jackson is and was stalwart in the American movement. He was involved from the ground up, not from the very ground up, but in an unbelievably important time in the freedom and citizenship of black people. He devoted his life to evolving the understanding of American existence. And he did it with politics. We had Abby Phillip on talking about this. He did it with politics that were always progressive. He did it with politics that were about health care, about housing, about economic justice. He did it with politics that realized that there were all types of people. Of course, the quilt analogy that he would use all types of people that had it wants, needs, concerns, rights that were not being, being addressed by the American system. And he called upon all of those people to thread together this amazing American quilt where we can understand our similarities and understand the similar goals and wants and needs that we had and let that bind us together. It wasn't essentialist in any way in terms of from a racial or even class or even political lens. Jesse had a message for everyone.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

And that message that he had for everyone is what he thought was the strength of America. So it was a life well lived. Obviously it's not a perfect life, which is you guys. Everyone gets, everyone's had their controversies and all of that stuff like that, but it is a life dedicated to people.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, no, absolutely. I'm so glad. One that Abby Phillips wrote the book A dream deferred that explored his political legacy, but also that we had her on to be able to talk about it. And if you guys haven't read the book yet, you definitely should, because as you know, we were preparing to have her on. And even when she was on this podcast, it really made me think of, I guess, my thoughts and relationship to Jesse Jackson. And I don't mean, like personal, because I never met him, but I just mean of kind of the perception that I have of him because by the time I was born, he was not nearly as much of a public figure or in the eye or like front and center like he had been prior to 1998. 1988. I'm not saying he wasn't involved. Obviously the Rainbow Coalition existed and he was still somebody whose opinion mattered, who was there front and center, fighting for the same rights and for social and racial justice in the ways and economic justice in the ways that he did before. But he just wasn't as present as he had been. I mean, he's one of the most influential leaders of our time, but growing up, we used to see it as much. And I think that there were a lot of negative narratives that followed him. I feel like that I saw. I'm not going to name them, but more than the fact that he is a hero and a fighter and somebody who, whether you want to question him or not, you cannot question the fact that he dedicated decades and decades and decades. He is someone who carried on the teachings and the mission and the vision and even moved it into his own way. Post civil rights movement, right? Like after civil rights movement. It's like we've lost so many leaders. Where do we go from here? It's like, are you going to enter maybe the Black Panther Party or in politics or activism? And I feel like Jesse Jackson took what he had learned, what those beliefs were, molded it into something that he believed, which you referenced with the quilt and how everybody represents a patch. And all these marginalized people are separate patches on this quilt. And you can't fight the fight alone. You have to all come together to be able to have an impact. And it's amazing that that message was. You know, he started it in 1984 when he ran for president, carried into 1988 and how relevant that is now. You know, it just makes me wonder if we could maybe embody some of that where we would be not just as a party, as Democrats, but also just like as a yourself Democrat. Okay. I mean, yeah, sure, I'm registered as independent, but left leaning. Whatever. But I'm just. My point being is on the left side, if we could embody some of this and come together as one and be more inclusive and, and, and live out, I guess, the vision that, that Jesse Jackson had beyond just keeping hope alive, but us all coming together, it's crazy that, you know, almost 40 years later, this is so relevant and we're still not doing it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, I mean, it's always going to be relevant.

[Jasmine Crockett]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So, Jesse, the hope to me was that America could embrace this sort of progressive populism that Jesse Jackson embodied. Where we talk about human rights as being the backbone of American existence and the proletariat, the workers, the people being the focus of American domestic and foreign policy. Right. We, we've joked about it, we've talked about it, as I talk about housing as a right, as we talk about, you know, freedom and justice, policing, justice, voting rights, just economic reform, all of these things as being fundamental parts of existence. Not things that you negotiate with power, but things that power continuously improves on delivering for you. The issue is, when you are continuously negotiating your humanity with people, what they're actually doing is figuring out ways to take from you and make you less human. But if you can hold power to account where their job is to make sure the first thing they do is make sure that your humanity and your rights and your expression are prioritized, then everything else, the competition and all of that stuff, we can then talk about how we want to do that. But we do it backwards, and we have been doing it backwards. We've prioritized American capitalist expression and consumerism above the basic needs of people.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Right?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

And when you do that, what you're really doing is giving your government the opportunity to take just a little bit more from somebody else than they're taking from you. And that, to me, is not the message that Jackson or King or a lot of these other thinkers from that. That's not what they were talking about. What they were talking about is understanding people as people and building from that idea out. We will continue to have this conversation in perpetuity if we are unable to hold power to account. So if you guys protect your politicians because they from your hometown, if you protect your politicians even because they look like you, if you protect your politicians for all of these reasons that don't have anything to do with what they are delivering to you, you will continue to see that people will use the insulation that you give them to grab just a little bit more power. Every generation, every election, every time, it's telling you so, you know, rest in peace to Jesse Jackson. Say this to J about Jesse as well, man.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Did you meet him?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I never met him. Tell you this. I desperately wanted to play. I desperately wanted to post. Talk about things that you would have done in 2013 that you wouldn't do now. I desperately wanted to post Eddie Murphy as Jesse Jackson on my Instagram. I desperately wanted to post it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Post death.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah. I wanted to post because. Okay, so if we're talking about things that couldn't be done, that's something that couldn't be done.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Correct.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

It. It's not. What. What did Eddie have on Saturday Night Live? What was that magic? Can anyone explain that? There are certain people that on Saturday Night Live had this magic, that Will Ferrell had it. Eddie Murphy had it. Like, what was it about Eddie on Saturday Night Live that just made every single thing he did super amazingly, insanely funny? Even the James Brown in the hot tub burn my flesh. Even that. It's just. It's nuts. But I was advised against posting it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, yeah.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Because it uses a pretty nasty SL that, you know, it was a part of Jesse Jackson's story. But that's as much as I thought about all the things that Jesse Jackson did and said, I also thought about the fact that Eddie Murphy as Jesse Jackson was part of my introduction to you.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Why can't I find a picture of it of.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Of Eddie doing. Doing the song? Don't you guys. Don't you know?

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, no, no, don't. No, I know. I'm just. Just trying to look at it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

It was funny. Like, it was funny.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Well, I'm so glad. Van. Oh, here it is. The title alone.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

No, no, you can't.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. I don't want to talk about Jesse Jackson that way because everybody is flawed and everybody has made mistakes along the way. And he dedicated his whole life to a particular mission that we already noted is relevant to today. And that's what I want to. We want to honor and focus on. Which is why you could not post that.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

It's just what? When I think. I just can't think about Jesse without thinking about that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, well, you got it off here.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I just.

[Rachel Lindsay]

We know what you wanted to do.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

It's just. It. Hysterical. I went back and watched all of Eddie's old Gumby just. Eddie is just a brilliant man. Just brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Never really been another Eddie. Never been another Eddie Murphy. I don't know how we got on Eddie Murphy from this, but Never been another Eddie. No one. No one is. No one. No one. To me, no one has been at the peak of Eddie Murphy. Funny. At the peak of Eddie Murphy. Charisma. At the peak of the Eddie Murphy experience. No one has gotten there. Yeah, no one.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I agree.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

No one has gotten to that. The peak of Eddie with, like, all

[Rachel Lindsay]

of it, like, comedy, acting.

[Cori Bush]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Eddie could carry an entire scene.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Like it. No one has gotten to that. Period. Like, there you go. Come on. Okay, another quick hitter. We're moving on. By the way, just let you guys know, we have Cori Bush on the show today. She's on the show. We're gonna talk to Cori Bush. But I have something really important to talk about, and it's super duper important. Now, I know that I sometimes. I know that sometimes I get on here and I like, you know, bear my heart and I evangelize and all that stuff like that. You guys, I really don't try to do that. I really. It's just sometimes I get carried away. I don't mean to get on here and either preach or, you know, shove these issues down your. You guys, throats, but there is something that is serious, and if you never took me seriously before, take me serious now. There is something seriously that is seriously attacking Louisiana right now. And people understand, like, how much I love my home state.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Of course. Of course.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

People get, like, how much I care about the people that live in south Louisiana particularly, and what they're going through. And right now, there is a terror in Louisiana that we have not seen in a long time. And his name is Shia LaBeouf. He has to be stopped. He must be stopped. I'm calling upon all of the powers of the Louisiana diaspora from every part of this nation. I'm calling upon Anthony Mackie, Wendell Pierce, Lil Wayne, all cash money, all no limit, Youngboy, Boosie. Everyone, everyone put your armor on. Come home. Lynn Whitfield, we need you. Okay, everybody that's out there, Branford, Marcellus, John Baptiste, everyone put your armor on. Come home. Sean Penn drove around in a boat after Katrina. One of the wildest things I ever saw before in my life. Sean Penn got in a boat with a shotgun and went out and said, I'm going to save Negroes. And if the government won't do it, Sean Penn, we need you now. Because over the last two weeks, I have gotten text after text before it became a news story of people saying to me, van, we need your help. We need your help, because there is a white hurricane going from bar to bar to bar in New Orleans. From street to street to street in New Orleans. Terrorizing people, challenging them to fight, fights, dancing, rapping when not asked. Okay? Dressed up in garb. Put some of the pictures out here. Show some of the stuff that's going on. Why Hurricane Shia has decided to descend upon one of the cultural centers of the world and take this city's psyche hostage. People are scared. Do you know how much it takes to scare a from New Orleans? Do you know how much it takes? I'm sure it's almost impossible they didn't seen everything. They didn't been through everything. But Shia LaBeouf right now is being banned from bars, from churches. We don't know what to do. People don't know what to do. People have no clue. So I'm calling upon all the knights. Everybody from out there that's from Louisiana, Yaya, Luke, James, Everybody out here that's getting money, that's from Louisiana. Hurricane Chris, Jared Leto. No, not you, Jared Leto. We don't want your help. But like, everyone that's from the state.

[Rachel Lindsay]

The.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

What's. The girls. The. The. The reality show girls.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, Jimmy.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

The Naders, the Nader girls.

[Cori Bush]

All.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Everybody, we have to come together right now because if we don't stop Shia, Shia might stop us. I haven't seen anything like this. But before. He's got to be stopped. It's going too far.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Have you booked your plane ticket?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

No, not yet.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Because you should be leading the charge while you're calling all these people, which I would say, guys, everybody, just relax and stay home. While you're leading the charge, you need to at least be, you know, like, show by example that you are willing to go down there and sacrifice your time, God forbid, life with the danger, the way that you're describing it, and stop Shia LaBeouf.

[Narrator (Afro-pessimism video)]

Is that.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

This is my problem with you. Okay, so let me get into this. This is my problem with you. This is not the way it goes. Okay, so, like, so you can't.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I can't call on you.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So you caught the whole.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You reached like a Shreveport and brought down Hurricane Chris.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Hold on. Hurricane Chris? Hey, baby, this is my issue. So my issue is this because you haven't seen enough movies, you don't know how this goes. Okay, so let me give you some examples.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I saw holes.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I've seen it, too. So. So let me. Let me tell you how this goes in almost anything where you have this type of multiversal threat. Did the Avengers go alone? No, they combined all their heroes when it was Thanos, did the kids from Derry.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Haha.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

You watch that? Did they go alone? No, they got all the losers together and they went to fight Pennywise. This is the Pennywise of Louisiana, Shia LaBeouf. Okay. Did Frodo go by himself to get rid of the ring? No. He got a bunch of people together and they went on a trek together. Because, Rachel, we are stronger together. So what I'm saying is the quilts. That's what I'm saying. The quilt. Jesse Jackson and the quilt is what I'm saying. So for me personally, for me to go down there and face this multiversal threat alone, it seems like you want him to fuck over me. Because right now his. His strength is at alter. Did you see what this nigga was wearing? Put the fucking picture up of Shia LaBeouf? Like, put the picture up. Look what he's got on. Look at the shit that he's got on. Look at the stuff that he's doing. He's. He's like. He went. And then he's. He's slick. Because after all the bad press came out, Shia then went and bought African American art from a local artist in New Orleans. That's different. That's the type of shit during Black History Month. That's the type of shit that he knows can capture the heart of the Lower ninth Ward, right? It might be people from uptown, New Orleans east. That's like, we fuck with Shia. So then when I go down there, I gotta fight them too. So I need some other saints from New Orleans to come with me to talk to the people where they're from. Because I'm afraid this virus could spread a little bit northeast to Baton Rouge or northwest. New Orleans is east. It's northwest. A little bit northwest to Baton Rouge.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm not telling you to go by yourself. I'm telling you to lead the charge. I'm saying if you're calling on all these people, you have to be the one front and center to lead them. You got to be at the top of the quilt. Okay? You're the one who's calling on all these people to come there.

[Cori Bush]

I.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Listen. Did you see all the. It's so funny how you call it a virus and that he's infecting people, because it just made me think of all the coverage that I was seeing where he was taking pictures with people. He was doing local news interviews. He rarely does interviews. Talking about how he likes the people and the culture and everyone's been so happy and the dancing. I get how People can be caught up in the hurricane of Shia. He really seems to be. As much terror as he's causing. He also see or havoc, I should say. He is also very much so warming up to the people or getting the people to warm up to him.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So you think I'm bullshitting you about what? About people reaching out about Shia. Look at this. Look at the text I'm getting. Look. These are people reaching out, telling me about Shia.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I believed you.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

People reaching out, telling me about Shia. They want. They. They want me to act on their behalf. I'm not from the woods. I'm from Baton Rouge. I can tell you right now that Shia, first of all, we don't have as much to get into in Baton Rouge. Let's be honest. Okay? So let's be honest, Shia, you know, if shy want to go around and he want to. And he want to dance around, cross the tracks, by all means. But it's not really a place in Baton Rouge where you're gonna go put your on and, you know, if shy gonna go to, like, I don't know, fucking Spanish moon or some shit like that and, like, go around. If you want to go up on the yard, they might focus shy on the yard, right? They probably saw holes too. You know, they. All of the shit that he was into, Disney shit, but he wasn't allowed into churches because of the way that he's acting. And I'm saying right now, it is a. A desperate and dire situation. And the Louisiana diaspora, besides Jared Leto, we don't want your help. Jared Leto. You are Shia in Jared Leto's clothing. We know what you got going on. No help from Jared Leto.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

But everyone else, even the people that have, like, called New Orleans like home. John Goodman. Oh, okay. Lives there a lot. Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, you party in the city, help clean the city up. Shia, all of this stuff. Gary Chambers. Gary Chambers is down there right now whipping votes, doing stuff. Geno, like Walter McLaughlin. Get all the saints together. Everybody together. And we meet at Morrow's, great restaurant in New Orleans. We meet at Morrow's, we come up with a plan. We take out Shia. That's it. We don't have to spend too much time on it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

In all seriousness, he's an addict. So he's. Rachel, he's an alcoholic. He has been in rehab.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Rachel, look at this.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yes, no, I. He is an alcoholic.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Look at this picture. Look at that fucking picture with the

[Rachel Lindsay]

beer in his hand. He isn't grabbing himself. He is an alcoholic. He has been in rehab. He has had issues that span years, all related to alcohol. I really hope he does get the hope he needs. Whether it's with the crusade that you're leading down there to stop him or through somebody else, he clearly needs some help. And I hope he gets it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I hope he gets it too. But right now we gotta keep the main thing. The main thing and the main thing is that we need to be able to celebrate Mardi Gras in peace. Okay. We need to be able to celebrate Mardi Gras in peace and not with the. From Transformers running around setting Bourbon street on fire. It's not gonna work. So I hope that he gets the help too. But like on the Chappelle show, we did help him. We whipped his feet.

