Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to now. No opportunity wasted. I'm your host, Angelica Ross.
So listen, I'm not even going to front for y'all. It has been a challenging week, and fortunately, this is a podcast all about making the most out of life's challenges.
So I want to start things off with a quote from the wisdom for creating happiness and peace by Daisaku Ikeda. He says, quote, nothing is more barbarous than war, nothing more cruel. That's why I hate war and am forever opposed to the devilish nature of authority that causes it. My absolute commitment to pacifism, to fight for peace throughout my life was engraved in my being when I was a youth, and I feel exactly the same way. I definitely feel like the the seed was planted for me also in my youth and many days lately. It definitely feels like I'm still fighting for my peace, but I'm winning.
Recently, I was able to successfully launch the winners circle membership that is steadily growing, and I finally got to access all of my contacts. And I did receive an apology in the form of an email from the person that I was working with, and it sounds like they were dealing with some personal life drama, but let it interfere with their professionalism. They admitted that when things got challenging for them, their coping mechanism tends to be avoidance, which is why he was avoiding my text and my calls instead of communicating with me what the problem was. So I definitely learned a few lessons from the situation, and I hope that those listening can also learn that being able to communicate during challenging times can sometimes make all the difference. Speaking of communicating a message during challenging times, Miss Taraji P. Henson had the Girls Googling Project 2025 when she made a very impassioned plea to folks to take this election seriously, as well as Trump's aspirations toward dictatorship and the highly organized plan brought to you by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025. Now, I've downloaded Project 2025 the PDF and I started going through it. And let me tell you, I am just astonished at how well organized it is. Now, don't get me wrong, it's still a bible for white supremacy, but it made me truly want to understand how the Biden administration plans on protecting us from this plan and protecting our democracy.
One of the options that I know has been tossed around since 2013. I mean, excuse me, since last year. 2023 is the argument for expanding the court. Now, if you go to democracy docket.com, you can see they have this whole website and it states republicans have hijacked the confirmation process and stolen the Supreme Court majority, all to appeal to far right judicial activists who for years have wanted to wield the gavel to roll back fundamental rights.
It goes on to say each scandal uncovered, each norm broken, each precedent shattering ruling delivered is a reminder that we must restore justice and balance to the rogue radical Supreme Court. It is time we expand the courts. I've also seen Nina Turner on social media saying it's time to expand the courts. There's also an action fund called take back the court. So I want you all to check that out. Also at takebackthecourt today. And they state, quote, a hyper partisan, right wing Supreme Court majority is leading an assault on democracy and striking blows against reproductive rights, racial justice, climate action, voting rights, and more. Of course, the court did not get this way by accident. It is the culmination of decades long campaigns from the conservative legal establishment to take over our judiciary. Adding four seats to the court is the only practical, proportional response to conservatives theft of the Supreme Court and the only way to restore its balance, integrity and independence in order to protect our most sacred rights and freedoms. End quote.
So I need y'all to go to that website, go to these websites. We definitely have to keep informed, inform each other. You know, this government is not interested in an educated population, so we are going to have to prioritize education for ourselves. We're going to have to continue to use social media to educate ourselves. But the gag is when Biden was asked if he would consider expanding the courts even after the corruption that we've been witnessing, he seems to have the same position he took last year in saying that he thinks it's going to do more harm than good.
I'm sorry, more harm than what Trump and project 2025 is promising.
Listen, honestly, I need some time to digest things a little bit more. And so I reached out to feminist Jones, who recently has provided some straightforward, yet kind of controversial commentary on this whole situation. So I asked her if we could talk this week and if she could help provide some clarity as well as complicate the conversation for us, as only Feminista Jones can do. She's really good at challenging folks to think beyond what they have been told and conditioned to believe. So. So stay tuned as we try to continue to create some awareness around what will be needed from us in order to stand up to this challenge that's in front of all of us now. This week's conversation with former House representative and my favorite battle rapper, Mister Bruce Franks junior, is just what I needed this week to encourage me to continue in this fight.
I first met Bruce when I was on the film festival circuit when I executive produced the daytime Emmy nominated series King Esther, and he was promoting his documentary St. Louis Superman. And I will never forget how he just immediately embraced me after both of our films played and we had our talk back. It was one of the most standout moments of my life, y'all, where I honestly felt unconditionally supported and protected and loved by this black man who was not my blood. And listen, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about when you hear my conversation with, oops, also known as Bruce Franks Junior. Take a listen. But, yeah, I had to wear this sweater for you, though, because, you know, this. This sweater reminds me every day that I am a revolution. But not only just that I'm a revolution, but the reason why this is my favorite sweater is because through my buddhist practice, which folks who have been starting to watch this podcast, who have known me for a while now know that I live and walk in my sort of buddhist faith. You know, it gives context to everything that I do. And one of the central concepts that we study and work on is something called human revolution, and it's basically undergoing a transformation in the depths of one's being. And so, you know, I wanted to definitely talk to you about this because there's an intersection between what this looks like from the individual into the collective. Because most times we know and we talk about a revolution, and we heard about a revolution, it's been a political revolution, you know, to really try to uproot the foundations of something, you know, and giving a really drastic change. But also most revolutions, I'm not sure if I know many. Most of them include bloodshed. With that kind of change. Most of those kind of revolutions include bloodshed. And what I think is so poignant and profound is in Buddhism, we work a lot with metaphors and, you know, similes, all those kind of things or whatever. So when I think about the. How serious and how, you know, real, when we talk about revolution and how real the pain and the bloodshed is like, because we see it happening all over the place where people are saying, well, damn, if I'm in this situation, well, I'm going, I got to put my body on the line. I gotta be this revolution because this is what it's going to take.
