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- [00:05]
A
Black Americans across the country are facing a systemic attack on their right to vote by the MAGA Republican Party and Donald Trump's Supreme Court. This is how the President responded. Let's play the clip.
- [00:17]
B
So are confused about the changing maps, the changing dates, and the African Americans concerned that this is going to draw black members of Congress off the map. What do you say? Well, I think it's been a wonderful process. They've been the Democrats, or as I call the Democrats because they are dumb in so many ways. They've redistricted for years and now we took our shot and it looks like we're going to pick up a lot of seats, and that's a good thing.
- [00:44]
A
All right, joining me on IHIP News to discuss all of that is political and cultural commentator, Oscar winning producer and co host of the Higher Learning podcast. I've Got Van Lathan Jr. Van, what's your take on all of that? And thank you for joining me.
- [01:05]
C
Well, thank you for having me. I love watching you guys. My take is two things. The first thing is it's actually not just the MAGA Republican wing. Shelby versus Holder comes back, I think around 2013 or whatever. This assault on voting rights and trying to roll back the rights that my ancestors legitimately bled for, shorten their lives for, put themselves in harm's way for, has been a Republican project for a whole generation. I think that Donald Trump and his MAGA wing have injected political steroids into this. But of all the things that have happened in the Trump era, this makes me feel differently. Of all the stuff we've had to endure, and that's not for me to skirt over Dobbs or other decisions that affected people's lives so fundamentally. But this one feels like ripping the entrails out of black America, reducing us back down to something. And I don't know how this is going to go if this can't be rectified.
- [02:14]
A
I completely agree. This is something that is so terrifying to see. What's going on in Tennessee is just absolutely horrible. And I want to show you this image of Congressman Justin Pearson being blocked from voting. Pop up this image, Kylie. So, Van, when I grew up, I was born in 1974 and I would, you know, go to social studies class, history class, and you see these images of black schoolgirl trying to get into school and white people kind of screaming behind her. You see all these brave black people and their allies fighting for civil rights. And in my mind I thought, well, I'm glad we're behind that. I'm glad that's in the past. And I was traveling over the weekend and this popped up on my feed, and this just. It's just so completely oppressive. Backwards and overtly racist. It's just so overtly racist and disrespectful. And as a white woman who spent the last few days going to a couple of NBA games, Go, Thunder. I watch how a lot of people like to dip into black culture, which is. Which is American culture, and then they see shit like that and they're not outraged. And so can you speak to what's happening in Tennessee and Congressman Justin Pearson?
- [03:47]
C
Yeah. I mean, it's so funny that you bring up those images that we are all educated on. They were part of this American story that the undergirding idea of all of that stuff was that we had moved past it. Right. We were in the happily ever after part of the story. We would look at that stuff and be like, look how bad it was. But even then, we were wrong because we weren't paying attention to food deserts. We weren't paying attention to the environmental catastrophe that black communities were going through. We weren't paying attention to defunded schools, the drug wars, all of that stuff. We just knew that images like that didn't quite exist anymore. We didn't see them as much. Right now we're seeing them again, along with abuses from the police. And what you said earlier about black culture being an American culture, I don't think that America thinks that. I think that America writ large believes that black people are something to be contended with, to be dealt with. Because if there was any thought that the contributions of black people made America better, fuller, free, freer, richer, then they would stop trying to prevent us from contributing. They don't want our contributions. It feels like they don't want us to contribute at the top of tech. Black women being left out of tech. They don't want us to vote. They don't want our political voice. They don't want us to be the heads of companies, dei, like, legitimately. The last two years, the right has pushed a narrative that if your pilot is black, your plane is more likely to fall out of the sky. So I sit here as a black man, 46 years old, feeling more orphaned by my country than I've always felt. But then there's something else. I see my grandmother and other people that I know that thought that at least they had got us past pictures like that. And I see them have to go through it, and it feels different. It doesn't feel like something that I'M going to be able to tolerate or be nice about this. Feels like I'm watching the contributions and the sweat of so many people. I'm watching their pain, and it's hard.