[Cori Bush]

Yeah.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I mean, he kicked him in his.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

That is like, you know, I mean, remember that? Rest in peace, Charlie Murphy. He's like, damn, Rick really needs help. Yeah. I feel like we did help him. Kick him in his motherfucking thighs so he can't walk around Bourbon Street. It. Oh, interesting. The messiest primary ever.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It's getting real messy, Donnie.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah.

[Cori Bush]

The mess continues.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Stephen Colbert says that CBS blocked his James Talarico interview over fears from the

[Cori Bush]

FCC about equal time. So this dispute centers on this FCC

[Van Lathan Jr.]

guidance that will require broadcast shows to

[Cori Bush]

offer equal air time to all candidates

[Van Lathan Jr.]

if they feature one, even on entertainment or talk programs. Which narrows a long standing exemption for late night shows and interviews. Thoughts? Ah. Okay.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What's the smirk?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

We need some sound here.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, what's the smirk? Who do you want sound from first?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

You know what? I want to know your. You tell you. You give this to the people.

[Cori Bush]

What?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, we. Then you have to add the Jasmine Crockett part to it. Cause that's the. That's the other part, right?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

That is the part that matters.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's the part. So. Cause like the f. The FCC thing, the equal time. We know it's been a law for a long time. They're trying to enforce it. We know that late night talk shows have been exempt for 20 years.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I don't think actually explain that to people because I don't know that they do know.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, so this is a rule. The equal time of when. What is it? When you're both running, when they're. It's campaign season and you have candidates running for the same office, they're supposed to receive equal airtime on networks. That's an old rule. But in 2006, I think it was when Jay Leno was interviewing Arnold Schwarzenegger. That was something that was brought up because they didn't also give time to who he was running against. And so they won that. And it was decided that like daytime shows like the View or late night shows like Colbert, Kimmel or something like that, or Jay Leno in that case, were exempt from it. Also, news reporting is exempt from it. Like the government can't tell you what you can report on or that you have to give equal time to who you're reporting on. So those are the exemptions. But we know the fcc, even though it is an independent agency, that was listed on their website, they removed it. When the Senate questioned Brendan Carr, who's leading, who's a chair of the sec, they removed that from their website that they were an independent agency because he says he's supposed to take direction from the Trump administration. That is not true. But he is saying that that is true and that is what the FCC is supposed to do. So in January, they said that they were going to start monitoring daytime television shows, late night talk shows, and kind of like strengthening their grip on the media as far as giving equal time to candidates. So that's that when it comes to it. So Donnie already explained what the issue was with Colbert. The issue was and James Talarico. But they're kind of saying that the fc. I should go back and say the FCC has opened an investigation on the View based on them having James Talarico on earlier this year. And now they're doing it again with James Talarico, with Colbert. So there's also this narrative that they're specifically doing it to James Talarico because they feel threatened by him.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Right.

[Rachel Lindsay]

James Talarico has also alluded to that as well. Jasmine Crockett has been on Stephen Colbert multiple times. She has been on the View, but not necessarily. I think she has been on the View since campaign season, actually. But not Colbert, if I'm correct. So that's kind of what all the hoopla is about this. So I don't know if we have both sounds, Johnny, but if we do, immediately Jasmine Crockett is asked about this situation. Cause you guys know they put it online. It's had. Last time I looked, it had almost 7 million views. I'm sure it's more than that now. And then Jasmine Crockett, when she first heard about it, responded this way.

[Jasmine Crockett]

We did receive information suggesting that the federal government did not shut down this segment, number one, that is my understanding that the federal government did not. Didn't shut this down. And we will do an official statement once we get another Official statement that we anticipate is going to be coming from Paramount. All right, so we will read what they say and then we'll go from there. It is our understanding that Kuwait, either Mr. Hoberry or CBS decided that they

[Narrator (Afro-pessimism video)]

just did one hear.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

And this was because of a fear

[Jasmine Crockett]

that the FCC may say something to them and that there may have been advice to just have me on and then they could clear the issue. It was my understanding that someone somewhere decided, we just don't want to do that, and instead we're going to just do it this way.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

She then went on with Jen Psaki.

[Jasmine Crockett]

We actually received a phone call, and that was a little bit earlier today. And in that call, they explained that they actually told CPS CBS that they could go ahead and move forward with the interview of James Talarico. They just needed to offer me equal time. I did not get a request from the Colbert show to go on. As you know, I've been on Colbert multiple times. And frankly, and you know, if we would have gotten an offer, that would have been great. But we're in the middle of early voting, so I'm kind of focused on being in Texas at this moment. And, you know, I don't know what to believe, that's for sure. But I got that phone call as I was out talking to voters.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

That's it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So there's so many things to talk to you about again. But they called you today, but they decided not to air the interview last night. You've been on Colbert a number of times, as you just said. Did you have any issue when they were going to air the interview last night, when they promoted it or when it was supposed to air? Or did anyone from your campaign.

[Jasmine Crockett]

No, we didn't have an issue. I mean, we've never run into an issue with Colbert. And even as you talked about the View, you know, supposedly this FCC complaint came about because I had more time than Mr. Talarico when I went on there after I declared my candidacy. So, you know, listen, I will tell you that I have no love for Bari Weiss. I have no love for Brendan Carr whatsoever. But I do think that, as you also mentioned Kimmel, it is important that we resist in this moment. And so there were a number of options that could be put on the table. And frankly, you know, the Late show just decided that this was the option. And I think that it was a good strategy. I mean, look at what happened when they tried to censor Seekot. We found out that you could get a lot more views. So I think it probably gave my opponent the abuse he was looking for. So I think it's probably better that he didn't get on and that they went straight to streaming, because we know that when we resist and when we know that it seems like they're trying to change the rules and bend to the knee of. Or bend the knee to this president, that it backfires in a historic fashion.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So she changed the opportunity a little bit between the first and the second one.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Not really.

[Rachel Lindsay]

See, I believe she did, because not the first part of what she says when she's talking to Jen Psaki on MSN now, but the latter part of you have to resist that. There's a. That it was a good strategy. I believe that she's saying, you can't bend the knee. You've got to stand up to what the Trump administration is doing. Brendan Carr, fcc. All of that changes her tune. Because in the first statement, if that had just been the statement alone, to me, that was problematic because why, for the very things that you said in the latter part in that MSNow interview, why would you then believe and take the word of Brendan Carr or CBS when you know what time it is over there, you know what they're about, you know, the ultimate goal for them. So it seems beneficial to you to take that in order to then use that as a part of a campaign strategy or, you know, to put you against James Talarico in a certain way. If that had been her only statement, I would have taken issue with it. I believe in the second part, she was trying to retract some of what she said because you saw how it looked. Because at the end of the day, it makes no sense for you, for everything that you stand for, to take the word over them versus Colbert or even James Talarico's team, unless it was beneficial for you in the campaign.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Am I bugging? I don't think that, Like, I'm being completely real.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I read that a totally different way the second interview.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, when she says, I have no love for Bari Weiss and Brendan Carr, it seemed like she said that as a pretext to say, but they were

[Rachel Lindsay]

right when she said that. I agree with you. I thought she was gonna say, but. But she doesn't. She says, I think it was a good strategy. She says that I have no love. And then she goes on to talk about how the strategy was good, what Colbert did.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

The strategy was good for Colbert to bring more attention to the interview is what she said.

[Rachel Lindsay]

But then she also talks about. Yes, and to bring attention to what the FCC was trying to do. But also she says we have to resist. We can't bend the knee. That's what she goes on to say.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah, I think the way. And you guys, if I'm wrong, I'm sincerely wrong here. I'm being for real. The way I read that. You know what, Donnie, play that again. So I.

[Rachel Lindsay]

The second part, because I understand what

[Van Lathan Jr.]

you mean when she said, yeah, like, play that again. Let me. Hold on.

[Jasmine Crockett]

You know, listen, I will tell you that I have no love for Bari Weiss. I have no love for Brendan Carr whatsoever. But I do think that, as you also mentioned, Kimmel, it is important that we resist in this moment. And so there were a number of options that could be put on the table. And frankly, you know, the Late show decided that this was the option. And I think that it was a good strategy. I mean, look at what happened when they tried to censor Seekat. We found out that you could get a lot more views. So I think it probably gave my opponent the abuse he was looking for. So I think it's probably better that he didn't get on and that they went straight to streaming because we know that when we resist and when we know that it seems like they're trying to change the rules and bend to the knee of. Or bend the knee to this president, that it backfires in historic fashion.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So what I read that is, is that they. That the strategy. And that the strategy that was used was used for. To their ends, which is to get Talarico more shine and that she's at least a little uncomfortable with that. That the strategy that she would have preferred would have been for her. For her to go on.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Absolutely.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So, like the. So like, it seems to me that the way I read that is what she was actually saying was the CCOT thing ended up becoming a bigger story because of the perceived censorship from the Trump administration, just like this ended up being a bigger story because of perceived censorship. So I don't know that she necessarily spoke to the idea, which is, to me, the central idea here, which is that the Crockett campaign is alleging that the Colbert show and Stephen Colbert is in the bag for Talarico like that. What she's essentially saying is that this is not a story about the FCC getting involved, Donald Trump and his FCC getting involved in telling a late night host who. And who he cannot put on his show by changing the equal time rule to include late night, which is a way that the administration can make sure that who they want to get on these shows can get on these shows, right? Because if you change that rule and you do the equal time law, it's not just about Jasmine Crockett that you would have to put on there. You gotta put Paxton, you gotta put Paxton on there. You gotta put Cornyn on there. When you, if you do that, then what you're gonna trigger is all of those guys having to be on there and look, if they want to put those dudes on there, cool. But the reality is that these late night hosts have typically, because of what they do in their jobs, been able to put on who they want to have substantive conversations with. Because it's not news, right? It's celebrity and all of that stuff like that. Right. But that, that's not what she took issue with. She didn't really take issue with the Trump administration's assault on the autonomy of the late night host. She took issue on the fact. She took issue with the fact that she felt like that they are conspiring against her now. You know, I guess two ways to read it. One way to read it is that just honestly one way to read it is that it is smart campaigning to jump in and take advantage of this entire brouhaha that's happening with the fcc, Brendan Carr and Stephen Colbert and say, look, I have a place in this too. The Colbert show could have just been like, hey, we're going to put Jazz and Crockin on with the equal time situation. And that would have been a way to fix it, right? That would have been a way to fix it. The other way to look at it is that. But this is a fundamental problem that we are confronting in our politics. And the problem is that you have people who are playing the politics rather than concentrating on the main thing to me, concentrating on the main thing is that the President is trying to use the FCC to determine who, who people can put on their shows. The President is attempting to do that. And I don't know, it was an odd response to it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, so again, for me, and I understand your thinking, I interpret it just a little different. I think that if we had just had that first response, I would agree with when you say there's two ways to think of it. Number two with you in what was doing what she was doing. When I listen to the second response, I look at this as I think, I think that she is salty that it ended up getting so many views. I think that she's salty that it, like James Talarico is the one. The story surrounds where I think that where I don't agree with is because in the first, the first part, she is totally accepting what the administration and CBS is saying. In the second part, she's not. She's also saying, listen, we have to resist them. We have to stand up. We saw what happened with Kimmel. Then she goes on to say, and this is where I say the salty part is we saw how many viewerships that Seekat got online. He's gonna get a bunch of viewerships as well. And I do believe that she wishes that that could happen for her. But in the second part, I do believe she's also saying, I don't agree with what's happening over there or what they're doing, and we have to stand our ground and we can't let what happened with Kimmel and we can't bend the knee. We can't do those things. So she's turned. Changed her tune in not believing what the administration was saying. The problem with this is. And see, I don't think that Colbert and his team were doing this to boost Talarico. I think they saw this as an opportunity to shit on the Trump administration and their employer, cbs. Whatever was said in the meeting with the lawyers, whether the lawyers said flat out, we, you can't do it, which is what Colbert is saying that they were told, or it's what CBS is saying where they're like, no, we advised you on what the rule is and what we think you should do. Whatever happened, Colbert, I think, was genius in saying, I'm gonna use this as an opportunity to show how they're trying to suppress free speech. So it doesn't matter who said what. He was like, I'm gonna use this as an opportunity to show free speech and bring attention to an issue with the Trump and to show how corrupt it is and how authoritarian it is, and then put this online and it just happened to be James Talarico. I actually don't think. And I could be wrong. I mean, we'll never know. I don't think they were like, ah, this is a way to boost James Talarico. I think that they were like, this is a way to shit on it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Wouldn't have matter who it would have been.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, I think that's what I'm saying. I think Colbert and them were like, this is a way to shit on CBS and the Trump administration. Now, for Jasmine Crockett, I can see as you're in a campaign that is contentious and we're getting down to the wire and it's the week when early voting open that your competitor is getting an opportunity to be on a national stage. He's the center point of a huge storyline that. That is pretty bipartisan when it comes to free speech. And now people are voting that and 7 million people are getting to watch it and see him. Because what is James Talarico's biggest thing was against him is that people don't know him. This kind of put him in the spotlight. So I think that she's salty that the result is it boosts him, but I think that she's still standing against the Trump administration. Yeah, no, well, disagree.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah, yeah.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I mean, you think that she believes. You think, just to be clear, you think that she believes that the Trump administration advised them on or the legal team at CBS advised them that they needed to do equal time. They didn't want her. They really want to boost Talarico. So they were like, this is what we'll do. We'll do what the C cop thing did with the 60 minute special.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

That's what she said.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And that's what you think that she's saying.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah. And so I don't. And by the way, if that is the case, then let me put it to you this way. I understand that through the lens of politics.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. Is she not allowed to be upset by that? If that's what she believes.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

What do you mean?