I think that when it comes to changing as an individual and each one of us going through what I feel is a very necessary process of human revolution if we are to see the change that we want to see, that means it's going to require a level from you. That I think in this day and age, in the current state of our society, is something people are too numb to want to experience. Talk to me about revolution. How did you go from being, oops, the battle rapper, to a former House representative twice elected, you know, who was able to make the most out of that opportunity and make some wins for your hometown? What kind of change did that take from you?
[00:09:53] Speaker B: It took a change that I didn't know I was ready for. Because when Michael Brown was murdered August 9, 2014. And you know how I say this all the time, but, you know, people say, oh, you know, nobody changes overnight. I changed overnight. I was not the same person I was August 9. That I was August 8. August 8, I went to sleep owning a couple businesses. Life was good in my eyes, you know. You know, a little bit of money in the bank, song on the radio, couple cars. You couldn't tell me nothing, right?
And when Michael Brown was murder, it turned my world upside down. And from that day on, I'm from the hood. So it's certain things that we seen and we was used to. But being out there was so different.
It was so many different folks. You don't know people all walks of life and just, you know, just a melting pot of folks. And you started to realize, like, this system isn't broken. It's doing exactly what it's designed to do. And when that hit me in my head, at that point, I was like, oh, okay, I'm down for the car. I'm down for whatever we need to do.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: Well, let me ask you this. Like, when you say that I relate in the same way where when I had this aha. Moment and realized, oh, wait a minute. The reason why we not getting nowhere and appealing to change certain people's hearts and minds. Cause they heart and mind don't need to be changed. It's focused and set with the intention that it had from the very get go, which was to create this oppressive system that only works for some. And if you are white and get caught up in it, then dumb on you is how they create it. Because, listen, you got this white skin. You got this privilege. We creating a lane over here. And if you don't see what this lane is. And that's why I think even too, some folks still wanna be ignorant around the fact that they know the lane exists. And they know that they are still benefiting from it, whether or not they're trying to take it or not. I think that when you talk about it this way, it sounds to me like something that is almost insurmountable in the sense that how many centuries, how many decades, centuries has it been that our people and people at other intersections have been sort of, you know, fighting for this change? And we have history books, as much as they are trying to push them out, but we have history books that at least for the length of time that people been going through schooling and public schooling, they've been kind of telling them the cliff notes of what we have been doing to try to fight and change the system. And they have been conditioning us and indoctrinating us to think that change takes so much time over all these years. So now I feel like we're in a position where the system has not only is operating so much like it was intended to, that it has bought more time with people's comfort, the more that people are at least comfortable in their corner with the heat still on and the electric still on and the Internet still working and all these different things, as long as they're still good. I think that in the depths of people's hearts, they know the system is there, they know it's there, and they feel powerless against it. So instead, there's all kind of ways people have different conversations to distract themselves from that fact so that they don't fall into the rage that James Baldwin talks about.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: So think about what you said earlier. You said folks. Folks are numb and they're comfortable. They have a certain comfortability and their numbness, right. Because it's much easier to act like something don't happen. It's much easier to go to sleep. Right. Just go to sleep. Right. We'll be all right in the morning and try to forget about it. And I think about it being black History Month, there's a reason why. And before I say this, let me give context. Cause you know how the Internet goes.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: But I have so much love for all of our ancestors who fought, who did what they needed to do. Right. Stood in the face of danger, whatever that looked like. Organized. So this isn't a slight at anybody because I stand on their show. But there's a reason why during Black History Month, we're taught so much about Rosa Parks and not Claudette Colbert. There's a reason why we're taught so much about Frederick Douglass but not Nat Turner. There's a reason why we're taught so much about Martin Luther King and schools dare say Malcolm X's name, because they're able to take a that part of history and they're able to mask it with this idea of, can't we all just get along? Right. These are folks who wanted to bring things together, and they always, oh, well, Frederick Douglass was a Republican, and da da da da da da. But they won't tell the whole backstory, right? They'll talk about Rosa Parks, but they won't talk about Claudette Colvin was the one who actually wanted to organize, and they didn't organize around her because she was young, she was a single mother, and she was dark skinned. When I look at it, I see this continuous miseducation of what our history is in order to keep us comfortable in things like, oh, well, you know, we all. What they like to say. I'm colorblind. And that usually goes to that. Usually goes to that. That miseducation about what our history actually is and what it took. And it's so funny going back to what you said about a revolution often ending in bloodshed. They don't want our revolution to happen, but they was cool with in 1776.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: But it's almost as if. As well, that. That bloodshed where we're talking about that revolution, to take revolution out of just a specific place and say, I don't know, I feel like maybe we've been in an ongoing revolution in the sense that white people have been championing, that we've seen in January 6 their revolution, that they keep telling us that violence is not the answer and doesn't solve anything. And yet their revolution, their championing to want to take things back, to make it great again and go back to this and go back to that has included our bloodshed for black folks.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Angelica, what's the difference between January 6 and the revolutionary war? 1776? What's the difference, you guys?