- [06:29]
A
Everything you said is true, and it's devastatingly true. Sometimes the truth is so devastating. And my husband is a criminal defense attorney, and he has always said, you know, working in the courthouse, working with people that have been arrested, you know, this is a really racist system, Jennifer. It's really, it's completely different for black people. And the attacks on DEI and the way how flagrant Pete Hegseth has been about firing accomplish black people in the military that are a million times more accomplished than his narcissistic ass have just been so disturbing to me. But I agree with you that this feels different. And what really concerns me about this is the lack of outrage at images like that. When we saw what happened to George Floyd, it was a collective outrage. Everybody collectively was like, no. And I feel like with all of this stuff, Trump and Maga, and I agree with you Republicans for decades before that, they keep moving the goalpost and normalizing this like the frog in boiling water. And when I saw that image, it. And I'm a white woman, obviously, but it just, it hit me. It just, it hit me when I saw the way that smug white man was staring at him and the imagery of that. And I haven't really seen that much outrage about this, about what the Supreme Court just did. And it's really a devastating reality.
- [08:06]
C
Yeah. You know, I actually feel for the American people in terms of their outrage meter. Like, if you're going to be outraged right now, what are you going to be outraged about? You're going to be outraged about inflation. You'll be outraged about foreign wars. You're going to be outraged about people being able to pay for pardons. You're going to be outraged about a billion dollars for a ballroom. You're going to be outraged by the brown people that you share your communities with being kidnapped and sent to places in Latin America. Where are you going to place the outrage? If there's one thing that Trump is good at, he is good at giving you so much to where you just need a break to where you go, you know what? Tonight I'm playing a video game. The reason why this is sticking with me, it all sticks with me. I mean, we do this for a living. So we're wearing a lot of this pain and trying to translate it to other people and tell them how they can be involved. This is sticking with me, because this is fundamental. This is slavery. This is robbing people of political power, of a political voice. This is making Republican lawmakers in the south kings and queens. This is in perpetuity relegating people to second class citizens. Right. This is what we thought we could at least agree on. Like, at least you have to be cute with the discrimination. This is overt. And so the outrage to me is probably going to come when people see the reaction from black America to having their rights snatched. And just like we stopped society before, just like Martin Luther King Jr. The Santa Claus figure that America has made them into, said, hey, we're going to stop traffic, we're going to stop commerce, we're going to stop the way things functions. We're going to do it again. And I'm, I'm not, I'm not in any way saying that with any, trying to scare anybody. I'm just saying this will, we're not standing for this. So I'm hoping that everyone can organize together and realize the moment that we're in. Because I am guaranteeing like levels of strife and organization and disruption that nobody wants to see. If you try to steal the rights of black people in the south, do
- [10:37]
A
you worry that the propaganda that Fox News, the right wing media ecosystem, you talked about black pilots earlier, the late Charlie Kirk was just overtly racist when he went to all of these campuses. And then it's always when black people stand up for their rights or they're marching, it's always like, they're so violent that it's always this like, look at what they did. They threw something at the Taco Bell. And as you said, we're not going to stand for this. I thought, I think back to a lot of time that I've spent in Oklahoma City in circles of white people. And I remember during the Black Lives Matter marches, there were, remember that white couple in St. Louis and they had their guns out in the yard. Do you remember their husband and wife? And I remember, I just know that they were doing a march through my neighborhood in Oklahoma City. And I remember a lot of people like freaking out. I was like, if they're peaceful, what do you care? We all just saw somebody get murdered on tv. I feel like the propaganda that white people can protest however they want to, as obvious by January 6, they get pardoned, they get excused for it. Then a lot of them have recommitted. Black people have been labeled when they organize and protest as these as violent. Even though we saw what happened on January 6th, how, how effective do you think that propaganda has been against black organization and black mobilization?