[Rachel Lindsay]

If she believes that Colbert is rooting for Talarico and wanted to uplift him and use this as an opportunity to do it as his competitor, can't she be upset about that?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, yeah, that's a. She can be upset about that. That's a hell of a leap to make, though.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, I don't think that's true. And I don't think that's what she's saying. This is where we disagree.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay. That like, that's a hell of a leap to make, though, if. If that is the case. Well, that is. She has essentially said that. Right.

[Rachel Lindsay]

We disagree on that part.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I don't think that she's saying Colbert did that. I think she's saying that Talarico benefited from them wanting to shit on the administration and cbs.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

But what she's also saying is that the very simple fix would have been just to put her on the show.

[Rachel Lindsay]

She did say that.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Right. And so. And they didn't want to do that. And so the fact that they didn't want to do that to me, intimates that they have a special interest in James Talarico and that what they did was to take the splashiest approach to getting James Talarico more eyes and more viewers. And then she. In my opinion, yes, that's where we

[Rachel Lindsay]

differ is the why Colbert didn't want to.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

In my opinion, she then made a. An intellectual case as to why they would do that. She said, we've seen that work for people in generating a lot of attention in the past. We've seen that work. And the easiest thing to do has just been put me on the show. You put me on the show, but once again, you put her on the show. You gotta put Cornyn on the show. You gotta put Pax on the show. Like, I asked around about the equal time law and why maybe somebody wouldn't just wanna say, hey. Cause the easiest thing would've been like, Bob.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So, no, yeah, you gotta put everybody on.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So then. And if, if they don't want to do that, then they go, hey, we just take it off linear. And because just so people know that equal time, you said this, the equal time, that only covers, like, what the FCC governs, which is what's going to be on these networks and the radio and all of that stuff like that. So you put it on YouTube, do whatever you want. Right. So in this situation, I think, I feel like, once again, I'm maybe reading it wrong. I feel like she was pretty clear in what it was that she was trying to say. I will say this, that's probably smart politics as far as this whole thing is surrounding James Talarico in this really important time during this race. Let me figure out a way to make sure that I'm not left out of this conversation, that this is not just a conversation between James Talarico, Stephen Colbert and the Trump administration, where people have all of this, I guess, you know, good feeling towards them or this warmth towards them because it looks like they're being persecuted. Right. But in this particular race, the way that this race has been going, the how fraught things seem to be down there and how nasty it's getting. It was interesting to see that the left, particularly the Democratic establishment, which is what both of these candidates kind of represent, could not be on message against overreaches from Donald Trump. That what we are doing and what we are increasingly doing and what is going to be tremendously destabilizing if the Democrats do not find a way to put their arms around. It is. We are having identity brawls across the party. It is leftist versus centrist. It is black versus white. It is black women versus black men. It is this essential battle for who purely has the interests of a party in Mind without very many people asking the question, for me at least, whether or not that party purely has your interest in mind, what I would say is the white male candidate, the black woman candidate, the black gay candidate, the black leftist candidate, the black centrist candidate. All of those things come secondly to whether or not we are looking robustly into these people's history in terms of what they voted for, what they've advocated for, who their donors are, what their priorities are. All of that stuff is the thing. But God damn, we are in our corners just waiting for the bell to ring so we could fight it out in the middle.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I agree with you, but I don't think that I agree with you on the whole identity thing, but I think that's separate from this FCC thing because this issue doesn't have to do with identity. In particular, you are right. That battle's happening. I sent you a post on threads of someone posting in favor of black man in favor of Talarico, like let's put him in. And the comments were, were attacking him because he doesn't necessarily use his platform for politics. And it was particularly black women who were like upset at him. And it's like, well, if he wants to vote or believes in James Talarico, why is it wrong for him to say that? But I don't think. But I do wanna separate the two because I think what you're talking about is a different conversation. And I agree with you when it comes to the way the Democrats are using identity politics versus what happened with the fcc. What Jasmine Crockett should have done in this instance is I wish she would have completely erased her first response because her first response was totally saying, well, I got a call that this isn't what the FCC and Trump administration did. So I wish she would have erased that and stood with Talarico and Colbert show and what they were saying and said we have to resist this. And then she could have been like, but it does kind of suck that he's getting all these views. The week of early voting people would have understood that. People would have been like, yeah, the timing of it does kind of suck for you and your campaign. And I think she tried to fix that in the second statement. But I know we agree we have to agree to disagree on that. But I don't think that this particular issue is identity politics, but it is an issue and I agree with you.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

What happens for each candidate if they were to lose, if Talarico loses, What does it say? If Talarico loses this primary, what does it Mean, if Jasmine Crockett loses this primary, what does it mean?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I don't lose.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Is it higher leverage for either of them to you?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I don't know if I can say. What does it mean? I think it's bigger if Jaz. I think the stakes are if Jasmine Crockett loses, I think it looks worse for her than it would if James Talarico loses.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Why do you feel that way?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Well, because she's a national politician. She's done more on a bigger stage than him. I feel like she has more of a bigger presence. I feel like she has a bigger voice. She has bigger impact because of where she's been positioned versus him. Remember, his biggest thing against him, his hurdle, is that people don't know him as much as. So what does it say about Jasmine Crockett if having more experience, having a bigger presence, even though he'll be representing whoever will be representing Texas, it'll be on a national level. What does it say that she loses her seat and loses her voice, not just in the state of Texas, but nationally? The stakes are big. It's bigger for her. Whereas James Talarico is a local politician and, you know, he's a rising star. And I want to see him in office in some sort of capacity, because I do like a lot of the things that he says and believes and fights for, but it's still local. I just think, you know, I would hope that if. If she does lose, for whatever reason, she runs again. But I think it's just the fall is harder.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Mm hmm.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You don't think so?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Uh, hmm. I think two things. One, Jasmine Crockett's reputation is well established, right?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yes, Matt Rogers, it is.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I mean, it's well established. I mean, I'm not talking about her reputation necessarily as being whatever they say she is. I mean, we know Jasmine Crockett. She has name recognition. Like, her reputation is well established. Who she is is well established. There are a plethora and a litany of things that Jasmine Crockett can do if she does not win this primary. Right. She's not gonna stop being Jasmine Crockett overnight. James Talarico, if he loses the primary, could go down the road of Beto o' Rourke to where he becomes the darling of new Democratic Texas politics for a while. Not just locally, almost not at all locally, more nationally, where everyone looks at him as maybe the future of it. But he becomes another guy who's a cool dude but cannot win big races in Texas. And then a couple of years later, we don't remember who the fuck he is. He. His reputation and who he is is still. It's like we know James Talarico, but I just feel like in the. The cult, the overall cultural conversation, he will be less relevant than Jasmine Crockett going forward. She just has. She. She has a more dedicated group of people behind her. She has. She. I think that with him, it will be easier for him to fall into the also rans as it will be for her.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Do you think that it will be if Jasmine loses versus if James loses? Who do you think has a better chance of getting back on that national stage after a loss?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

She's never going to be off the national stage. She's on the national stage forever now.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I mean, holding office.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

You mean holding a national office. Like what she has. She's holding a national office.

[Rachel Lindsay]

She's a congresswoman, but her district, she's. She's.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

She's leaving.

[Rachel Lindsay]

She's done. Yeah, right.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I mean, I think that he could probably get to that point. But if we're talking about situation. This cannot be devoid of just how difficult it is to win Senate in Texas. Like, if you're talking. If we're having a conversation about whether or not this. Either one of these people can be a senator, we're not having a conversation even necessarily just about them. We're having a demographic conversation. We're having electoral conversations that exist in Texas. We're talking about whether or not things in Texas can be changed or will be changed enough for either one of them to be senators. Now, does that mean that Talarico cannot be Governor Talarico or that she cannot be Governor Crockett? Does that mean that, like, they can't be congressman or congresswoman or they can't, I don't know, head the DNC or, you know, start some political organization that is very important, like how you make political change, how you put these ideas into the world. What do you do to really affect people outside of this? Sure. But if we're talking about specifically being the senator, a senator from Texas, there's a lot both candidates can do, but there's also a lot of change that's gonna have to come from outside of their campaigns to make that a reality.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You said he'll be a darling. What did you say she'll be?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

What do you mean?

[Rachel Lindsay]

You said if he loses, he'll be like a darling. You could see him being the beto o rook.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

No, no, no. That's not what I said. What I said was that he. I'm saying that Beto o' Rourke was the darling. Yeah, he was the darling for a time. And then when it became obvious. Well, not obvious. When. Well, when it became a reality that Beto o' Rourke couldn't win bigger office, came real close. Came real close, they moved on. One of the reasons why that happened to o' Rourke and why it happens to guys like that, o', Rourke, I'm saying, ok, the reason why it happens to guys like that is there's really no. They don't have a base of culture behind them. They don't have, like a bunch of people that look at them as specifically valuable because of who they are. Jasmine Crockett has withstood direct attacks from the Trump administration, in my opinion, because she is a black woman and she's fought back against that. People are never going to forget that. So that means that if Jasmine Crockett decides that she wanted to become the biggest political podcaster, I'm not saying that that's what's gonna happen with her in a couple of years. If she wanted to, you know, write and sell books and run organizations and be a part of that, I feel like there's a cultural perch that she has that is not gonna go away.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, I get it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So, like, the stakes are a little bit different in that maybe Talarico, maybe this is the beginning of his rise and maybe with how destabilizing things are on the maga right. Right now, if there always be people who want a Talarico to succeed. But I'm just saying there have been these white guys, particularly in Texas or in these other states, that they rise up for a minute, people think, oh, my God, the next John Kennedy.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And then, no, it will definitely happen for him. I don't know about John Kennedy, but because he is not as known and this has been such a hot race with a lot of national attention on it, he it. I think the stakes are higher for her to lose because she already holds the national office. But I think it's a win win regardless for him because he is not as known and I absolutely agree with you, for whatever amount of time, whether it's forever or just a short amount of time, his stakes go up even with a loss because of, you know, the attention he was able to garner, that as close as he'll be, because it's gonna be a close race regardless. You know what I mean? So either way, his profile is up after this. It's a win win for him. That's why it's harder for her.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I actually don't Know who it is, but I'm saying there's. There's. On both sides, there's kind of a deal. I want to play you something from Patrick Bet David. I just want to get your response to this.

[Cori Bush]

Who?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Patrick Bet David. You don't know Patrick Bet David. You don't know him. You don't know PBD podcast Patrick Bet David people.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Do I need to know him to hear the context?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

No, it doesn't matter. It was like, damn, that was a little spicy. I like that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, I'm.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Hey, hey.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, I'm genuinely asking because I was about to look him up.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Nah, it's like I said, I don't know this. This. No, hey, PBD you. I did not valuetainment. I don't need to know who this is. Just play the clip, Donnie. That's what Ray said. Big rach in this. It's like, phone level. And by the way, this whole thing, they talk about the white culture, and, you know, let me tell you, it's all about the white culture. This. And, you know, we have a problem with this. Every one of these guys, as much as they bash the white culture in America, they only marry white people. Kamala Marisa's spouse, white. Ilhan Omar's spouse, white. You know, AOC spouse, white. Every one of these guys, you know, you keep talking about them, they're trying to go to that white. Patrick Davis. Standing up for black marriages is one of the ones Patrick David said. You know what? I care about the union of blacks.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You know, I don't. You know, I don't. I don't believe in this kind of thing. Because what is the. What is the goal of what you're saying that you. That it takes. No, no, no. I'm talking to Patrick. What is the goal of what you're saying? So it waters down their fight, their policies, their opinions, their. What they mean in the culture. Just because they've married or dated or a partner with someone outside their marriage. I. You know, like, I hate having this conversation because it makes it seem like I'm such a proponent. I'm, like, so trying to promote interracial relationships, but I just think that it's such a lazy argument to be like, oh, they've married this, so it automatically takes away from what they're able to speak on when it comes to the culture. It doesn't. They fell in love with someone. Doesn't look like them, as long as they don't change. You know, you do see people who marry outside of their race and immediately think that they lose their own identity within it. That's not what happens with any of the people that he's named. So, like, I asked you, what's the point of you saying that? Would you like for them to see some. Them date somebody that looks like them? Then just say that. But the way that you're leaving it open to interpretation makes it seem like you're saying they're not as effective in their messaging because their spouse is white, not married. That's why I was like, I don't think she's married.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah, she's. And she's engaged to Riley Roberts. That white.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay,

[Van Lathan Jr.]

this.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Patrick. This is a white man saying this.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah, Patrick.

[Rachel Lindsay]

But David, you.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Oh, like, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Hold. Wait, wait, wait, wait. He's. He's Iranian. Iranian. He's Persian.

[Rachel Lindsay]

He's not black. He's not black is the point. So I just looked at the video and I'm like, please don't speak on black.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Aoc got a ginger. Aoc said it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Well, that's what they. They like to say. Gingers are.

[Cori Bush]

Gingers are what closest.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You know, there's this whole thing on TikTok.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

AOC is a spicy.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Like, no, no, no, no. Like, I do not. Like, who are you to tell black or. Well, you said he's brown. You said he's.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, he's Persian. He's Persian.

[Cori Bush]

I mean, like.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I mean, we have a conversation like what they can and can't do and how that may take away or water down all the things that I said in their message. I wouldn't have even responded if I had known that that person was not black.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, hold on, hold on for a second. I should say this. His father is. Before we say that he's Persian, shout out to all my Persians out there fucking with you, Layla. His father is Assyrian. His mother is Armenian. He is from Iran. But I don't know that he's necessarily.