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Same stuff on the chopping block.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: That's it.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: And it makes my stomach turn because folks, again, want to as much as try really hard to erase why the civil war happened, what was. What was happening, that slavery, you know, was actually on the line and whatnot. And what folks don't understand right now is it's not only still always been in effect, but that's what we're still fighting for, because capitalism is seeing all kind of gains at our expense, and it's. And we're finding out that our prisoners are doing more than just license plates.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: I. Sir, like you said, I served in the House of Representatives. All of our furniture in our offices. I wouldn't even sit in my chair.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: No, wait. Stop. Okay, wait. Hold up. Hold up. Wait. Hold up. Okay. Okay. I just had to. I had to prepare myself for what I know I'm about to hear, because I know. God, I know damn well. Okay, so, okay, let me just prepare myself. Okay. Go back. It's okay. Say you said what now?
[00:17:12] Speaker B: The furniture in our offices in the state capitol for representatives, senators, governors, so on and so forth, this furniture is manufactured. Ours was specifically by Missouri Department of Corrections. When I found that out, I wouldn't even sit in that chair. I would grab a folding chair and sit at my desk. Because when you scroll through the catalog, because this, the stuff, they ain't gonna tell you. Thein't gonna tell you the inside baseball. When you scroll through the catalog and you wanna order something nice for your office, you wanna order you a brand new chair that has the state seal on the back. This chair is seven, $800. And it was made by folks who are incarcerated in a system that not only doesn't benefit them at all, but everywhere in America, you got rural areas that have jails, right? Have prisons. That prison population is counted towards the population for that particular town or city. So take Missouri, for instance. You have to have a certain amount of population in order to be a district, right? They draw the lines and they say, okay, we got to have a certain amount of people in here. In some of these places, a chunk of that population comes from the prison. So now this district is a district because this prison is in their county or in their city.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: But that representative, white people that are free are white, then they gotta, the.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: Worst thing about it is the representative for that particular district, they don't have to do nothing for those folks who are locked up. They don't have to. They don't have to do nothing. But they're the very reason, they're part of the very reason why you even have a seat. And when it comes to us and, and wait.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: And if the prison population accounts for their population in their district, then I am to assume also that the fact that most prisons are for profit, does the profit affect the district as well.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: If it is a for profit prison? The thing is, when you have the Department of corrections that are, that are deemed that by the state, that's a little different because that is the state. But they're still, quote, unquote, property of the state, right? Like in Missouri, you have folks getting a couple dollars a day, right? A couple dollars a month. Not even a day to work, to make this furniture, to make those license plates, to make those belts, to make those, whatever it is. And I'm buying a chair that someone is making a couple dollars a month to make for $700. This one chair, and it's 163 representatives, and it's 35 senators and so on.
So when you think about. When you think about the whole thing, it goes all the way back. We talk about the system, when we talk about the prison industrial complex, we talk about when we were so called free, why these laws still targeted us, because we were the ones that knew how to do the work. We were the ones that were all right after slavery. What we gonna do? We gonna flourish. We gonna do what black folks do. We gonna build, we gonna hustle, we gonna grind. Right? They can't have that, because who can't work at those plants? White folks who own slaves, who can't work in that, who can't do the manufacturing, who can't do the farming. White folks who own slaves, who don't know how to do it on their own. Now, if we get it, we gonna flourish, we gonna procreate, we gonna expand, and now it's gonna be the way it's supposed to be. But no, we're gonna put these, these laws in place, we gonna have these black codes, and we're gonna have Jim Crow, and we're gonna have all these other things on top of the law that already, that already disproportionately affects us so that we can stay 17% of the population, 15% of the population, 13% is population control. When I got into office and I realized, yeah, I went in there bright eyed and bushy tail, no, I'm finna say the world, we good, y'all, we finna. I'm finna pass these bills. Da da da da da da. Then when I got there, I said, oh, y'all really don't want it. Y'all don't wanna change. Y'all don't wanna fix what's going on in my community because they got all the tools. I don't care where you from. You could be from Atlanta, you could be from St. Louis, you could be from Detroit, Chicago, you could be from Gary, Indiana, Kenosha. I don't care where you from. They have all the tools, they have all the money, they have all the resources to help and fix what's going on in our community. But if they fix what's going on in a black community, we're not going to need jails, we're not going to need police, even though we don't need police anyway. We're not going to need none of these things that are part of this. More prosecutors, less jails, less cos, less judges, less and what's the number one. What's the number one job creator in mostly everywhere, the system, the government, right.