- [12:11]
C
The reason why that propaganda is so effective is because it reinforces a narrative that a lot of people already believe. There's a narrative that black people are prone to violence. They're prone to violent solutions. While the reality is the way that black people were able to get their citizenship in America was through one of the largest nonviolent movements in world history. Okay? Black Americans have never, ever, ever struck out against white America in reciprocity to the type of horrors that we have subjected to. That's just never happened, right? Never happened yet. And still America has a vision and a version of criminal that they draw as black. Here's the thing, Jennifer. I don't care. There's so much tape right now. You were watching the game, right? So if you watching Shay do his thing, you know, flopping all around the
- [13:23]
A
league, hey, watch it.
- [13:27]
C
If you watch his thing, once you've seen enough tape on what he's gonna do, you have to be cool with just going out there and competing. All of the contradictions, I've seen them. I've seen white people riot. I've seen white violence. I've seen spree violence from white men, domestic terrorists shooting up places. I don't feel the need to tell black people to be cognizant of their behavior in front of white America. There's just too much tape now that it doesn't matter what happens. Whatever way we try to free ourselves is the wrong way. So what I'm concerned with right now is mission accomplishment. I'm also concerned with building communities with people where everyone's lives and rights are respected. So I don't want to see anyone hurt or robbed of anything. But what I am saying is that this moment, everyone organizing the center of the Democratic Party, the left of the Democratic Party, the left outside of the Democratic Party, anybody that would care, take the time to really understand how people are feeling. I asked to come on your show. I've been watching you and admiring you for a long time. But I asked because this is not going to work. And everybody needs to put their hats on to understand what we're going to do to get out of this, what the plan is to change this. I'm from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I'm not going to watch my people have they vote taken from them. And so I'm just. I'm hoping that we can continue to beat the drum in places like this and on higher learning, just about just how serious this moment is and about how this is different.
- [15:28]
A
I completely agree with you. And I think this is a time where we have to form alliances across all political spectrums against anti black racism. I think a lot of what we're going through right now is because we allow certain narratives to exist. We allow the south to still have their statues up. And then when people demand that the statues of slave owners and Confederate soldiers get taken down, there's a stage five meltdown. And it should be, fuck you. We don't want racists in our city, but we allow. There's a constant capitulation to right wing framing, to racist framing. And I'm with you. When I saw that image and I see what the Supreme Court did, which didn't surprise me because John Roberts has wanted this for a very long time, it really hits different and it feels different. And I think that now is a time for us to build the biggest alliances imaginable and to remind Americans that the history that we all look back upon with pride is the civil rights movement. It's incredible. It's incredible what people did. It's incredible what happens when people join hands and fight for equality for everyone. I want to put up a post from State Representative Justin Pearson, who's literally on the ground with this fight. Pop this up. He says, speaker of the Tennessee House Cameron Sexton just removed me and every Democrat and therefore every black elected official in the state legislature from any committee we served on. This move strips nearly 2 million Tennesseans from the representation they deserve in Tennessee state legislature. And they're not going to stop here. You mentioned you're from Louisiana, Speaker. I call him Moses Mike Speech. Speaker Moses. Mike Johnson is from Louisiana. He has a district. He has a district, 20% black, one of the poorest districts ever. And the lies that these Republicans consistently tell people. I'm sure you've read this. I think it's E. Dubois where he talks about, there's an exchange that, hey, you can hate these black people, but you're still going to be poor. And a lot of people take that. That trade and that's just such devastating that people are still so racist. But my God, they are.
- [18:00]
C
Yeah. I mean, there's very few people who gives less of a about Louisiana than Mike Johnson. I tell you one guy, I mean, Mike Johnson doesn't give a about Louisiana. He doesn't care about Louisiana. He cares about doing the bidding of President Trump. Whenever you even get him and corner him on problems happening in Louisiana. He doesn't have real substantive answers because, you know, he's a national Politician masquerading as occasion. Somebody who does care about Louisiana, this guy named Gary Chambers. Now, as much as I am giving a rah rah, that's a brother in Louisiana that actually has answers to those questions. I would love to see. He's doing tremendous things. He's one of the guys I need to be 4, 5, 6 times more famous than me. Would love to see a conversation with him because he can give people structural answers on how we organize past these problems. That's just a shout out to Gary. The statues that you mentioned earlier, to me, they're not statues. They're centuries. They're things that are legitimately imbued with the souls of slave owners that are sent there or put there, should I say, as a reminder that. That niggers don't need to get out of line. So having a conversation about why there shouldn't be a statue in your community of somebody who raped your great grandmother is wild.