[Cori Bush]

He's brown.

[Rachel Lindsay]

He's brown.

[Cori Bush]

He's brown.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Father is brown.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I don't like when people do this. Like, I'm looking at you a completely different way. If you are of a different race. Telling me how as a black person I am supposed to be, or even questioning my opinion, my thoughts, my policies, my message. Because, you know, I'm with someone who doesn't look like me. Don't tell me how I'm supposed to be. It shouldn't even happen to any. Someone who looks like me. But for sure, somebody who's not even black. I Don't even like that. I wasn't even responding. I was set up.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

You were set. Hold on for a second. Wait a second. PBD got a huge pod that sounds

[Rachel Lindsay]

like a black person.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

What? Patrick. Pbd?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

That's what they. That's. That's what they call him. PBD got a huge pod. He's. He's on his pod. He's always talking. He's going, Listen. What. This is the thing. This is how you're telling me right now that black Lives Matter in its form right now? Because I run a multi level marketing scheme. I came in here and I used it. I. I went to the army. I did all this. That's the pbd. He's got a pot. I watch the pod sometimes. He has interesting guests on the podcast. Sometimes. All this stuff. I've watched the pod sometimes. But you feel like this. Let me ask you this.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Put PBD out of the context of him saying all of this.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

He's just talking shit on Fox. Like, put, put. Do you think that Obama would have been elected president if he had a white wife?

[Rachel Lindsay]

It's a good question.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Let's say that is. Let's say there's not Obama and Michelle. Let's say it's Obama and is Barry and Becky. Right. Is Becky Obama and the kids who are Jennifer. And then you throw a little white boy in there because they always have a little white boy. Jennifer and Tony Obama is Barack. Becky, Jennifer and Tony Obama. And the picture is Barack Obama. And surrounding him, a bunch of white people.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I think black people would have had a harder time voting for him. Gosh, I hate to do this, but I have to say it. Remember when Jesse Jackson was caught on the hot mic.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And he made the comment about Barack Obama being too white and something that he did. I can't remember particular. Oh, oh.

[Cori Bush]

Brooke's.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Barack Obama had made the speech about absentee black fathers or something along those lines. Yeah. I think that they would have had a harder time with. Because Barack Obama is biracial. And then if he also had a white wife. And I think. I think the white people who wanted to vote for him would still want to vote for him. I think it would have been harder for the black community. Would he have won? Maybe. I don't know. It's hard to say. But I do think that that would have been something that was litigated in the black community of whether. Whether or not he would represent us a certain way. I do think that. I think he still would have Won, but I think it would have been a conversation that we didn't have to have because he hadn't a show.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I think you would have not won.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Where would he have lost the votes?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I think that. I think that there was a feeling of. So there's a feeling of one ship and kinship.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Who would he have lost the votes

[Van Lathan Jr.]

from that would have. Would have existed.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Look, go ahead, say it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

There was. There's a feeling of oneness and kin in kinship that exists with Obama because of an authenticity that exists with Barack Obama, even if people can't necessarily, one to one, identify with his story. Barack Obama was raised by a white lady in Hawaii. I don't know one nigger like that. Never heard that story before in my life. Okay, sure, some of you out there, but I never heard that story. However, when Barack Obama lived his life and talked and walked and acted, I still feel like that was somebody that I would know that I would hoop with Barack Obama playing basketball. Barack Obama got a fine wife with two beautiful black daughters. He had existed in Chicago as an organizer. Right. He had been in the black church. There was all of these things that felt very authentic about Barack Obama where you couldn't really poke holes. And whether or not this was an actual black person. Right. That was a reality. That's the thing. Okay. A lot of things with him don't really reflect what I would say is the experience that I understand. Right. But that experience isn't all encompassing and blackness and part of Obama's rise proves that, right? Proves it. But if he was up there with a white woman, there just would have been a lot of people that went, nah, just another one.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So who would. So you think he would have lost votes in the black community?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I think he would have lost votes in the black community. I think there would have been people that would just been like, nah, it's just another one of these guys. What he said. I'm not saying that that's fair or that makes sense or. That's right. Because there are plenty of, like you say, black people, men and women who have been married to white people who have done tremendous things for whatever. That is just a deal. I just think people would. It would have been harder for people to kind of come to that. Right.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I do too.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

But as far as. Who would have. What do you want me to say? You want me to say, like, black ladies?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I thought that's what you were gonna say.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Oh, no, I think it would have been a bunch of people. I think it would have been like, I think Guys like my dad. I think guys like my dad would have been like, I like them. You gotta talk about the white woman, though, you know, which, by the way, is. Is unfair. That's. That is unfair. But I think it would have been different. So. So you say fuck ppd. Fuck him.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, yeah. Like, don't speak on that.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Don't talk about that shit. Fuck you. Pbd.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I just couldn't imagine being like, you said he's Syrian. I couldn't imagine in person, Assyrian.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Assyrian. Assyrian and Armenian.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I couldn't imagine being like, well, because he married this, doesn't that take away from his culture? I just couldn't imagine speaking on somebody else's culture like that. I wouldn't do. So the audacity to think that you could do that for us and tell us how we're supposed to be, as if you know it. Cause you've lived this experience. It's like, fuck off.

[Cori Bush]

I just don't.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That happens all the time. You telling me judging my blackness or telling me what I should do as a black person, as an outsider, as if you. True, you might understand how to oppress black people, but you don't understand what it is to live like a black person. And I just get to. So sick of it. Because I always see it from somebody who's not black. Talking about black people when. We don't do that.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Right? Black people don't do that. I don't think we do it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

We don't.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Do you want to have a conversation real quick? Can I spring something on you? Now this is what I'm going to attempt to do. We don't do this on higher learning. We are going to talk about the SAVE act and voting rights on Monday. Actually, we're going to talk about it with Cori Bush in a second. Cori Bush is going to join us in a second. Second. But I want to get your opinion on something that has been around for a long time, but that is. Is growing. Okay, so new modality of. Not a new modality of thought, but a modality of thought that is growing. Now, two things I must say. The great FD signifier and I have been talking about this. Love FD signifier. If you are listening to me, go and spend a little time listening to FD signifier's video about Tyler Perry.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, it's like four hours long.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Break it up. Okay. Support FD signifier if you care. All right. Support FD signifier. Support Brianna Grayjoy. Support all of the people on the left that are making great Podcasts and pushing you. Even if you know there's things that are in these pods that you guys aren't quite comfortable with, just support them. Okay? All right, now, Donnie, I just sent you a TikTok. What we're going to attempt to do is we're going to play this TikTok, but we are going to continue to have the pod conversation about it. This TikTok is around a theory called Afro pessimism. Are you familiar with?

[Rachel Lindsay]

No.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay, now are you familiar with it?

[Rachel Lindsay]

No.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Are you familiar with it? Bernard? Donnie, are you familiar with it?

[Cori Bush]

No.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I was wondering why you.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Ct, are you familiar with it? Ct, you are white. Okay, all right. Yeah, apologize for that. Ct, you are white. Okay, so this is. This has a lot to do with you. You need to open your ears. All right, so we're going to talk about it and I want you to react real, in real time to some of these ideas because we had a conversation about this a couple of nights ago and boy, oh boy, did it spawn a lot of thought.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Who was it? Was it. Who did the group comprise of? You don't have to tell me who, but like, I just want to know what kind of people?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Me and black women.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, so it was black women. Okay. Okay. That's. I needed to know.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yes. Okay. All right. This is from Nia Ola, whose substack I'm fucking with substack. It's called that deep on subsec at the disabled sexplorer. Is her on Instagram, actually, and then on TikTok. I think it's at Shaking Sheets. Wait a minute, is all the same person? Sure. Listen, here's the deal. Yeah. At shaking sheets on TikTok. Okay, continue to play it.

[Narrator (Afro-pessimism video)]

Orlando Patterson, a black sociologist, is frequently lauded as the godfather of Afro pessimism, namely because of his seminar text, Slavery and the social death. Theory of the social death is what most Afro pessimist constructions have been built around since it's a complex theory, but it's namely making one strong that anyone can be owned, but not everyone will inherit a proprietary class designation. Let's look into that a little bit more. Prior to transatlantic slavery, if we look at all other iterations of enslavement. So that would be ancient Roman and Greek slavery, the Arab slave trade, and even post colonial slavery, what we call in the modern era human trafficking, anyone could be owned. The uniqueness of the transatlantic slave trade, what produced this idea of the social death is that for the first time there were classes of people that could inherit a proprietary class Designation could belong to a group innately excluded from humanity Solely for existing as black. Race was constructed to legitimize the systematic enslavement of African peoples. People who previously, previously were not living amongst each other. Folks belonged to sub ethnic groups and tribes and nations, Diverse cultures, diverse indigenous practices and teachings, diverse religions and traditions. Because colonizers were indiscriminately plucking africans off their shores for enslavement, they couldn't allow them to be in smaller sub ethnic groups that had claims of indigeneity, but rather in a larger subsumed class structure that decided they were all the same in one specific way. Race.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, I'm not a good auditory learner. I'm really trying to focus.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay, so basically, she's talking fast. That there was a uni. The original unifying theory of blackness was for a purpose. Now we have a unifying theory of blackness. And that unifying theory of blackness has to do with cultural solidarity. What we hope are shared values, providing safety for one another, A lot of things that we've invented along the way. But the original unifying theory of blackness, the reason why the indigenousness and the sub ethnic and cultural structures that existed in Africa were destroyed Was because the unifying thing about blackness was that black people were property. So you couldn't have a bunch of people with. With competing or diverse social and cultural understandings of themselves because that makes them human. So if you're in.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So even before slavery.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

No, no.

[Rachel Lindsay]

American slavery. She's saying that we were property just here.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

No, she's saying for the purposes of slavery, all of that was destroyed.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, so we had it before.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

We had it before.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Got you. Okay. Got you.

[Narrator (Afro-pessimism video)]

Afro pessimism reminds us that within the confines of transatlantic slavery, the enslaved population live amongst their oppressors. They are within the core of the people they have been made the enemy of. And the purpose of that isn't just to be in service of them for labor, but to serve as the physical foil as to what your oppressor is not and could never be. Because if they were like you, they too would be property. It is innately extrusive. Living a social life as a black person within the empire and the confines of race in totality. Because you are living the existence as a subhuman person, because you are designated as black. You can never stop being owned when this is the class unifier you possess currently. Which is why I and other afropessimist scholars consider black existence to be that of the walking dead.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

The walking dead that's what black people.

[Narrator (Afro-pessimism video)]

The dream is this very fact that explains to us why other groups have such friction within this racial apparatus that is polarized. If you are not white or black, you are experiencing the friction of proximity or lack of proximity to one of these groups, which you will fight for if the access affords privileges.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Pause. Now, we intuit that. We know that, right? Yeah, we intuit that. Right. Like, so we. We get here. Nobody wants to be a nigger. Like, nobody wants to be particularly this brand of blacks, because this brand of black, that black America, nobody wants to be that in function sometimes in approximation or in cultural appropriation, they want to kind of get closer and they want to be cool, but they don't want to be black. Black equals cool. So sometimes they get close to it, but they don't want to actually have this experience because the further, the furthest away from white that you can get is black.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Correct. And when you say black, it is the way that they define and look at it, not us.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

This is the central tension I feel like, in this because.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Because she's going off of a certain definition of black.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

She's going off Afro passives. Okay.

[Rachel Lindsay]

How does she identify?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So I reached out, like, I have more questions. I saw I was calling people because

[Rachel Lindsay]

she can't identify herself as black. Well, not if she wants to be free.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I have more questions, right? So I called up. I called up Mark Lamont Hill. And me and Mark are talking. And Mark knows when he answers the phone that it's going to be me, like, going, he's all right, cool. I'm like, Afro pessimism. Mark went. And we started having the conversation about it, right? So as Corey is coming on in a little bit, we don't have time to, like, I haven't. I'm going to do a shit ton of reading, right. I've already got the book, books. It's. It's happening, Right. Just because I'm curious now, a lot of the things that are said in this video are things that black, like I said, are things that we know. Right? Right. Or things that, like, literally black people told me in, like old black people told me, like 1987. Yeah. No, like, people are going to push towards being white. Even some immigrant classes that they come here. They come here and the first thing they do is separate from the. Separate from the black people that are here. The. Whatever you want to call it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

But they did it to us on the plantation. They played into this as well.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Who did?

[Rachel Lindsay]

White people.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Right. So. But that's the Point.

[Jasmine Crockett]

Yeah.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, that's what I'm saying. A lot of the stuff she's saying, I've not heard this terminology. I think it is extremely negative, hence Afro pessimism. But I don't. But what she was saying. We know. We know. Other than how she's taking what we know and saying, because of those things, we are the walking dead. The walking dead. We have no idea. Which I would just push back against and say then when we talk about, you know, the wars.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

What wars?