Oh, if we fix it, we messing up their job security.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: So with your experience going from the hood and battle rap into the House of Representatives and back out to see behind the camera, the curtain, and see there's a little man behind the eyes, you know, pulling the levers and blah, blah, blah, whatever.
So now what?
And I feel like that's what aggravated me the most, because I felt like that show and I felt like other situations is saying to me, yeah, now what?
[00:22:32] Speaker B: Mm hmm.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: So now what?
[00:22:37] Speaker B: Well, look, it's two now what's. Okay, so the first. Now what is, once you.
I can't unsee anything that I've seen.
And so coming out of office, going through these different movements from Ferguson to Phoenix to all of these different things that have happened, you get stuck in this. All right, what we gon do, right?
But it's so many different ideas and opinions about what needs to happen.
We have folks who are more radical saying, hey, let's.
We need to burn this down. Like.
And then we have folks who like, no, let's reform it. We can fix it. Let's sit at the table. And to be totally transparent, in the beginning and when we were. When Michael Brown was murdered and we were in Ferguson, I was the man. Let's sit at this table. Like, let's sit at this table. We'll be all right. And if it don't work, we're gonna flip it over. But let's sit at it. Let's work with them. Let's see if we can. That was me. I was a reformist. And then it hit me that abolition was the way and understanding that abolition is the way and. And moving throughout the movement and society and these systems, trying to change things. And by way of abolition is the hardest thing that I have ever done in my entire life, because there's so many people that don't understand that abolition doesn't mean to tear down.
It means to rebuild. Right?
[00:24:24] Speaker A: And reimagine.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: Reimagine, why do I have to wake up every day and be worried about an entity that says they're supposed to protect and serve or whatever?
But I have to worry about those encounters every day. Why can't I reimagine a world, what, they don't exist in my world, right? Why can't I imagine a world where we police our own?
[00:24:50] Speaker A: Well, because I'll tell you this. I know that white people all around the world don't even have to imagine that, because it just is a reality. They're cops. It's a lot of times that's not even a factor for their neighborhoods. You live in a gated community, not patrolling your gated community like that, unless they're patrolling to make sure the people they trying to keep out stay out.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: That's it. And for us, how dare we imagine that we could live like that, right? How dare we imagine these things? And so, for me, the what now? At first, Washington, all right? Now that I'm out, I've been on both sides. I've been inside the system. I've been outside the system. I got the keys.
And then I realized the more and more I push, the more and more I tried to educate, the more and more, because anybody who's fought with me, anybody who, I don't gotta tell you, you already know, I am going to ride to the wheels fall off. You say, hey, this what we need to do, bethe, all right? This is how we need to do it. But I'm gonna be right there with you. Whatever gonna happen to you, gonna happen to me, right? First off, we don't have enough of that.
And so, after Michael Brown was killed in 2014, it is 2024. I have been in a movement.
Front lines, pepper spray, tear gas, politics, attacked, drugged. Ten years straight.
And I'm tired.
And so, for me, the what now is, I'm not going to do like some of my ancestors and folks who came before me, who I love dearly.
I can't die in these seats.
I can't die in these positions. I'm not going to die in the movement.
I am going to retire from the movement. I am going to show you all something different, because I have life to live as well. And I didn't put in a hell of a lot of work.
I will. Everything that's up here and in here, I'm an open book. You know for a fact that anybody can call me at any time and say, hey, I want to do this. Bet.
[00:27:09] Speaker A: Cool. All right.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: This what you need to do. Worst case scenario, you called me, I'll pop out. Right? But the days of.
And I want to make sure folks understand that this isn't a. Oh, I don't believe in a movement, or I'm giving up on a movement, or we should see it as an opportunity to pass the torch while it's still.
[00:27:34] Speaker A: While it's still born burning. Absolutely.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: Because all too often, what we've done, and I'm gonna tell you what we had to do in Ferguson. I could speak for a couple of us when we got the torch, it was pitch black when we got the baton.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: They had already lapped us twice.
And so I said from the beginning that if I had the opportunity to pass that torch when I left office, Rashine Aldrich, who was also Ferguson frontliner, became state rep. He was ten years younger than me, ten years younger than me at the time, and I was only 30. I was 34, 35. Right. And so we can do that now. And I think the what now looks like us passing a torch a lot earlier while giving a lot of that knowledge and love and passion to the younger generation.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: But you can't do that if you're. While you're. When you go to pass it. You too tired to even lift your arm and pass it.
