Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
This is what the world needs now: two free-thinking “seasoned” Black women speaking their truth and inspiring others to do the same. Shaped by 45 years of friendship that began at the prestigious Brooklyn Technical High School through the Ivy League, medical school, marriages, divorces, triumphs, parenting queer children, life-threatening illness and many many amazing adventures. Each week, besties Leslie Osei-Tutu and Angella Fraser will push against boundaries in love, culture, careers, faith, politics and out-dated assumptions about women of a certain age. Remember, you’re never too old to change your mind…or your hair! (but more on that later :-)All views are our own and do not reflect the views of our institution/company. Information provided is not intended to serve as medical advice.
Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
Perspectives on Local Elections & Bloodshed in Israel
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
The Besties start Season 5 with a heady discussion about voting and the devastation caused by the war in Israel.
Today is Election Day in the US where many local and state representatives will be decided. Since few voters realize the impact of these elections on their day-to-day lives, focusing instead on the presidential ones every 4 years, Leslie & Angie make a plea for getting out and making all voices be heard.
Conceding that this is not a politically-based podcast, they find it important to add their views on the bloodshed in southern Israel and Gaza to the cacophony of opinions.
In fact this podcast was created to bring the perspectives of two free-thinking 60-something year old Black women from Brooklyn. And bring it they did.
Senator Natalie Murdock brings CROWN Act to NC Senate floor
Election Day 2023: What to know from Governor races to Ohio's abortion measure
Your quick guide to the most-watched races of Election Day 2023 | PBS NewsHour
This episode and all previous episodes are available on YouTube. Please join our Besties Quad Squad as a Patreon subscriber at the $5 or $10 monthly level. You'll receive exclusive behind-the-scenes content.
Visit Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn website for behind-the-scenes extras.
Hey Ant! What's cooking? My colcade smile automatically comes on. Been to the dentist? Uh no.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Hello here. Good afternoon, my dear. Hi, babe. Nice to see you. Good to see you too. Good to see you too.
SPEAKER_02And I'll be the first to say.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to a new episode of the fifth season of Black Boomer Besties from.
SPEAKER_00Brooklyn.
SPEAKER_03Brooklyn.
SPEAKER_00I'm still doing that. It will continue into our season five. That is incredible.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I like it.
SPEAKER_00It's staying. It's staying. It's not going. It's staying.
SPEAKER_01It's in. But I'm wearing green today, you know why?
SPEAKER_00Uh I don't know why.
SPEAKER_01And I put on the green glasses to match.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I don't know why. Other than that it's my favorite color and you wanted to. That's why. Isn't that enough?
SPEAKER_01We need anything more.
SPEAKER_00White enough. You don't need anything more. You need anything more.
SPEAKER_01It's your favorite color. And put it on.
SPEAKER_00I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_01I'm here for you. I hear you guys.
SPEAKER_00It's so funny, but I was going to also wear that color. It's just that it's a little chilly in my my room. And um I wanted to wear something. Um I wanted to wear something else on the bottom. And so anyway, I know I I don't have to.
SPEAKER_01I know it's just that wasn't congruent.
SPEAKER_00It's true, but it was just my thinking it through before I chose this. I was going to wear that. I'm like, no, it's it's it's too cold. But then I ended up in this. Anyway, we're gonna move on. We're gonna move on.
SPEAKER_02We're gonna do one more thing that um it's just gonna be like in honor of uh our fifth season, and just to connect with you a little bit more, if I may. Go for it. All right.
SPEAKER_03Oh I gotta sleep.
SPEAKER_00Oh my goodness. Can you explain it? It looks amazing. That's just making me want to finish my um my arm. Oh wow. Wow, I've been itching. I've I've um, you know, I needed, I would like to get a tattoo for my dear Topaz. Um, because this this has become like a memorial arm. So I've been wanting to to do that and I'm getting that feeling more and more. So yeah, so that's making me like maybe I'll do it this week. What explain, explain, Lucy. Okay.
SPEAKER_02I don't have any tattoos. No, you do not. No. And I figured that if I'm gonna go all out, in keeping with our bold branding, uh-huh, I should just go all out. So I go from zero tattoos to an entire sleeve. I'm sorry, I'm messing with my headphones, pardon me.
SPEAKER_00It's okay. I I can't hear any scratchiness.
SPEAKER_02Oh, to an entire sleeve of tattoo.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, tell me. It looks amazing.