[Rachel Lindsay]

The diocese, the diaspora wars, we always say that. Then why do people imitate or emulate what we do in America as black Americans with music and fashion? If we're the walking dead, if we don't have culture, if we don't have anything that defines us outside of property, then why do we see so many other. I mean, look at K Pop. You know what I'm saying? Like that. I guess that would be my pushback, and I would be curious as to what she'd say to that, because you have so many people doing what we do here.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So this. So I can't. Once again, I. I don't know that I'm capable of getting to the point that the end of this video gets to. I just think that I'm.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What does she get to.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Like, what does she get at the end of it? The video ends with her saying, if you want to be free, like, you cannot be black.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So she. That's why I was asking, what does she identify as?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, whether or not I'm sure. But, like, I think the broader. The broader sort of scope of it. Her, whatever is one thing. The broader scope of it is if you want to be free, you can't be black. If you want to be human, if you want to be a free. If you want to be a human being, you can't be black because the designation of black is to make you subhuman. So this is what I would say to what you just said. A lot of times when we have these conversations, we talk about the way other cultures emulate what it is that we do. Right. And I. I understand that, and I get that. I think the reason why I'm interested in this is because I'm actually looking for something past that I'm looking for. What I mean is, I'm looking for. I'm looking for an understanding of the humanity of black people that exists past what it is that we can make cool. Because that's not working. It's not. It's not like the fact that people want to dance like you, or rap like you, or eat like you. It's not stopping them from killing you. It's not stopping them from taking your housing. It's not stopping it. They murder you while they listening to Tupac. Right. So, like the. So that, that part of it. I appreciate the immense cultural influence that particularly black Americans have on the world. I. I appreciate it. I understand it. I understand that it comes from something that is unique, that is special, that to me comes throughout the skin of our people. But it's not enough. And the older I get, the more I wonder, you know, what. What am I going to be able to do? And I'm not saying that these thoughts are the answers. What am I going to be able to do to affect the reality where a generation past this, a young black man is safe, like a young black woman is safe. What. Is there anything I can do? Or will it be 100 fucking years from now? 100 years from now, and I'm going to be watching videos or, excuse me, I'm going to be dead, or people are going to be watching videos and they're going to be saying we need voting rights to stop police brutality and we need housing. Like, will it be a hundred years? And somebody will be saying that. Because I can tell you one thing. A hundred years ago, that's what they were saying. Like when you. Like when you go. Well, so much, not the police brutality thing, but like, when you go back and you listen to some of the civil rights stuff, some of the speeches, some of the organizing, you hear people talking about the exact same fucking issues.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

And if there is something fundamental that is baked into our culture or our understanding of this world that is sort of we're hitting our heads against, I'm willing to listen because, like, I'm not. I'm willing to listen. I don't know that I can not be black. I think that might be.

[Rachel Lindsay]

This is. This is not the way.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, I don't know. Like.

[Cori Bush]

Right.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I don't know. I don't know what a future generation. I don't know what that would look like. But if there is structure that is baked into. Because I also think. Let me say two things. If there is structure that is baked into our understanding of who we are vis a vis us not creating it. Right. Then we at least need to be able to hear the argument. But I will say, I don't know how something like this, which is why I need to do more work, understand it more, read it more, maybe have her on to speak to her. Just open up my mind to different modalities of thought. I don't know how something like this doesn't erode solidarity. My question is, if I'm not black, then how does that. What does that mean for how I feel and relate and communicate with my people? Because what would be the reason why I would do that?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Especially that whole thing is anti black. And I don't understand and listen. I listen to eight minutes of it. I have not read the books. I'm not motivated to want to read the books. Because I think that there's so much that's flawed in what I just heard. One, we said we already understand these things, but she's getting us to look through it. Through the vents of you, through the lens of you are not human. The issues that I have and what she's saying is one, it's as if she's talking to black people and she's telling black people, you have to separate yourself from being black in order to be free, in order to step out of the view of being property. Well, what are you telling white people? Because at the end of the day, okay, I say I'm not black. Cause I reject what has been placed on me. The moment that, you know, I came into this country, white people are still gonna look at me as a black person.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I'm not gonna stop being white.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So what the fuck are we talking about? This is why I'm like. The books may say more, but if. Until you get white people to start looking at us differently, if. If to your point, if we're. We have to break solidarity in order to move towards this and almost be anti everything that we know that we feel. Because when we talk about what does being black mean to you, we talk about it being a feeling. You're asking us to reject all that and to go to something that's foreign to us in order to assimilate, well, then that takes away who we are as people, our blackness, which is what gives us such pride and joy. But then we're telling white people we want to be like you and we reject who we are. But then they still see us as black. It's still a form of control. So I'm not understanding how this is effective in any kind of way. It's definitely pessimistic. It sure is negative. But I don't understand how this frees us of anything other than our blackness, which isn't that what white people want us to do anyway? And to your point, how it's really sad as you're talking about 100 years from now, if people are still arguing the same thing as we sit here and we started this podcast talking about the death of Jesse Jackson, because I said it. I said he spent 60 years fighting for civil rights, and 40 years ago, a presidential campaign that is literally still fighting for the same things that we are today. How frustrated and sad he must have been to see that things feel like they're getting worse or they're exactly the same as when he was fighting before. And I don't see this as being the answer to solve that. I'm sure Donald Trump would love for black people to start being like, we are not black. We free ourselves from that. But the white people are still claiming themselves as white. They're still holding onto that identity.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So I agree with what I feel like just on its face. Cause once again, haven't done the work would be sort of the limit here. And the limit would be like, you know, we can't change that construction of ourselves alone. I will point out one thing that you said, though. There is just no way, and I don't know what the answer is. There is no way that black people, black Americans or black people worldwide can ever believe that. Appealing to white people. I'm not saying that you said this.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I get it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

That appealing to white people. People. We're not going to be able to make enough beautiful music to make them respect humanity. We're not going to be able to write enough beautiful poems. We're not going to politic our way out of it. We're not going to. As far as an understanding that you are a being is interesting coming from a whole movement where the actual saying was black lives matter. Well, the question would be, why would they not matter? Like, why would they not matter? Why would it be okay. Why would it be culturally acceptable to just kill a black person with no sort of repercussion? Sure, because you're not killing a human being.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Correct.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Right. So, like, if. If our identity is limiting or if our sense of identity is limiting, I'm willing to listen to the argument. For me report back. Yeah. For me, right now, the most important thing about black people is shared safety. Which is why when somebody doesn't endeavor into that, it fucks with me. So much shared safety. What does black mean? It has nothing to do with white people. For me, it has to do with our ability to maintain solidarity together. Because to me, what black means is that we view each other as human. Like, we look at each other as human. Like it fuck how white people look at it. We look at each other and come together in solidarity and community and safety and cooperation. Because our definition of ourself to me

[Rachel Lindsay]

is paramount, however, and I think there's power in that.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I agree. But if we're running up against something that is, like, impossible or it can't work, I'm at least curious about the origins of it and all of that stuff. Interesting, but I'm telling you, interesting. But I'll tell you something, boy, did that piss people off because the. The young bucks are into shit like this. You know, they're into, like, whatever. But, boy, like, I. I couldn't imagine walking in and Terry telling Van Lathan senior that, like, I was. I was past being black because being black ain't human. He'd have been like, look, okay, we'll take your subhuman ass out there and go feed them horses. Honestly, no human because you black. Your grandfather was a human. He built that mother, you know, saying. Anyway. But I want to. Would you be into having her on?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Sure. I mean, not. Then I'll have to. No, no, no, no. It is an interesting conversation. I don't want this. I want to shut it down. If it's what I think it is. If it's what I think it is. I think this is very problematic. And I think. I think. I'm not gonna say all white people, but, like, Maga would love this.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I don't think they would. I think. I think that the idea that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, them holding us to being black is more.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I think that the structures that allow people. Look, we're getting into a whole shout out to Kamel. Remember Kamel said this?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, you know, I was thinking of him.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah. I think we're getting into a. If the goal of this is to assert yourself of. The goal of Afro pessimism is to assert yourself as first and foremost a living human being that has agency, rights beyond property. I think that would be deeply, deeply troubling to Maga. I think part of what, even the way Donald Trump talks to black people is that he is the person that can best take care of them. And one thing that we don't, that sometimes is hard for us to contend with when we're dealing with white people is white people don't. When we say make more tables or sit at a table and stuff like that, they really don't think you belong in the table. They think that they make tables for you and then they dictate how you sit at them. They take care of you. They are your masters. You will be better off if your masters are More amenable to the things that you say. You will be better off with better masters. You won't be better off being the master of yourself. Like what you are. Normally what you are choosing is the person that is going to do you the least amount of harm, not the person that views you as the most sentient. That, to me, that's unassailable. That's how they look at it. That is the central operating theory of

[Rachel Lindsay]

white supremacy, and it is of white supremacy. But if your way to combat that is to deny your blackness, that's where I think that's where you lose me.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I think a lot of people are not going to be into hearing that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, I believe in the mindset and what we need to do and the togetherness and all of that. And I believe in what you said and in defining what white supremacy is. But if the way to do that is to define blackness, then we. Then that ain't it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Let me give you a.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That ain't it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Let me give you a. A crude analogy.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Mm,

[Van Lathan Jr.]

this is crude.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Uh huh.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay. This is crude. The crude analogy. All right. This is just me playing black devil's advocate. All right? Black devil's advice. Advocate. It's a crude analogy. If you yourself are a hoe, you call yourself a hoe, but you say hoe doesn't mean what it traditionally means. Traditionally means it's different. It's something completely different. You call yourself a hoe, you are a hoe. Like hoe is whatever it is, you know?

[Cori Bush]

You know, that's all.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Cause I'm a hoe. You know I'm a hoe.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay. It would be. You could have that conversation with other hoes. You could have that conversation with other people who call themselves hoes. Do you know who. You could never have the conversation about what hoe means with a pimp.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, oh, oh, oh. Nice.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

You could never, ever, ever look at a pimp and say, hey, I'm a hoe. But this is the type of hoe that I am. The minute the pimp hears hoe, I own you. That's what it is. And so what it is is you have to. If. Now, if you come to the pimp and you call yourself something different and you have a different set of thoughts and beliefs about yourself, you might make them. But the moment that you identify yourself as the theme that they deem you as that they own you gonna shut they brains off to who you actually are, because they're gonna be like, I know what you are. You work for me. I invented you. This is the thing. I turned you into a hoe. So of course you're a hoe.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Like. And not only are you a hoe, your daughters are hoes, your sons are hoes, your grandparents were hoes before you, even if they didn't know it. Your grandchildren will be hoes. It just will be a different conversation, a difficult conversation to have with the pimp.

[Cori Bush]

You're right.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It's a fantastic analogy and it lets me know that you've been watching Joe's college road trip.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I did watch Joe's college road trip. All right, guys. We are appreciative, blessed and appreciative to have Cori Bush joining us today on Higher Learning. How are you, Corey? How are things going?

[Cori Bush]

Look, I'm great. I'm better than I thought that I would be, you know, at this time in, you know, trying to run again for this, for the seat that I'm running for. I am amazing, actually.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Love that.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Now you are running against Wesley bell in Missouri's 1st congressional district. Am I right about that? You are running against.

[Cori Bush]

Yes, you are correct.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

In Missouri's first Congressional District.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's the only. After this redistricting, will that be the only Democratic. Yes. Okay. Okay.

[Cori Bush]

That'd be the only damn. Only damn seat for Missouri in Congress.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay. Now Wesley Bell's a black guy. Okay. So people that are looking at this race like black people that are looking at this race from a bird's eye view, they see black Democrat running against black Democrat, and they would go, what are the differences between these two candidates that are running? If I was posing that question to you, Cory Bush, what would your answer be?

[Cori Bush]

My answer would first start with the fact that I was the incumbent in the seat and I was challenged by this person after already bringing $2 billion to the district, after being the first black person to carry the Equal Rights Amendment legislation In, in its 100 year history, even though Shirley Chisholm worked on it, she never was able to be the sponsor. I was the sponsor. I was able to introduce historic reparations legislation. I worked on houselessness and so many other areas where I was, that I was able to champion and, and I spoke up for, I spoke up for the people of Gaza. I spoke against the genocide, but I've always spoken up for the people of Gaza. But in this moment, because I was also someone who spoke out against Project 2025. I saw spoke out against Donald Trump and the administration from even before I ever entered Congress. You know, people were, I had already pissed off. So Many people. So the, one of the differences between us, I'll say, is leadership. You know, I champion issues. I work hard on issues. I dig in. I put my reputation on the line for my people, for the people of St. Louis. I don't care about a name or a title. I care about people getting their needs met. And so I'll lead on the issues. I'll. I'll run to the front and push for the issues. He'll just participate.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Why did he primary you?

[Cori Bush]

What'd you say?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Why? Why did he. Why? I know the answer to this question. Why did, like, why did he primary you? Why did that. So why did he run against you in the first place? To if. If once again, black Democrat versus Black Democrat. He was running for a state Senate seat. He then changed and decided he was going to get into the race against you. Why did that happen?

[Cori Bush]

So he was running against Josh Hawley in Missouri for the, for the Senate seat and called Josh Hawley the like, to paraphrase him, the greatest threat to, to democracy. But what people in the, in our community have said is that it was, that wasn't true. He wasn't actually running against Josh Hawley. It was just a way for him to raise money quickly. But he was actually running against me. So. But when, when, you know, when I introduced the Ceasefire now legislation, the Ceasefire now resolution in the Congress in order to stop a grand invasion of Rafa in Gaza, like, all of a sudden there was this onslaught of attacks and he came out and said that he was running against me because, you know, he needed to stand 100% with Israel.

[Rachel Lindsay]

We're talking about Wesley Bell. We know that he received, like, outside spending and support from pro Israel groups, and that played a major role in the last race. How are you preparing for that dynamic in this rematch? And then what did you learn from the last race that maybe shaped how you're campaigning or maybe not campaigning differently this time?

[Cori Bush]

Yeah. So we know that money is, is being filtered in. It's being filtered in already. We just saw what $2 million filtered into it, like to a candidate in New Jersey, 11, just recently from AIPAC or the, or the affiliates. And so we know that that money is there and that more money is coming. We also know, though, that we don't have to outraise the person, outraise, you know, my opponent. We don't have to match dollar for dollar. We need to be able to organize enough, we need to be able to be on television enough, get the message out. But one thing that's different this time. And thank you for asking that. One thing that's different this time is two years ago, or, you know.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah.

[Cori Bush]

Two years ago, people weren't really making the connection between aipac, this amount of spending and then spending in races, especially black races with black Democrats. Now people see it, now people know it's all over and people are pissed off about it. So. So we don't have to match a dollar for dollar. We just have to have the. Or we just have to have what we need to be able to organize. So that's something that we've already started. We. We started earlier this time. Last time I was working hard on the ceasefire and just doing a lot of work there. And I also had this, you know, just all of these things, you know, that the Republicans were throwing at me at one time. I don't have all of that right now. So we are able to focus on this race to be on the ground. One thing that was, that was different last time is I had to be in Congress, you know, so I was away from the district a lot. But not only that, we were championing so many issues that, you know, we weren't just existing in Congress, we were really working hard. So I was away a lot. This time I'm at home, I'm on the ground. I'm with the people and the people are with me.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Last question. I'll ask you about the past. How much money was spent against you in 24?

[Cori Bush]

$15 million.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, my gosh.