[00:28:44] Speaker B: Facts.
Facts.
I think that.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.
[00:28:50] Speaker B: I was gonna say we had it. We had a guy named Reverend Gray. Reverend Gray. A lot of us call him Unc. I call him Unc. He was, you know, he moved around. He a character, but he a good dude. We love him. And so he would always say, I'm gonna follow these young folks. And the reason I'm gonna follow these young folks, because they can see further than me, right. I can see what's right in front of me, so on and so forth. But as I get older, I can't see as far as I, as far as I could have. And it's not even in the visual sense, it's in the. They growing up in the right now. They understand how the world is going right now. Right. And so I'm gonna lean on them. And for me, I'm gonna have faith that the work that we put in in Ferguson, the work that they put in in Baltimore, the work that they put in in Ohio, the work that they put in in Kenosha and everywhere else, all the way dating back to the work that they put in when we were still shackled visibly. Right. I'm gonna have faith that that legacy of fighting continues, but also I'm gonna show something different, that we don't have to die in the movement and we don't have to die in these seats. My good friend Erica Gardner fought.
She fought every day, every second.
And they say, you know, they can say what they want about what she passed away from. She passed away from heartache.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: And when I look at. When I look at the folks that we've lost.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: Mm hmm.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the, it's the heart. It is it is.
It's almost like ultimately, that's what it ends up being, especially when, you know, you give so much of yourself to the movement, to the idea of liberation, you can almost taste it. And that's what that's, I'm telling you, that's probably what would have been to driving me insane is that what I've told myself is, I'm not leaving this place like this.
I'm not leaving.
I'm 43.
Yes, I still got life in me. I'm doing these things. But it's been for decades, and I have been involved in seeing, like, many of us in this change or whatever. But when you start it now, and I'm not no kidde, I'm not no kid, so you can't talk to me and sell me dreams like you sell kids dreams. You cannot lie to me like you lie to children who don't know how to get the knowledge for themselves.
So, you know, I really appreciate what you said and what you have been in the sense of, you've been that for me as, you know, like, I've reached out to you and you were, like, one of the first people that I have reached out to and was like, this is what I'm doing. This is what my plan is. I need some insight. I need some guidance. And, you know, the first thing you told me was like, well, the first thing you need to know outside of anything else, is that you can do this. Like, that was, the first thing you said was like, oh, don't, don't think that. Cause you ain't got what this person's got or you that, this, that, no, you are. Not only are you smart, and I know what you're coming with and I know the kind of mindset that you bring to it, but I know that you can absolutely do in that. And having that sort of, you know, confidence in me, number one, was definitely extremely helpful. I really, I've been inspired, obviously, by your story from the time that I met you on the film festival, festival circuit when you were with your movie saving St. Louis Superman. Right? Yeah, St. Louis Superman. But to see you go from this battle rap space into the house, for me, that harnessed at least a resemblance for me of what it means for me to come from the parts of my streets into the house and that I don't want to tap dance. I don't want to go along to get along. I don't want to sell my people short and ultimately sell myself short. So in this environment now, and especially with the Democrats and going through the situation. Like, you know, it's been very disheartening this election season. And things going into this has been very disheartening. And what's been most disheartening about it for me is my people like I, what's been disheartening is y'all don't even want to be up yet. Not only are you not up for this challenge that's going on right now, you not even up for the conversation.
Y'all can't even handle conversation. That is calling into question all of the things that we know that we want answers to and that we want accountability for. We having a problem just having the conversation. You see it as division, as us just having the conversation. When you got someone who's telling us, a president who's telling us that he prides themselves on being able to reach across the aisle, to what?
Reach across the aisle to who?
To, to, to Mitch McConnell, who you do a favor for and helped elect a judge who is known to be anti abortion. So how does that line up with your stance and selling us as a, as a people that you are the pro choice president? I get it. And you are. But how are we to understand integrity? How are we to understand these things if the mood, if you're, if everything's always up for bargaining, if everything's always a bargaining tool?
So I'm thinking, I've been consulting with so many political consultants, former House representatives here in Georgia. You know, Georgia is a very interesting state because it's very much, it's purple ish, but it's definitely very red in, you know, the rural areas and all the things or whatever, Clayton county, you go to certain places, you know, it's a, it's a different thing.