SPEAKER_02What is it? You just you're just gonna it's it's a ho I I should have worn a short sleeve, but I didn't think of it. Um it's a Hawaiian floral print.
SPEAKER_00Okay, Leslie, I want to know what is it, not what it does it depict, but what is it? It's not a if I'm trying to be cagey, can you? How do you know? It was very painful. Oh, okay. Because you would not be wearing something to cover it. You would not be wearing something to cover it if you just got that tattoo done.
SPEAKER_02I'd like to move on.
SPEAKER_00We promised honesty. Because Ern hasn't seen it yet. Oh my gosh, he's gonna have a fit. Anywho. He will not immediately think, oh, that's not real. He will immediately think, what are you crazy?
SPEAKER_02I didn't know that temporary tattoos from Amazon are a thing.
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh, it's not, it looks, it it's so well done. I thought at first it was like, you know, they have those mesh sleeves that you you pull up. Oh but it looks yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I've seen that.
SPEAKER_00But it looks more on your skin than it looks good. Maybe that's what I'll do.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. I've heard that uh it'll last maybe a week or so.
SPEAKER_00Really? So we'll see. Yeah. Oh wow, I should get that on my other arm to test that out. Um, all right, very good.
SPEAKER_02Still a little like a 14-year-old, but it's I approve.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So we we're gonna talk about something um that is uh a little serious, heady um in um recognition of what's been going on in um Israel and Ghana, and Ghana. Israel and Gaza and um, which actually I should not state it that way because Gaza is a part of Israel, um, is a part of the state of Israel. So between the state of um between the IDF, Israel, Israeli Defense Force, and Hamas and the people um who live in Gaza.
SPEAKER_02Um we also it's it's kind of tough for me. I'll I'll I'll just put it out there. It's tough for me to even talk about um for on this podcast specifically, um, but in general, because one, I don't I don't want this to be a political forum per se. That's not that wasn't the intention of our creating this podcast. There are many podcasts, and not that I don't talk about politics, I certainly do, and I think that they involve me, and so it's not that, it's just that I didn't think that this was the proper forum for it. But there's just so much going on in this case that I'd like to um just make some mention of a few things that I've been thinking. Yeah, the other thing, I am in no way expert, very knowledgeable, I have no personal um people in Israel other than friends of friends. And I gotta say that a lot of the information that I'm getting is how many people are getting it from television, from mainstream media, a little bit from some other smaller networks, uh, word of mouth. And I I just know that we, because of the way information is disseminated, cannot believe everything that comes across the television. Um in that regard, we might be seeing 60% of what's actually going on, certainly in uh in terms of who's to blame and who did what and all of this stuff. So, you know, I just want to make uh a note that I'm aware, you know, of my um lack of experience, my novice at this, and as a human being and as a humanist, I have opinions only.
SPEAKER_00Right. And since you made that very personal, which was appropriate, I will make my statement um around whatever I say here. Um I do have um uh by by Jewish custom I am Jewish, uh Sephardic Jew. Um it's not a faith or a culture that I was raised in, but um it's always been very clear and documented my lineage um of um being Sephardic and I also come from a home, a family that has always seen injustice as injustice. Um and you know it it we didn't choose right or wrong based on who was doing it. We we we saw it, and fortunately or unfortunately is the way my parents raised me. If I did something wrong, it you know, it didn't become right because I or members of my family did it wrong is wrong, and you could you could embrace someone who has done something wrong, but you can still say that it's wrong and try to figure out how to um so I do come from that um background and and I have um a myriad opinions on on this. Um much of it is rooted in my being of a group of people who have been oppressed for um hundreds of years. So I do bring that thinking and what uh kind of naturally comes to me as um framing of how I think about what's going on here in the current, it is framed by being uh a black person, a black woman who um has um connected with oppressed people, including Jewish people, including Palestinians. Um so that is what I will say as a general statement. And we do also want to talk about since we're going into um some uh election season here in the United States, we wanted to make some statements about that too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It is election day.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And to you should know by now if you don't know, if you don't know what you need to know, go find it, go online, find out who your local reps are, find out what their positions are. There it's there, it's there in all different flavors, whatever news source you get your information from, you are comfortable with, it's you feel that it speaks to you, and it's use that. I'm sure they have a list of candidates and their positions that you can read about and spend 15 minutes doing that. Exactly and then going and making your vote count. Um exactly. I was I was reading, um, I don't know why this popped across because of my news sources. Um I keep up with the news. Um, but recently I read that it was only 44,000 votes that really separated our um Biden from from Trump, right? Because we have because we have an electoral college, right? So even even though it was um seven plus million um votes, actually popular votes, because we have an electoral college, it it depends. If you win a state, you get all the electoral college votes for that state. So when you break down states like Georgia and um um Arizona, I believe. Arizona was on the list, yes. When you break those down, um had it not been for these 44,000 votes, and that's like 10,000.