- [19:40]
A
Totally.
- [19:41]
C
Like, trying to have a civil conversation about why somebody who had a thousand fucking slaves should have a street named after them is insane. But we've been trying to do it. We've been trying to have that conversation. We've been trying to kick that legacy out of the south, because I love the South. I love being from Louisiana. I love the community that I'm from in Louisiana. I like the white people that I'm with in Louisiana that I fish with, that I hunt with, that, I watch LSU games. But I'm nobody's nigger. I'm not going to be. I'm not going to be Trump's nigger. So what I'm saying right now is everything that you're saying is absolutely the way we need to talk about this. And black people, we are going to rely on each other. But if there are people outside of this that really care, that really care whether or not I have the right to vote, my grandmother has the right to vote, my sister has the right to vote in elections where they can make a difference. Right. Then we need all hands on deck. And as far as. Also in trying to stem the tide of what the Trump administration is doing, there is no more loyal bloc of voters than black women, and we cannot take the vote away from black women.
- [21:14]
A
Yeah. You know, I. I've said a lot on my podcast that when the two protesters, white protesters, were shot in. In Minnesota, that a lot of my friends or acquaintances would be like, oh, my God, I can't believe that they shot them. And to black people, it was like, we've been trying to tell you guys, like the police are trigger happy. Like, this is not a new. This wasn't something new. And I think that's one of the card cardinal sins of this whole thing that has incubated this fascism. We have reconciled incrementally the civil rights issue, equality issue, and we haven't gone full tilt on it. We diminish black voices. We diminish mothers that say, black mothers that say, you know, my kid can't walk down the street in a hoodie. I'll tell you a story. My, My son played AAU basketball and my friend Monique, her son black, my son white. She. Her other son called. She's okay, honey, that's fine. You can walk to 7:11. You cannot put a hoodie on. It's fucking freezing outside. I hang up and I said, monique, why, why can't Trey wear a hoodie? And she's like, black kid can't walk down the street with a hoodie on, Jennifer. And I was like, jesus Christ, I've never had to tell my kids that. Ever, ever had to tell my kids that. And I think the problem is we don't listen or we minimize black voices. Their problems are, you know, you need to be quiet. We can't hear your voices. And I think if, when we really, when the historians really diagnose how we got in this fascist fuckery with this fucking moron and all of the dipshit racist surrounding his cabinet, a lot of it is going to be that we have not completely reconciled this. When I lived in Oklahoma City, when Barack Obama was president, he came downtown Oklahoma City, he was greeted by a mob of white racists with Confederate flags. The fucking President of the United States. And I remember, I saw that it was on, it made national news. And I just thought, Jesus Christ, what the fuck? But it is so prevalent and it is so real and it is so disturbing. And I want to get your take on Sam Alito's opinion in the Voting's Right Rights Act. Of course, John Roberts made him write it. He used data that is a lie. Pop this up. Samuel Alito quoted fake data in his ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act.
- [23:56]
C
First of all, to your friend Monique and Trey. Shout out to Monique and Trey.
- [24:00]
A
They're awesome. He's in the NBA now. Trey.
- [24:03]
C
Trey's in the NBA?
- [24:04]
A
Yeah, he plays for, in the, in the G League. He's a two way player. He's great. Yeah. Trey Alexander. Shout out. They're awesome.