And the issue that I'm sorry, I'm running into right now is not just the opposition. You know, I'm saying as far, it's the people who call themselves progressive. It's the people who call themselves liberal. And the fact that 10 million of our Georgia taxpayer dollars went to the, recently went to the Israel Hamas war and we haven't expanded Medicaid and we don't have, you know, certain things here in place, the converse, they keep trying to push it off to a conversation as if, well, the war and these other issues aren't local issues, but our tax dollars are going to these things. So you're finding folks are positioning themselves all along the spectrum of this conversation and it ain't on the liberal side with me. Mary hooks, Mariah Parker, you know, all of these folks who are stop cop city, PSL, Atlanta, all the people who are flooding the streets. And I am with the people. But I'm also kind of getting a little guidance, I guess, that, and I get it that I need to separate myself a little bit in the sense that, because, but I don't even know if that's for real or what. But like in Georgia, they passed the bill, SB 63, and it basically expanded the list of offenses that were non eligible for cash bail or for bail. And so one, those offenses are now including protesting. And it also put restrictions on organizations like, you know, how we have organizations that do bail funds and all kind of things. They're restricting organizations from being able to bail out more than three people in a calendar year. So now we got me that's come to town that's been at the protests already at PSL. You know, we always down there protesting for, for Palestine. And now you got stuff on the books where if I get arrested at that protest, I'm not even eligible for bail.
So I've now been trying to put my mind on this whole situation. And this is where I'm at right now. I don't know if it's whatever, but this is where I'm at right now. And where I am right now is that I know that I am Angelica Ross and I know I have a voice and I have a platform and I know a lot and have been involved with grassroots organizations and community. But I still have a lot to learn when it comes to policy and specific things over navigating this political landscape. And so because I do not want to tap dance and sacrifice, I am looking to take my time and have Georgia get to know exactly who I am and exactly what I stand for, exactly. Even the fact that I'm going hard for not only like the full decriminalization of marijuana because I need us to make the financial case that we can swap out the income stream. Let's pull in the income from here and let's start to work our way out of this prison industrial complex. You got folks going on tv talking about their upset because the ones who can work the jobs and build the chairs and do all of the things are getting out on good behavior and that's not working for their bottom line.
And we have to figure, we still haven't seen where our kids, our children, our bodies are still a factor in their bottom line, in their billions.
So my entrance into this point and let you know what I'm being told, at least right now, and at least kind of across the board is that I can be myself, is that I can. People will love me. The voters will relate with my authenticity and being real about how I am real. But I also have some very real commentary, critique, and accountability measures for the democratic party. I damn near don't even. I barely want to run as a Democrat. Do you understand? Especially because I am now moving into my comfort zone as a comfortably non binary trans woman. And I just feel like almost in my being, I need to walk down this way. And, and folks know I ain't agreeing to no bullsh, stuff that the Republicans are pulling up, especially if it's gone. You understand? Saying they know I was not born and raised as a black trans person. No way I'm going to be in favor of for some b's. But I'm also not going to be close my eyes and create spin for the things that need to be confronted about our own shortcomings in our own party.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: That's why you need to be there, because everybody who knows you, everybody who gonna get to know you is gonna understand who you are.
When I got elected, when congresswoman Bush got elected, we got elected, people already knew who he was.
When I got in office, they knew I was the battle rapper protesting Southside kid that was gonna punch you in the mouth, that was gonna still show up to the protest, that was still gonna keep rapping, that was gonna curse you smooth out in front of everybody on the house floor, in my suit or in my hoodie. They knew what they were getting. It didn't. None of that.
Folks will tell you, and they're gonna continue to tell you to the day you, to the day you go in and then you decide to leave and retire, or however it happens to the end of the day, they're going to tell you, you should do this. You shouldn't do this. No, this looks bad if you do this, separate yourself from this.
I did what I wanted and what I needed to do.
[00:42:09] Speaker A: Mm hmm.
[00:42:10] Speaker B: That didn't come from no consultants, that didn't come from the Republicans, that didn't come from the Democrats, because I did a good job of pissing everybody off. That's how you know you're doing it right.
[00:42:20] Speaker A: I was about to say I tend to be. I tend to do a good job at that, too.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: Piss everybody off, because the. Our side, whatever you want to call it, they're gonna piss you off.
They. They want this blue, no matter who, attitude towards everything, though, even policy. Are we together? No, they don't work for me. And there's a difference between working across the aisle and actually being from the other side of that aisle, only disguising yourself like you from this side of the aisle.
[00:42:56] Speaker A: And there's a lot of that going on.
[00:42:59] Speaker B: Black, white.
And when I tell you, you don't.
[00:43:05] Speaker A: Know what side people are.
[00:43:06] Speaker B: The folks who. The folks who were supposed to be with us, the. The progressives, the liberals, the Democrats.
That was my biggest, my biggest nemesis. I didn't get them. Folks didn't come for me in Missouri. There wasn't the Republicans that came for me. There weren't Republicans that created all of that mess.
It was them.
It was my. It was the same folks who was at my last fundraiser. It was the same folks who in my office asking me, hey, hey, Bruce, we know. We know you. We know you're persuasive when you talk on the floor. Hey, can you speak on this bill? It's them folks. Because when folks found out I was about to be senator.
Oh, man. What they say, michael Max. Oh, man. That's too much power for one person. Not realizing that that power ain't have nothing to do with me. It was all about my community.