[Cori Bush]

15 million. When this race usually cost about one to two million dollars.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay. All right. Okay. So let's move into the future we, like you just said, or to the present and the future. We are in a different situation with people's opinions on not only what the genocide in Gaza, but people's distaste roundly, basically with the state of the economy, with ice, with a lot of the politics, health care. Health care. The current Republican Party.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

What do you see your candidacy and your message to people being about right now?

[Cori Bush]

So bring it, like local to my district. I understand the national side that people want to hear, but when we're talking about my district, I'm so St. Louis, and that's where I start.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Nelly.

[Cori Bush]

Yeah, absolutely. Nellie Murphy, Lee Kiwan, you want. So St. Louis is still reeling from the effects of a devastating tornado that hit us last May. And it hit through the. Who thinks of a tornado coming through the inner city, but that's what happened to us. And so our communities were already, you know, just already under resourced, you know, and struggling in a lot of ways. And those people, so many of those folks lost their homes, didn't have insurance on those homes. And, you know, people are living in tents, people living in hotels almost a year later. So first, how we manage disaster response, getting those funds from fema, pushing fema, pushing the president. Like that has to be. Somebody has to be willing to, to, to fight for funding for our communities also, you know, so. So many businesses lost. So how are we making these small businesses whole, that we're there for the community, so rebuilding back that way. We struggle with food deserts. When we have communities who have to. Where you have to go 15 to 30 minutes out to try to just buy groceries, that is a problem. So everybody talks about affordability now. We weren't necessarily calling it that a few years back. We've been talking about the economic injustice in our communities. My community is the black plurality. And we've been talking about those issues, the disparities, for such a long time. But it's been exacerbated by the devastation coming down from the Trump administration when we know over 300,000 black women lost their jobs over the last year. And the second biggest group is black men. That has hit our community, a community that already still was trying to rebuild from COVID you know, years ago, just like so many other communities. So that's where. So my work is there. But also the gerrymandering that happened that you brought up, that happened in our. In, in our state, just for Donald Trump to be able to say, I need. I need another seat. I need a Republican seat. And then the Republicans move to make that happen, like in, you know, like in an instant. So what does that do, that voter suppression, who does it hit? It hits our community so hard. So those are the things that I'm working on, just like right in the here and now.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I really love that you spoke to the local issues and what's at home, because I think that we see criticism with politicians, and maybe you've received some of this criticism before, too, of that. But sometimes politicians are more focused on things on a national level than they are locally in their district. So I love hearing you talk in particular about things from where you are from which we know, like as. As an activist, the activist you are. You are boots on the ground. What do you. What would you say, maybe to, I guess, what misconceptions do you think that voters or maybe people have of you and maybe particularly when it comes to being progressive.

[Cori Bush]

Yeah. Thank you. So I remember when I first started running people Were like, oh, but you're the activist. Like, you're the Ferguson protestor. You can't govern, you can't lead. You just want to go disrupt. The thing about it is, as activists, we do actions, we show up, we protest because there is a need to. That's just a part of the fight. So what? And someone said to me, well, we need you this time. Don't be the fighter. Like, you know, be soft. And I'm like, I'll be soft with my husband for my community. No, I'm going to be hard because what's coming at us, this, this train coming to hit our communities, that is something that we have to fight now. So people, people have like misjudged my desire to see change. Now that, you know that, that, that fierce urgency that I have now for just wanting to be like a quote, unquote rabble rouser. No, I know what it's like. See, that's the part that people miss. I've been unhoused living in my car with my two babies, hoping that they didn't die in the middle of the night because I, the temperature dropped so low, you know, and I couldn't keep the car running with the heat on. I know what it's like to only feed my kids and not feed myself for a couple of days at a time because we were just so hungry we didn't have food. I know what that's like. I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of gunshots being, you know, coming my way from a domestic abuser. I've been choked out and left for dead, you know, at his hands. I know what it's like to be un, to be uninsured and need medical care. Went through Covid uninsured, in and out of, of the hospital. So I've been in so many of the different areas that in, in the struggles that people in our communities face every single day. And I'm not willing to sit back and allow. I don't care if you call me undignified. I don't care if you, you know, you call me whatever you can call me. But what you won't be able to say is I wasn't effective, that I didn't, that there was no impact. So you, you use your words, I'll use my actions to bring about change.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Now, part of your policy priorities here is something that I actually didn't have as much experience with when even, you know, continue to continue to advocate for utilities to be recognized as a human right to make Utilities remain accessible and affordable. I introduced utilities as a human right resolution. This legislation positions water, electricity, heating, cooling, broadband and transit as basic human rights that should be treated as such. What happens if we treat utilities as basic human rights? Does this mean all of these are provided as a public service for low cost or for free, which includes access to the Internet? Give people your vision on that.

[Cori Bush]

Yes. You know, when we have to make the decision whether we are going to allow our community members to freeze in the winter or you know, suffer from heat exhaustion in the summer and hopefully neither one die, neither time people die, that's on us as a, that's on us as a society. We don't ask for our bodies to, you know, to get too hot or to get too cold. We didn't ask for that the same way that we don't. We didn't ask to have, you know, a headache or whatever it is. We deserve health care, we deserve our youth, we deserve to have our utilities. And so, yes, so having having low cost utilities that don't change, that aren't able to be, you know, that where a company can't make the decision that we need more money, that we need that, you know, for purposes of greed, for purposes of their stakeholders, to be able to make that. This person who lives in this home with this high ceiling, I remember at one point I, I lived in a home with really high ceilings and I think I was paying about $900 a month for rent. I had to get on budget billing for my gas bill. My gas bill on the budget billing, which means it's every single month, it's the same amount. It's not different, you know, in different parts of the year. It was eighteen hundred dollars a month just for the gas bill. I couldn't afford. There's no way I could afford that. And so why do people have to suffer in that way? So, yes, public, there should be public utilities to where that those utilities don't change based upon the greed of the company. Also, transit, when we see, we see bus stops being shut down in certain, in communities, we have people that have to walk long ways just to get to public transit to be able to get to work, to the clinic or wherever they're going, that's on us as a community. We should be making sure that people have access to get to where they need to go. We're not making any, it's not making anybody rich and it's not taking anything away from somebody else. This is just making sure that we provide decency to members of our Community.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Having experienced Congress from the inside and then now campaigning from the outside and watching it from the outside during this Trump era, I can only imagine how frustrating that has been for you. If you were currently in office, what would be your top legislative or oversight priority?

[Cori Bush]

So what I think that I would be doing is looking at what is. So Project 2025 is like about 51% complete is at least that's what the, the project Track, the Project 2025 tracker is saying, about 51% complete. So what's next? So we, we weren't able to stop the things that have already happened, but what can we stop? What can we, what areas can we dig into? Who can we pull? We should be working with. And I'm not saying folks aren't, but I'm talking about what I would be doing, working with grassroots organizations around the country. These folks have been digging in some of this work for decades. They should be at the forefront, working with attorneys, working with different advocates to be able to stop what we know is coming. Some of the things that are happening is too late to try to hold those things up. But some of the things that are coming, that's what we should be working on. So that also I would be fighting, you know, fighting what's happening with ice. You know, we, you know, I am a. I am abolished ICE person. I've been saying abolish ICE for years. This is not new. I didn't jump on the bandwagon just because now it's a little more popular. We've been saying abolish ICE for years. That, that is an area because, because we have to look at not just what's happening right now. Some people say, well, it doesn't affect me. It doesn't impact me. Oh, yes, it does. Why are they building, trying to build so many detention centers? Like, if we're, if people are being deported, why do we need so many detention centers being built all over the country? What is, what is the end goal with this? When we look at what's happening with Haitians, we look at what's happening with Somalis, do we think that that is, that that's just going to stop with? It's just going to stop.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No.

[Cori Bush]

So we're not going to give the blueprint. So those would be some of the areas that I would be pushing back on and the Epstein files? Absolutely. I want to applaud Summerlee for the work that she's done in the Oversight committee. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie and so many others that are really pushing hard The Epstein files. I'm a survivor of domestic violence and assault myself. And, you know, the way I look at it is there is only one person that is the representative from that district in the Congress. It's only one person representing 750,000 people. So if you won't do the work, somebody else should be. And so for me, that would be the thing. What is it that I can do in this seat that I couldn't do, would impact what impact would not be there if I'm, you know, not in the seat. So correct me if.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Correct me if I'm wrong. Wesley Bell kind of said something positive about ICE, right?

[Cori Bush]

Yeah. He was one of the 75 Democrats who thanked ICE. Thanked him and they thanked ICE. I think the part people forget is when they thanked ice, when ICE was brutalizing people all over LA back in the summer.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Tough. I want to ask, before I get to asking your question about voter id, I want to ask you this. We saw you lose your seat. We saw Jamal lose his seat.

[Cori Bush]

Yes.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Saw a direct attack on the squad, on particular set of progressive policies that existed in the Democratic Party. Thing is, I didn't see a lot of pushback from the center. The power of the Democratic Party.

[Cori Bush]

Yes.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Do they support you guys? Is there an understanding of the priority as people's views of this stuff, the populace, this. The populism that we're starting to see continuously has to do with. With, you know, basic human rights, Medicare, ice, Medicaid for all, should I say ice, all of this stuff. There still seems to be a great deal of hesitation from the power brokers in the party to embrace this populism, to embrace where the base is on a lot of these issues. How do you overcome that, you know,

[Cori Bush]

for us, because we don't take corporate PAC money because we are not funded by big pharma, big real estate, big oil, the war profiteers, you know, and now ICE contractors, because those are not our people. There is this disconnect. There is this, you know, there is this split that shows up sometimes within our party and it looks like, oh, those folks over there that don't take corporate PAC money that, you know, it's almost like we are beneath, you know, we're treated sometimes like we are beneath the rest of the party, when in fact, what we're saying is we don't want to be hypocrites for our own people, for our community, saying that we're fighting for your human rights and your civil rights. But I'm taking money from the people that's coming against them. You know, so. So us wanting to hold our party as accountable as we're holding ourselves should not be something that brings about, like, this physical reaction in some folks in our party to where they get. They get pissed off with us. But that's a. It's a very real thing. How we overcome it is we just have to get the big money out of politics. At the end of the day, we have to overturn Citizens United. It has to happen. And because we haven't seen enough. Enough. We don't have enough people right now really pushing for that. What we have seen is in certain states, in certain communities that they have been able to come up with ways to be able to go about making their elections a lot more fair. But when lobbyists can come in and tell you, you know, hey, this is how I need you to vote because we gave you X amount of dollars, that is not democracy, and that is not being accountable to the people you represent. That's being accountable to the people who donate to you.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Do you think that it's. I mean, maybe it's mainly the money is what you're saying, but do you think that it's just. Or do you think that also there is this loyalty to tradition or the establishment or what the Democratic Party is supposed to be that causes maybe, at least my opinion, the establishment to be a little bit more hostile to incumbents. Progressive incumbents, I should say.

[Cori Bush]

Yeah. Yeah. I think there, yeah, there is this thing of loyalty. Of loyalty to. And I think it is. Is more loyalty to those who have the seniority, Those who are the ones that have been there the longest you've been there. You've, you know, you. You have the title, or you're the. Or you're the darling for the title. You're the one that they're going to anoint or have anointed. It's the loyalty to those folks that, That I will say, yes, the one. One. Because. Because one thing that is hard is sometimes we would see the Republican Party not based leadership decisions or put people into position based upon their seniority, based upon how long they've been there. But the Democratic Party would, you know, it would. You would hear, wait your turn. But this person is great in this particular thing. Like, this is their area of expertise and this other person that is not their area of expertise. It's just they've been here long. We should be putting our people in place where they excel. Like, we have great communicators in the Congress. They should be the ones delivering the messages we have constitutional lawyers. They should be the ones helping to work on Project 2025, and they should be on the forefront speaking about that. We have folks who are great on social media and let them be the ones that are doing the message there. And we have ones that are the flamethrowers. Let them throw the flames when it's time. You know, that's how we should. That's how the party should be operating. And we're just not. We're not seeing that it's the same people over and over and over again. Well, it's my turn. Well, no, it's the people's turn.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Why is it like that?

[Cori Bush]

Because we allow. It's like that because we allow it. Well, and also it's because people who feel they've been there a long time, they feel that they have been patient and they have waited, which I understand. They waited for the people in front of them. And so they're like, okay, finally it's me because I did my job waiting. And I get that. I understand that that can be a hard thing. So I get that. But

[Van Lathan Jr.]

what about us?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, right, Exactly.

[Cori Bush]

This that is happening is hurting the people. How? If you can't mitigate, if you can't stop the harm, you have to mitigate it, and you can't be the one in the way. We as a caucus, we as a Democratic Party, cannot be the ones in the way of the progress for our own people. It can't be about us. It has to be about them. And when it becomes about you, you're in the wrong spot.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah, for sure. All right, I'm gonna say something to you, and I want you to respond with an honest assessment of what you feel like your political views on this particular issue are. People say the Democrats are against voter id. They don't want voter id. People say that. Republicans say we want everyone to prove who they are and so they can vote, which seems like something that people can easily glom onto. And the Republicans say. The mag. Republicans say Democrats don't want voter id, so there can be mass voter fraud. And the people go out vote who are undocumented, vote 50 times, vote in different states, all kinds of stuff. What is the actuality on the issue of voter ID from your perspective and from the perspective of people who you share political values with?

[Cori Bush]

Yeah. And so I'll first say that there is no evidence of mass voter fraud. And so that is another boogeyman from the Republicans. They have all of these. What they do is they try to scare their constituents into Doing what they want into some type of submission and loyalty. No, voter ID is the restrictions that come about because of voter ID stop people from being able to vote, what they want to do. Now, if you have to have a passport to be able to vote, how many millions of people right now don't have a passport? How long does it take? When I was in Congress, we were trying to push through. People were waiting six months to get their passport. After going through the process, after paying, they were still waiting six months to get the passport. So when we say people have to have a passport, you have to, you know, all of these things.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Your.