- [24:11]
C
Oh, shout out to Trey, man, get some buckets out there, man. When you as soon as you mention a black mother, I'm. I thought the first thing, and this is how my brain is working right now, is I'm happy she's alive because I'm happy she survived childbirth. Because when I think of the. The things that are encumbering black people right now, I think about the numbers surrounding black maternal mortality and the fact that our women die in childbirth at rates that are astronomical as compared to other races. I just think about every single statistic anomaly that befalls our people. So I'm happy that she's here. I'm happy that Trey can go out there and hoop. I hope he's not out there flopping like Shay. You better watch it now.
- [25:02]
A
Getting salty about Shay.
- [25:04]
C
The. The. He just. They just swept the Lakers, man.
- [25:06]
A
Oh, I know. I was there. I had my broom out
- [25:13]
C
so hard. LeBron's gone. The Supreme Court has completely lost any legitimacy.
- [25:20]
A
Totally.
- [25:22]
C
And that's why for me right now, for the next leader that I elect nationally, the president, I want to hear about packing the court. I want to hear that from not just presidents and hear that from senators, because you're going to need to whip the votes to do that. And if they don't do that, which will tell me that they're not really serious about restoring legitimacy to the court or at least being able to roll back some of these insane rights violations that the court is responsible for, then reforming the court in terms of term limits, ethics codes, whatever it is to restore the legitimacy of the Supreme Court has to happen. If not, they are a bunch of rogue actors who are actually seeking to strip Americans of their rights for the purposes of power and commerce and allegiance to the worst parts politically of this country. The Supreme Court is one of the biggest hurdles to American freedom right now. And I cannot take a candidate seriously that is not zeroing in on ways to fix the court, because if we don't fix that, we. There can be no progress.
- [26:44]
A
I completely agree with you. I want the Democrats if they get. When they get back in. One thing Trump showed us is you can govern all gas, no brakes. You can say, fuck you. I'm going to do what I want to do. And he's doing it for bad. And if we get power again, we have to govern that way. It has to be all gas, no brakes. Fuck you. Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, D. John Roberts, full investigations. They, you know Clarence Thomas biggest donor, Harlan Crow. You know what he collects as a side hustle? Nazi China. He has a room with Nazi China. It's just crazy. Shit. And this guy has funded him. The same with John Roberts. You know, one thing that Trump unleashed, which I think made a lot of frustrated racist feel good, is when he said Obama wasn't born in the United States and that that really kind of people were upset that this black man was sleeping, you know, in the bed at the White House, eating off the china. So it was like, oh, yeah, well, maybe he's not a real American. And yesterday in the Michigan senatorial race, they have started to slam Abdul Al Said, who I've had on this podcast, I really like him a lot, and said he's not a real doctor. This has an MD and a PhD and they're saying he's not a real doctor. And you just see this pattern of the dehumanization and taking away from people that aren't white. And these are Democrats that started this slur and this trash against him. Pop this up, Kylie. Now he's ahead. Michigan Senate Democratic primary. He's up 27 points. And now they're saying, oh, he's not a real doctor.
- [28:37]
C
And these are the things that you see. You mentioned it, you named it. They're used to delegitimize people when they're not white. You can't be a doctor. Doctors are white. You can't be a president. Presidents are white. You can be a pilot. Pilots are white. Scientists, scientists are white. Can't be a VC. VCs are white, all of that stuff, right? But it's always interesting to me when the Democrats get into that bag. I have to say something to the party, man. I left the Democratic Party a while ago. Like, obviously, I caucus with the Democrats. You know, I could never see myself voting on the right because they're viciously anti black, anti progress, anti climate, anti woman, anti, anti, anti, anti, anti, whatever. I don't know. I don't know what they're pro. They look pro. Oath Keepers. So I'm a little bit to the left of most of these guys, but I do see them engage in a lot of the same bullshit that comes from the right when the rubber meets the road. And if the Democrats, the left in this country, the Senate left of this country, are going to present an actual obstacle to fascism, then they can't be fascists themselves.
- [29:57]
A
Agree.