[00:44:04] Speaker A: One thing I know about you is that you are a great father.
Them kids love you. They are spitting images of you.
You show up at. You literally go through hell and high water to make sure you showing up at this and showing up at that. Uh, and I'm just in the re. And what? So not only is it important, because you said, like you, we. I don't want you to die in this movement. We have. We are losing so many of our people to the movement. And one thing I know is not only do those beautiful black children need their beautiful black father, but that I've had, I want you to be able to see and be aware, and I think that you are, as this transition you're going through, that you're also of an age and experience, that you are now a father in this movement.
And the father ain't always the one, always the one in the streets and doing the things, but you are the one who is holding that institutional knowledge, who is informing and educating us on what we need to do, giving us best practices, supporting us in any way that you can, but understanding that inside outside strategy of when it's time for you to shift gears. And sometimes I think for people, especially when it looks like a move or whatever, that shifting of a gear, especially for somebody like me, too, I'm sure where you're used to going hard at all these things and blah, blah, blah. And you shifted gear, you might feel like you not doing what, you know, and it's like, no, no, no, don't think like that.
Shift gears so that your longevity, your reach, a lot of those things can. Can shift into even a higher gear. That just doesn't look like killing yourself and putting in so much effort that you don't. You know, that you're getting sick. I think that, like you said, so many of these intersections of our movement have been met with a burnt out torch and with, and with burnt out activists and with burnt out organizers. And we've got to get to a place where we take care. We truly know what that means to take care of each other so that we know if someone's resting there, it's not just because they don't want to do nothing, kicking their feet up. They're so lazy and won't cook or clean or won't help the village do anything. It's no, it's their turn to kick their feet up and do these things or whatever. If we can recognize that joy and rest are our birthright, as well as, you know, the prosperity and all the things that we're looking at, resting, like having space to create art.
You are an artist.
Facts, you know, I mean, like, that's what's so wild about this, too. Is that, like, that's Joe, that's the court. I'm not saying it's all but you.
[00:47:16] Speaker B: You are.
[00:47:17] Speaker A: But I'm saying, like, at the core of what I know you to be and where you came from, out of that place, to be able to translate what's going on in the world into art that people feel that don't otherwise get reached by other art, that don't speak to them right. So not just doing that, but also shifting, like creating more art. We need you to be an artist, especially with all the experience and the lens that you have.
[00:47:44] Speaker B: One thing I want to say, you got this, don't think too much, don't overthink it, because you actually. You actually know more about the process than you think you know. And that's what I had to learn. I went in, I said, I don't know how to policy. And da da da, policy ain't nothing but lived experience.
Being able to create policy is nothing but using your lived experience to fix the issues that before you didn't have the tools to do, and now you got the tools and the resources to do so because you know what the issues are, because those who are closer to the problem are closer to the solution, right? You know what the solution are? And there's a whole lot of people in that building that's going to put them words together on that paper to make it all make sense. You just got to let them know exactly what you want. The second thing I tell you is, if you don't trust them now, make your deadline right now, it's a rap.
[00:48:43] Speaker A: Uh huh. Got you.
[00:48:45] Speaker B: You don't trust them right now.
[00:48:47] Speaker A: Got you. You know, that's, I can't tell you enough.
It's almost as if that lesson, it was almost as if intuition was in the distance echoing those words. And they finally just came to me through you. Because I swear, because of the choices I'm making, because of the things that I'm doing.
Folks don't understand this is life and death.
The reason, the reason and the reason why it's life and death is not just literally the probability of running into violence, not just the probability of structural violence, but the way that these things will come together to try to remove your entire livelihood, to see you destitute to. So when folks didn't know the reason why I was being so turnt up even during the strike and was like, cancel all the shit, cancel the apps, cancel it all. Because no way are you going to tell me you're going to wait till I starve and lose my home for the strike before you give into our, what we need and on to these certain things or whatever. So again, when someone, when the system is saying the quiet part out loud, listen.
Yeah, cuz, yeah, you know, cuz I feel like, like it's a difficult time and people know that I'm making, you know, a very specific stance and, you know, learning about who I need to trust right now has definitely been a bit of a heartbreaking, you know, situation because I know that when you're telling me up front and out loud that you will work till I am destitute, broke, homeless, without whatever I'm taking that it's as if I'm in the hood. Like I'm taking that as if you're pointing a gun in my face.
[00:50:56] Speaker B: Because you are.
You are.
If you won't stop at nothing until I have nothing, then you are. That's a strong armed robbery.
Like, and that's what they, that's what they hollywood, the system is things that.