[Cori Bush]

Your driver's license isn't good enough. You have to, you know, the real ID isn't good enough. When. When we understand that we have people who. We have people who are unhoused. I've worked with so many who are unhoused that wanted to vote, couldn't find a place to vote. They had to have an address. How do you make sure that people who want to vote are able to access what's needed to be able to vote? Are the Republicans going to make passports free? Are they going to add to the workforce to make sure that those are able to be processed within a few days? And then when we talk about the voter id, if you have to put forth money to be able to vote, that becomes a poll tax. You know, how are you, you know, who are you trying to stop? Who are you trying to hurt? But one thing that I did see, and I have to look into this a little bit more, that the largest number of people who don't have some of these things, that would be what the Republicans will call for, to be able to. To. To, you know, to vote with the. With new voter IDs law, ID laws, it would hit the south really hard. Yeah.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, that's what. Oh, sorry.

[Cori Bush]

Yeah, I was gonna say.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's what I was gonna ask you is I was like, help me if I'm misunderstanding this, but when you look at the statistics of, I guess, lower socioeconomic, you know, American citizens, it does affect the South. And then they're also saying women who are married, who have changed their last names, who maybe not have done the paperwork, a lot of that is from the south, too. So I was like, I'm not actually understanding why they're pushing for. I. But are they not also seeing how this affects a big part of their base as well?

[Cori Bush]

You know what? They've been throwing their base up under the bus, up under the table ever since Trump. Ever since Trump was elected. You know, we, we're only going to go after, you know, criminals. You know, we're only going to go after criminals. ICE is only going to go after criminals. And no, they're not. You know, we, you know, they were going to. We're going to bring down the price of eggs. No, they didn't, you know, all of this. So they have been backtracking on the things that they've, the promises they've made to their own base. So I don't even think, I just think that they have an agenda and they don't care who gets pummeled in the, you know, in the midst of it, especially because I feel they believe that no matter what, that their base is going to stay there, that their base is going to be loyal and they're just going to, they just want to hurt everyone else. And they, let's be real. So many, there are some Republicans who have publicly said they do not want women to vote. They do not want women to be able to vote. There has to be one vote from the household. We are not going back to that. We're not going back to that. I'm keeping my vote. My daughter is going to have her, my daughters are going to have their votes. My mom has her vote. And right now, my birth certificate does not have my married name on it. I served people when I was in Congress who we had to fight to try to get birth certificates for them, who grew up in the south, who were children in the south, who, you know, who moved further north, whose birth certificate had the wrong name, whose birth certificate was the X. There was no name on it because of, you know, so there are so many issues and so many barriers to this motor id, you know, crisis, really, that we're having.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Right. Let me ask you this. Okay? So when is the, the, the primary, Corey? Like, when, when does it begin?

[Cori Bush]

The primary is August 4th this year.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

August 4th this year. How are things looking? Like, like, it's, I, I, they guys never, they never, like, when I ask, how are things looking? How are things looking? How's the momentum? How is the fundraising? How are things going right now for you to take the seat back?

[Cori Bush]

Things are looking really good. If you would have, if you would have asked me this before I decided to run, like, if you would have asked me this a year ago, I would have questioned what it would look like because I thought it was going to be this uphill battle. I thought it was going to be really tough because it was tough, really tough last time. It's not like that at all. People are like, we're so glad you're running. People that didn't support me last time that said, oh, I was listening to the ad saying that you were, you know, that you were, you know, anti Joe Biden or the ads that said you wanted children to drink contaminated water from lead pipes. And I was listening to those things. Now I know that those things were false. So people are coming back saying, you know, corey, we're with you. The momentum is with us on the ground. We outraised in the last quarter. We outraised the incumbent and. And most of our money. I think, like, 83% of our money was through, like, grassroots donors. I think he was, like, in the. Like, I don't even know if he hit 10%. I think it was more like 2 or 3% of his money was. So we outraised him. And he took money from corporate PACs. He took money from these organizations. I mean, these companies that are known for or have been sued for contaminating, you know, land and contaminating water, and. But then we'll stand in our community and say, I support those who are victims of exposure to radioactive waste. He's taking money from, you know, from all of these companies that are harming the same people that he claims he wants to represent. And people see it, and I don't know if you all saw it, but let me say this. He did a town hall back in August.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Got his ass torn up.

[Cori Bush]

My goodness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then. And then some of his own constituents were brutalized by his own security. And he never apologized. He never said anything. He never stepped in to help.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So I got one last question. Explain to me the toasted ravioli thing. Okay, so listen. Shout out to all my people in St. Louis. You know, Shout out to all of my people. You know, I go to St. Louis. I travel around the country. When I travel out around the country, I get into the food of the area, and it's always interesting. You go to Chicago. You go, like, what should I eat? And then Chicago has, like, factions. They have chicken factions. This is real thing. There's chicken factions in Chicago. There's Uncle Remus chicken. There's Harold chicken. The Harold's chicken. There's. There's, like. There's Chicago chicken wars. Okay? So you go to different places. You go to Philly. They got cheesesteak factions. They got sandwich gangs in Philly, People that are oriented around the sandwich van. You got to go here, you got to go there. You got to go there. And they get very upset when you don't eat the sandwich that you've been directed to eat in St. Louis. There seems to be an understanding that the toasted ravioli is the thing that you have to try. Okay, one of. One of. It's one of. Okay, it's one of. It's one of. It's one of. Okay, yeah, give me some. Cause you take the ravioli and you fry it. You fry the ravioli. You fry the ravioli and then you eat the ravioli.

[Cori Bush]

Yes. It's meat on the inside, though. It's not cheese. It's meat on the inside. You fry the ravioli and it's like oregano and parmesan cheese on it, and you dip it in marinara sauce.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay. And that's the food of St. Louis, is what you're saying.

[Cori Bush]

It's one of them.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay, what's the other? What's the other foods of St. Louis? I want you to advocate for more. This is a big deal, Corey. Advocate for more than just the toasted ravioli. Okay? Tell. Give us something else.

[Cori Bush]

Oh, yeah, I have whole tik toks on my food, my food situation in St. Louis. So another St. Louis thing is our Chinese food.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

St. Louis. Chinese food.

[Cori Bush]

St Louis. Chinese food is the best.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Best. Okay.

[Cori Bush]

Yeah, absolutely. You. You come to St. Louis, get you some duck fried rice.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay, that sounds good.

[Cori Bush]

Get you some crab rangoon, get you some wings. And you gotta get a St. Paul.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

What's the St. Paul?

[Cori Bush]

A St. Paul is a sandwich. It's egg foo young. It's the, you know, it's the patty with, you know, you just gotta deal with it. It's onion, it's tomato. Some of them put a little lettuce maybe, but it's white bread.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay, let me look this up real quick. St. Paul sandwich.

[Cori Bush]

St. Paul sandwich. It is the best. And you just. The smell will make you want it. It is amazing.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm a picky eater.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Cory, this is tough.

[Cori Bush]

You gotta try it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Cory, this is tough, okay?

[Cori Bush]

And it could. And you get chicken. You get it with chicken, and chicken will be in it. Or shrimp or, you know, whatever meat you want.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Looking at this right now, Corey. Corey, I'm gonna come out there, I'm gonna try this sandwich. Yes, but this looks tough, Corey. Just from the outside looking in, this looks tough.

[Cori Bush]

Okay, Just wait till you try it, though. Wait till you try it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay.

[Cori Bush]

Yeah, you gotta try it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So outside of the ravioli, you got the sandwich, you got Chinese food, which I didn't know that that was a thing. In St. Louis. Okay.

[Cori Bush]

Yes.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

And those are the things that you're. That. That you're advocating for. Because this is gonna be a big deal. It's gonna be a lot of people.

[Cori Bush]

Yeah, it's a big deal. We do emo's pizza, which is a. Which is a. It's a flat. It's a square piece of flat. So emo's. Everybody does emo's pizza. You know, at least that's the St. Louis thing. And then also, we're a big barbecue place.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

That's true.

[Cori Bush]

Like, St. Louis barbecue is a thing. And so I'm. I'm big on ribs, right? So ribs and rib tips and pork steaks. Pork steaks is a St. Louis thing. Pork steak.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You got me this big. Oh, I got it. I gotta go. I gotta go. Last thing I'll say. We talked about Nelly at the beginning. When you win, have Nelly perform at your celebration event. Cause he's gotta redeem himself from being at that Liberty Ball. Okay. Bring it back home.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Are you still. Are you, like. Are you still rocking with Nelly? Are you still rocking with Nelly even though he did that? Like you were representing St. Louis? How did you feel when you saw St. Louis, very own Nelly perform for Donald Trump? What did you think?

[Cori Bush]

You know, I had feelings. I did. I had feelings. But I'll say this. I heard something that he said, and it made me think, you know, for him, at least. What I heard was that he felt like, I gotta pay, take care of my family right now. Like, he had just had a kid. He had a new wife. I'm trying to take care of my family. And so, you know, to each his own with that. And I know that we have canceled people for doing that. I just. It's a little hard. I got different feelings because, you know, Nellie and the St. Lunatics have. Have been there for the community in so many different ways. And so, like, I just think as a community, we have to figure out what that looks like. And I would love to have that conversation with Nellie about it, but, you know, the. The St. Lunatics, hands down, are always. You know, they are true St. Louis. And they have been, like, Corey supporters. And so I appreciate it, because when nobody else will pay me any attention, like, the Saint Lunatics care, you know, Ali, Kiwan, Murphy Lee, they would be right there with me. They didn't care what other people were saying. So we got to deal with that as a community.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Well, this would be a start. This would be the start.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

That's funny. When nobody else cared the same Lunatics cared.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I like it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

That's a good slogan. So we're gonna come down here and eat this, this egg sandwich, I guess. All right, Cori Bush. The primary is in August. Early voting begins when.

[Cori Bush]

Okay, early voting is a little different. They're still making changes with the early voting because of the gerry. Because of the gerrymander. So I'm not really sure about what that's going to look like just yet. We don't even know what our maps look like right now. We just know we have a, A, a date for the election.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay. Thank you so much for joining us on Higher Learning. Continue to advocate for people and hope hopefully we can shift some power around and get people their basic human rights and help them ascend in America. We appreciate your voice. We appreciate your work. Thank you. Cory Bush.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Thank you.

[Cori Bush]

Thanks for having me.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Wow, the, the St. Paul sandwich, huh? I'm looking at it.

[Cori Bush]

Yeah. Try it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I'm gonna try it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You know, I'm picky. I'm picky. That pork steak. I'm down.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

She eats a pussy. Pork based.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I have a pork based diet, is what he says.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Everything's around pork. It's a simple pork.

[Cori Bush]

It's this big.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm down.

[Cori Bush]

Thank you.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Thank you so much.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Wow. Okay.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, my God. As soon as I said it, I was like, oh, gosh. In front of, in me, front of, front of a congresswoman, Bernard doesn't help. Bernard starts laughing. Tough.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Like y'. All. Whoa. Oh, wow. That's not what we asked for. Okay. We didn't ask what you were capable of. Tough.

[Cori Bush]

I've done.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Wow.

[Cori Bush]

I've done.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm done.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Break that out. No, like, break that out. That's a tough. Tough, tough, tough, tough, tough. Just so we know, we, we touch. Touched on a little bit. Just so you guys know, a little messaging here, like Corey said, voter ID is not an issue on one side of the aisle. There's no one who is advocating for you not having to prove who you are to vote. That is not true.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Right, right, right.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

The question that a lot of people are asking is what is the range of acceptable ways for you to prove who you are at the polls? There are two different frames of thought. One is a really restrictive way, right. That prioritizes certain proofs of citizenship, passports, birth certificates, things like that. That to me, is voter suppression. Right. There are other people who believe that there are all types of different ways that you should have to prove that. You should be able to prove that you are who you say you are. So that you can vote every state, country, city. You have to prove who you are to vote.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Right, Right, right, right.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

What is like if you're talking about utility bills, Driver's license, school IDs, liberty cards, name, address, Dale, date of birth, bank statements, Medicare, Medicaid ID forms, like gun IDs, military IDs, all of that stuff. The question that's fundamental to me as far as this fight goes, is that how much money you should have to pay to be able to prove that you are who you are. Which also gets back to this really insidious belief that it is the people who hold the most in the country that should be able to vote to elect its leaders.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. I mean, even going back before that, as it stands right now, we know, and Corey talks about this, there is no widespread voter fraud.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

No.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And we know the 2020 election was not stolen. We know that Trump challenged it over 60 times and all times except for one. And it wasn't even related to voter fraud. A judge threw it out. Right. Election wasn't stolen. There is no evidence of this mass voter fraud in our country. So as it stands, what's in place is already enough.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

More than enough.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You're right. They are all. So anything, in my opinion, past what we have is voter suppression. It should be. And we know this voting should be accessible. It should be easier for you, for citizens to be able to access voting. And what they're trying to do now is take away mail in registration, online registration, DMV registration, which is how I normally do mine, and making it harder for you to have to go into an office, which I wouldn't even know where that is, to be able to do that. So they're taking away. This is why I say anything past this point. And you could maybe argue, as it stands, it's already there, especially when it comes to redistricting, that voter suppression already exists. But anything further than where we are right now is voter suppression, period. Because voter fraud is not an issue.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

And it should be really difficult for you to be removed from the voter files, the voter rolls. It should be really difficult for that to happen. Republicans do not believe that. They believe there should only be a handful of acceptable forms of id, birth certificate, real id, photo ID from one source, DMV government, or a passport. Like there are states that only have that, say only ID from schools accredited within the specific state are eligible to vote. That would mean that, like if I'm from Louisiana but went to college in Minnesota, my Minnesota student ID would not be an acceptable form of id. The baseline for this should be, does the ID prove that you are who you say you are? And there are many, many, many ways to do that. Right. Like, many ways to do that. This entire fight, as you guys already know, is about being restrictive to who can vote so that then you can cook the books. The question is, and I think what happens is when people hear, well, shouldn't you have ID to vote? The answer inherently is going to be, yeah, don't let them trick you into that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, you already have to have id.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

You already have to have ID to vote. You already have to have ID to vote. There's already in every place that you go to vote, you have to have id. The question is, how many acceptable forms of ID should you be able to use to prove that you are who you say you are? And you have to take into consideration there's something else I see people doing all the time going, you think that black people are too dumb to register to vote. You think that black people are too poor to have their birth certificates. What we are talking about is structural and societal realities that exist where we are. No, they're obviously not too dumb to register to vote because they're already registered to vote. A lot of times we need to register more of them. But the people that we're talking about are registered voting. They're attempting to vote. Voting is such a fundamental part of the American experience that it should be something that politicians want everyone to do. And if anyone is trying to restrict voting rights in any type of way and make it less accessible, you should be asking yourself why they're doing it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. And highlighting also too, that a lot of this is about how you register to. Which is why I said.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Very true.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Which is why I said it's the. You can't mail in, you can't do it online. It would even take away some of these drives, voter registration drives, which a lot of people do. I mean, I left the grocery store the other day, they were registering people to vote. It would hinder all of that. And if you are already registered, this is where it becomes a problem. Your passport that you need or your ID does not match your new name, things like that on your voter registration card or your address is different, that's when it would hinder you. If you're already registered to vote. Like, stuff like that is what it makes it harder. So I want to highlight the fact that it's about registering more than just the id.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah, the registering. You register, you're automatically registered. You should be registered online. All different Types of ways to get people out there and voting so that we have the most accurate representation of American leadership that there could possibly be. And when people are talking about taking that away from you, you should be asking. Asking the question, why? All right, before we get out of here, Tyler Perry movie was playing in the other room. Mama was watching the Tyler Perry movie.