- [29:58]
C
And I don't know why it's taking them so long to learn that lesson. If you're going to be anti genocide, you can't be genocidal. If you're going to be anti fascist, you can't be fascist. You're going to be anti racist. You can't be racist. You can't dip your toe into the pool of it and then hope that the rest of it doesn't get all over your body. And, and it just doesn't seem like the center corporate structure of the Democrat Party has that in them. But we got to keep kicking their ass until they learn the lesson.
- [30:29]
A
I agree with you. I feel like this moment, this where the Republicans and the Supreme Court have said we're going to cheat, we get to gerrymander and you fucking don't. Tough titties. Take it. We have to come back. And the Democrats tend to not have the stomach for fighting. But the reason why people like Abdul Al said is because he's a fighter. He wants capitulate. He doesn't play patty cake with fascists. He calls a genocide a genocide. He calls homophobia, homophobia. And there's too many people in the Democratic Party that play patty cake with these corporations. They play patty cake with aipac. And so once you seed one group, once you see one group's rights, then everybody is on the chopping block. And lastly, I just want to, to tell you that my audience and we have built a coalition over here and my audience is very vested in universal human rights. And when we live in this fascist bubble, you get online and you know, Trump's all of these loser bedwetting billionaires, you know, prop up all of his posts and they prop up all their own posts because they own all this stuff. When black people organize, we want to be allies with you. This is a fight for America. This is a fight for our brothers and sisters in America. And I am not a monolith in this. There are, there are way more, way more anti racist Americans than there are racists. And I know that you probably don't feel that as a black person in Trump's America, but I know might not be a huge majority, but I know it. And I think we must partner together and build just a huge alliance against these fucking fascists. We just absolutely have to because I agree with you, this hits different. It's terrifying. The imagery, the just months long attack on the black community by this administration. Last thoughts, fan.
- [32:35]
C
You know, I'm still crazy enough that I don't disagree with you. I'm still crazy enough to where I believe in the goodness in people because I believe in the God in people, divinity in people, the thing that makes people look at the stars and go, oh my God, how beautiful. I believe in the humanity of people. Say two things. Defeating whiteness is very difficult for white people because whiteness is not the shark, it's the sea. White supremacy is the ocean. It's not the predator inside of the ocean, it's the soil of this country. And so trying to explain to someone or make someone believe that that operating system has to change a lot of times shocks them. But fuck all that. We gotta do it. We have to do it if we want a country where we can all live peaceably together. And not only that, capitalize on some of the talent that exists in some of these places. The thing that breaks my heart the most is that some of the sisters and brothers that I knew that were subjected to this systemic carnage could have been so much more. They could have been contributors, right? But they were put in a position where their choice matrix was bad, where everything was against them. And overcoming that is very difficult. The only thing I would say to all of the prospective white allies out there is speak with us, don't speak for us. We can speak for ourselves, but we would love extra voices.
- [34:23]
A
Yeah, and when you said that about. I get a little tear eyed about people that, who were extinguished. I had a young black man that worked for me from like age 17 to 24 and he got shot in October 2024. His name was Javi. And he's just. I miss him every single day. And just a bright light, some people tried to rob him. And all of these things are just linked. And I remember when I met his mom and his aunt at the funeral home, I said to them, I, you know, God, these guns, these guns are so terrible. And his aunt, Javi's aunt said to me, you know, they're just giving our neighborhood all their putting all the guns in all these neighborhoods so we'll just kill each other. And I just, you know, it's just such devastating. It's just so devastating that that is somebody's fucking reality. And we all sit here and don't fucking do anything about it and prioritize, you know, some people's needs over other people's needs and. Or these bigotries are more important than these bigotries. It's just all such bullshit anyway. I'm sorry to go off on that. It just made me think about him and I just, I just miss him so much. And just such a special, special young man that was in my life. Van, thank you so much. I want to partner with you again. Let's schedule a big march. Let's do something big.
- [35:58]
C
I would love that. I would love that. Schedule something. Figure it out. All hands on deck, figure out what we're going to do. But, you guys, it's in everybody's interest that we do something.
- [36:08]
A
I completely agree. Thank you.
- [36:11]
C
No problem.