[00:51:18] Speaker A: You know, let me tell you, that's why, that's why, that's why I really had got turned up because I was like, the moves that you are making so callously and the things or whatever that you're doing again. I understand stuff changes. I understand whatever. All I'm saying is you could have unlocked the shackle on the things and let me go, let me do other things and blah, blah, blah. But the way you moved, the way that you did, that it created, turned my life in a way where I couldn't accept jobs because I was under your contract and being told that I was going to be working all the way up into the day almost, and then saying, oh, actually, you won't be coming back this season. Now it's too late for me to take anything else. What I took that as was, you put a gun to my face and tried to kill me.
That's how I. And I know it's, uh. I'm literally taking that way because I'm like the at your actions tried to create a situation for me where I would have to go back to being candy in real life. Not saying that that's. But that's it. For anybody who didn't have a hustle in them and didn't have certain things and resources, there are people who are struggling right now. You know, I'm saying, like, cuz, cuz they only do acting. They only do maybe this one thing. And so when the strike happened, but because I'm a business and you don't get to control when my business opens and closes and, and that's. Those are the people that they have a problem with. Those are the people they have a problem with because they're hard to control because they're not going along with the system. So I know that it might seem drastic for some, the way that I respond, but just know that I realize that my life, the life of so many trans people in my community, and the life of so many black people, black and brown people, period, is on the line and I'm treating it as such. But I am going to take one out of your book and realize this. I'm working my ass off and I'm building a certain thing, even with my house, to be a campus for when I do have my buddhist meetings, my members in my district, because we, our districts are within our neighborhoods, my home, this is becoming a central place for us to do that spiritual work. Whether I'm doing recording in my recording studio or doing certain things about creating opportunity for creative expression and all the things. But while still speaking truth to power, what I know is I'm going to recognize at some point, and it may be a little bit later, because I think I got my eye on the Oval office at this point, I think that down the line, I'm going to be working my day. I can almost see it now. But what I know is it's going to become a point in time where I'm going to take a page out of your book and I'm going to switch gears, because I know what I've put into this movement. I know that not only have I put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into it, but I know that me being who I am, I will never stop doing something, whether that's writing, speaking, or whatever, but I should also have access, we should also have access to shifting to a place where we are a support to the rest of the movement in such a way, in that there's a movement also supports us in our. Our shifting gears.
[00:54:46] Speaker B: That part. That part. You absolutely right. And I'm gonna be right there to be tapping on your shoulder like you could, because.
[00:54:54] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:54:56] Speaker B: It might be. It might be that time, but I think that. I think that going, you know, just going back and always, like, leaving on uplifting and empowerment, and I always tell you, this is gonna be hard. Then it ain't even no way. Nothing to think about, right? I love you too much to lie to you.
[00:55:23] Speaker A: Jay Z says, though difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week.
[00:55:27] Speaker B: Look and realize that you didn't. You didn't want to do this, right? For wrong reasons. Right?
[00:55:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:55:39] Speaker B: This is going. Yeah. This is what your destiny was. You felt it. No, I can make a change this way. Right. So just realize that. And I can't stress it enough. Like, if you. If you don't grab on to nothing else, if you don't trust them by now, they could be cool, they could be nice, they could be acquaintances. They could be people that, because they all need something and they all want something. Right? And that's cool.
This is the point where those transactional relationships are, okay? Right.
Something. I need to get something done.
But don't trust them to care about what you care about, because at the end of the day, if it comes time for them to pick between what you care about and what they need, out the deal.
[00:56:31] Speaker A: Mm hmm.
[00:56:32] Speaker B: It's always gonna be what they need out the deal. And we're the ones usually stuck at, well, we gonna do what's right regardless. Yeah, we are. But we gonna do what's right for those who we fighting for, for those who we've been connected to, for those who we've trusted and trust us.
But no new friends.
[00:56:52] Speaker A: You are brilliant. Bruce Franks, Junior. Thank you so much for being who you are. And thank you for being my friend, period.
[00:57:01] Speaker B: Look, couldn't have it no other way. Now. Look, I can't imagine life without you now.
[00:57:07] Speaker A: Thank you so much. We will be right back, y'all. All right. Thank you again to Bruce Franks Junior, for all that you have given to this movement and for just your personal encouragement, guidance and support.
It has meant the world to me, and I will be clinging to every word, and I will continue to keep reaching out to you as I prepare to enter the arena of politics here in Georgia. All right, so before we go, I just want to drop a little buddhist breadcrumb and break open one of my favorite books, my dear Friends in America by my mentor, Daisako Ikeda. It's basically a book of collected addresses that he's made to our organization, the SGI, since 1990.
And in one of his talks, where he talks about our value as human beings being determined by our actions, he says actions are far more important than status or social standing. Ranks or titles or distinctions in positions such as those between priesthood and laity are of little importance. What truly matters is what have you actually done?
What can you actually do and what are you actually trying to accomplish? Our value as human beings is determined by our actions. So this week, let's take some action.
Let's do something to move the needle towards creating the world and the creating the change that we want to see.
What are you willing to do? What can you actually do? What can we accomplish together if we realize that every opportunity is an opportunity to change?
No opportunity wasted.