[Cori Bush]

Your mom's in town.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

My mother's in town. My mother's 70th birthday was this week. Happy birthday to Mom. Happy birthday to Crystal. Happy birthday, Crystal Ellis. I used to call her Crystal Lath. And she would get mad, she would be like, that's not my name, it's divorce. All right, Crystal Ellis. All right, Say something else. My mother wants me to remind you guys of something. I always. I'm talking about how my dad and all of his brothers, like a lot of the Lathan men didn't live to be 70 and why this milestone for my mom is so important. She told me to stop fucking saying that. She said that on her side of the family, they live a long time.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, because how old is. Oh, the men. We're talking about the men.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

No, no, no, the men and the women. Women. She's like, on her side of the family, they live a long time. And I was like, I don't know if I should say that, mom, because maybe that's like a. A dis to, like, Uncle Craig and the rest of the guys. And she's like, no, it's not anything like that. She's like, you should just remind people that you have longevity. Yeah, that's part of it, you know, but she is correct. She is. She's very correct.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Will she be making gumball while she's here?

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So here's the thing about making a gumbo.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It happens. And I don't get it any. I'm gonna be upset.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

No, I mean, what we might do is say that she's making a gumbo. And then a night before, tell her you're not. Anyway, that's something.

[Rachel Lindsay]

She come over, we could have a whole party.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So here's the thing about making a gumbo in Los Angeles, that frustrates my mom. Something else I tell people about the gumbo that they making out here. Okay? The question is, can you really get what you need in LA to make a really competent gumbo? Now, I've had a lot of gumbos out here, and the gumbo is. To me, gumbo is not a restaurant food in the first place. It's not a restaurant food.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I will agree to that.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

But when you're in Louisiana and you're making the gumbo. Everything that you need is at your local store. You can go get it. It's like a gumbo place. It's a whole gumbo aisle just so that we can make the gumbo. Different types of filet, different types of all of that stuff. So you can get the gumbo stuff that you need. Okay, it's there. So sometimes mama gets a little frustrated when she's in California because she wants to make the gumbo, but she doesn't want to make a diet gumbo. She wants to make the gumbo like the gumbo tastes back home. A lot of times you don't even get what you need out here to make the gumbos. It's like, different. You know what I mean?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, she finds it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

She'll make something. She'll. She'll make something. We'll put her to work.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Not on her birthday week, but okay.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

We'll put her to work. Okay.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Joe's college road trip.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Joe's college road trip. Tyler Perry movie there was cursing up a storm. I didn't know. You telling me that I'm missing something? I didn't know that Tyler's shit was spicy like this.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So you were shocked. Yeah, I was hearing it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I was like, yo, what the fuck going on in there, man? Tyler going crazy.

[Rachel Lindsay]

As I referenced earlier, Joe. I mean, if you know anything about the Joe character within the Madea franchise, he is the spicy, inappropriate one.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yes.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, so you already know from this trip, I mean, from this movie, it's centered around him. So there is going. It's going to be a little bit more risque, I believe Tyler Perry, at the beginning of it, put a disclaimer because Madea movies are typically family oriented. And so he was putting this out there. Like this goes off the beaten path. And it does. And you were shocked because most of the. This is, I guess, the most provocative movie, to my understanding, that they have

[Van Lathan Jr.]

with, like, the Madea character and all of that stuff like that. He's done other films, but, like, with the Madea character and stuff, I was hearing Madea, and then I was hearing fuck that nigga. I was like, whoa, what the fuck?

[Rachel Lindsay]

He's a pimp. He has hoes. He's cursing. It's very sexual. You know, they go to a brothel, like, all the things. But I was telling you that this is not even close to the spiciest thing that he's done because you have not seen Beauty in the Black.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I have not seen Beauty in the

[Rachel Lindsay]

Black Beauty in the Black is a television series. Jade watches it. A television series that is on Netflix that always tops the charts. It is so dramatic. It is so wild. It is. It's, like, so bad. It's good. And I've seen it, and I can't stop watching it. But there are scenes because it centers around a strip club. And Kimmy, the main character, she finds her way out of this strip club, right? This isn't giving anything away. You should all watch it. But she finds her way out, right? And you go through this drama and this journey with her. It's so unrealistic, but it's so good. It's a soap opera. And at this strip club, they have this area. First off, it's a man and women strip club. So the men and women are dancing together. But somebody did notice that the women are always covered in. Men have their dicks just out swinging, like, I mean, just everywhere.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So the women. The women are not like.

[Cori Bush]

The women have, like, their tops on,

[Rachel Lindsay]

but the men are out here.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So one second. So one second. In this strip club, in this show, the women are covered, More covered, More covered, more covered. But the men have the. The cocks on.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Like, you see women topplers, but you.

[Cori Bush]

It's graphic.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You look at. You're like, that thing is sweet. And the woman next to him is just like. They're on the stage together, right? But the men stand out. Then they have this thing. Now, I've been to many of strip clubs, okay, we know you have private rooms, all of that. They have something, to my knowledge, I have never seen before. You go outside to the parking lot of the strip club, and they're fucking on top of the car. It's insane. They're fucking in the car, on top of the car.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Who's fucking the strippers?

[Rachel Lindsay]

The strippers and the client and the customers.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So the strip club is also a brothel.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I mean, an outside one, but it's. So that's why I'm like, if you think that this was something, this is like. It's softcore porn at times. And even the way that they talk to each other, it's just. I was shocked that this came from. Cause you have to remember. And I wanna look this up to be sure. Everything comes from the mind of Tyler Perry, right? He usually directs, produces, creates, and writes.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah.

[Rachel Lindsay]

He owns his own universe, and I think he did this one as well. I just want to be sure. And so it's like, wow. He wrote, directed, and produced. So it's like going for it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay, this is what we're gonna do. This is what we're gonna do. This is what we're gonna do. Okay, first of all, I want to say something real quick. As long as we're talking about black. Black. Okay. As long as we're talking about black stuff. I'm going to be at ABFF this year. I'll be at the American Black Film Festival of Miami Beach, May 27th through 31st. I'm supporting my brother Jeff Friday. This is the American Black Film Festival's 30th anniversary.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's amazing.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

It's. It's insanely amazing. It's insanely amazing. A lot of big time creators got their start there. Ryan Coogler, issa Rae, Ava DuVernay started out in the business. If you're trying to break into film and TV, you want to be there. I'm serious. ABFF.com is the site where you go, okay, so I'm going to be there. This is year. You guys want to come talk? I don't do the personal plug thing, but. ABFF, 30th anniversary. Gigantic deal. Black filmmaking. This is the premier center of black filmmaking, and it's in Miami. So go down there in Miami in May. Never been there. Miami in May is amazing. It's hot as shit. It rains as hard as you've ever seen for 10 minutes, then it stops. And then you go back out into the pool, and then you're chilling, you drunk. It rains for five minutes like a fucking torrential downpour, and then it stops. And it does this all day long. Okay? But it's a great, amazing, beautiful place. Everybody's everywhere. You see everyone there. Okay, cool. I think that we should do something. When does the new season of Tyler Perry Beauty and Black come out? When does it drop? Okay. When is it coming out? Because what I know is that this is what won't be covered at the ringer. You won't see this on the prestige TV podcast with Joe and Rob. Fantastic.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Podcast part two, premiere of season two premieres March 19th.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

We are doing it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What? I'm so. Because you have to catch up.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Weird. I'm gonna watch the whole show.

[Cori Bush]

Okay.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You'll. You'll get through it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I'm gonna watch the whole show. All right. We are going to cover on this show. This show is going to be the preeminent show for coverage of Tyler Perry's Beauty in Black. We're gonna cover this show.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Great. We're going to be turns.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

All of this stuff, you have to come to higher learning now. Is it a binge?

[Rachel Lindsay]

You can binge it on Netflix, but whatever.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Wait, I mean, I'm saying, do they all come out together or is it week to week?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, it's a binge. It's a binge.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Oh, shit. So we can only do, like, two episodes on it, but that's fine.

[Cori Bush]

But what?

[Rachel Lindsay]

And I would love to have some of the actors come through.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Who's on this bench?

[Rachel Lindsay]

You've got Richard Lawson. You've got. You've got Debbie Morgan.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

You got Richard Lawson on this. Not Richard Lawson. Yeah, I know. See, Richard Lawson, that's who you would want on something like this.

[Rachel Lindsay]

He's not participating in any of the things that I'm saying.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Oh, really?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. But it's. It's happened.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm excited for you to get into this.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

You got Debbie Morgan on here. There's the Debbie. Okay, make sure. Debbie Morgan. Fantastic. I'm looking at this. We are going to cover the show on here, and I'm just letting you guys know. So wait a minute.

[Rachel Lindsay]

As you finish the first season, they

[Van Lathan Jr.]

got 24 episodes of this.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Well, because they come out in parts. They come out twice a year.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So that's why you have to catch up.

[Cori Bush]

But, but.

[Rachel Lindsay]

But when you finish the first season,

[Van Lathan Jr.]

how long are the episodes?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Are they an hour?

[Cori Bush]

Yeah, like an hour.

[Rachel Lindsay]

When you finish. When you finish, you can watch it on a flight or something.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I'm a GoT YouTube that. I got.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'll tell you this. I binge watch. Watched the first season of it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I'm saying this. I needed you to. I'm not 24. That's 24 hours of TV, man. Yeah. Yeah. It seem like it was one season. This.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I binge watched the first season on a trip to Bali.

[Cori Bush]

Like it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You can watch it quick.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And be into it. You just got to go right after the other. It's. It will keep you going. It will give you the biggest cliffhangers in the mo.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

It seem like it'll give you the biggest. Something else. The way I talk.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Maybe so. Maybe so. Okay, so when you finish. When you finish the. The first season. Okay. Then we have to talk about it.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And then when you. We'll do the same for the second. And then you've got time. You've got a month.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, but we have to.

[Cori Bush]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

So when is it so that. Okay, so I'm gonna watch. So I'm making a declaration right now. This is the preeminent podcast of Tyler Perry's Beauty and Black. We cover it here. We cover everything else that involves Tyler Perry too. We're gonna cover all of it, right? We talked about straw, we talked about FD signifier video, but now we are going to talk about Beauty and Black. This is the Beauty and Black pot. Okay? That's what we are. So if you're. If you're on the show and you're trying to come on this motherfucker, hit us up, we're going to put you on here. If you are Taylor Williams, Amber Rain Smith, Xavier Smalls, Stephen G. Norfleet, Richard Lawson, Charles Malik Whitfield, Terrell Carter, all of these people, you have Charles Malik

[Rachel Lindsay]

Whitfield was Otis in the Temptations movie.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Hold on, let me see. Let me look at him. And nobody. That was him. Oh, I. With him.

[Cori Bush]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I'm like, not just. Not just because of the Temptation movie, for many other things that he has been in. Yeah.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You're like, I fuck with him, Jules.

[Cori Bush]

Wow. Big role.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Big role in the show now. You've committed now. So I don't care what you see, you can't stop. You must keep going.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay, See what you say it like that. It's like, you know what I'm saying?

[Cori Bush]

You must keep going.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Cuz I don't want you to quit. You've committed too much crazy. Like, ridiculously crazy. Oh, yeah, TS Madison's in it too. I forgot.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Oh, TS Madison. Love TS Madison. Love TS Madison. Okay, all right, cool. All right. I'm into this. All right. Beauty and Black. Tyler Perry, Beauty and Black. Like we are the Beauty and Black podcast because, like, you know, this is. I'm so excited about this because, like, we have to cover this stuff. We gotta make places and stuff at the ringer, man. Okay, we're gonna start covering these shows. We're gonna start. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna do our own. We're gonna cover the shows that, you know, we don't cover on the midnight boards or other places like that. So Tyler Perry, you have a. You have a home with us. Whoever else has too. We might start covering micro drama, like the vertical videos. Like that. You don't want to do it? Okay, cool. I'm looking at.

[Rachel Lindsay]

This is a micro drop.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

I'm looking at this post on Tyler Perry. Reddit, it says. Just finished Beauty and Black. I've never seen a TV show worse than this. That's what the thing is.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So I, as I said, it's so bad. It's good.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah. The Tyler Perry subreddit is up in flames going, they're looking at it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I, I promise you that this will be a show that you'll bring the whiteboard out for. Oh, you will bring the whiteboard back for them.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

This nice, nice. Very nice. Very nice. Okay, thank you for Cory Bush to coming on the show today. Thank you guys for listening to the conversation around Afro pessimism. It was a conversation that like, you know, still the beginning of the conversation. We played a whole video for you guys. You guys very patient listening to that. Thank you guys for listening to us. Rest in peace all to just tell

[Rachel Lindsay]

us we ain't black.

[Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay, now rest in peace to Reverend Jesse Jackson. And once again, I meant what I said about Shia LaBeouf. Okay? I'm not stopping. All right, until the the virus is removed from Babylon takes off. But do not stop learning. I am Van Lathy jr.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm Rachel Lynn Les.