SPEAKER_02That's like fewer people that's at a Taylor Swift concert or Beyonce, like you know, giant stadium, right? Metlight Stadium, I guess it's called now.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_02So made yeah. Take all if all those people that sat in a in that stadium on one day, if they went and all voted for one or the other of the candidates, yes, we could have a whole new four years leadership than we have now.
SPEAKER_00Correct. That's right. Yeah. Wow. So when you we don't think like that.
SPEAKER_01We don't think like that.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's why we're saying it here, because we want people to think like that. We want to think about the fact that even locally here, um, a few years ago, as you know, I was um precinct chair for um the political party that I support. And so I saw some of the numbers, and it was single digits that separated winners and losers locally here. Single digits.
SPEAKER_02And but people don't realize, like I know some people, they only vote every four years in the presidential election. Right, right. And what they don't realize, depending on, well, in most cases, I'll even say the local elections are so much more important and personal to you and your day-to-day living than the four years who's in the high executive office.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02You know, even on the um gubernatorial level, it's often not as important as the very local level in your community. How you like your taxes, your property taxes, how you like them. Yeah. Uh, you know, people don't realize is that the people who make the decisions about the tax rates and budgets and things like that, is um, that's all in the local level. Yeah. Trump and Biden have no, they don't care. Well, well, Trump does have a uh a golf course in New Jersey, but you don't give a darn about the taxes, I'm sure, like I like I do. But um, so I just happen to have this next to me.
SPEAKER_00Oh, good.
SPEAKER_02It's a prop, right? But I'm I'm filling out my um my mail-in ballot, and there was a question, a ballot question that I didn't really know two sides of it, so I wasn't sure how to vote. So rather than just take off yes or no, because I think it's important, rather than leave it blank, I made a phone call to my council member. Wow. And we had a 20-minute chat about the issues and what they're really voting on and what does this mean and all of this, and they were able to give me some insight.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02And I know how I'm gonna vote, and I'm sticking this in the bill, manna.
SPEAKER_00Just like that. Yeah, just like that.
SPEAKER_02I remember so I'm gonna have a say in terms of what this ballot um measure, and especially because many people may not be that aware of it. So yeah, maybe my vote vote is the one that takes it over.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02We really need to start thinking like that, honestly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and even um a few days ago, a someone was canvassing in my neighborhood, and I happened to be sitting out having my cup of coffee in the morning, and um she came by and she gave me a pamphlet, and um she said, Oh, is there anything that you want me to take back to um to the candidate? Yes. And I said, as a matter of fact, thank you for asking. I would like her to work with Senator Murdoch, Natalie Murdoch, who was the senator, um the state senator who introduced the Crown Act to um to the House floor. It was it was not um, you know, fully brought. It was, I forget the term, but it did not it was tabled, thank you. It was tabled, and so I asked that this person work with her to get it back. Can I just interrupt for a second? Yes.
SPEAKER_02Do you know where I got that where I learned table from? Where schoolhouse rock?
SPEAKER_01I'm just a bill. I'm Capitol Hill. Capitol Hill.
SPEAKER_00They don't teach it anymore. When I mean, young people, are you getting taught civics in school? I know you don't have multiplication rock and schoolhouse rock and all of those amazing things.
SPEAKER_01Did we learn civics in school? I don't think I don't remember at Brooklyn Tech having a course in civics.
SPEAKER_02I remember American history and all-oh, I cut that class?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02I don't remember that. I remember world history and stuff. I don't remember civics for several, but I do know a little bit about civics and I knew enough to watch.
SPEAKER_01I'm just a bill. We have to put that.
SPEAKER_00Do you guys know what we're talking about? Um this um what schoolhouse rock? Schoolhouse rock. We'll put a link to it. Y'all need to know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, because yeah, it's it's important. But getting back to um you speaking, you letting those that person know what is important to you. And I love the fact that they ask, but this is on the local level, folks. This is not Biden versus Trump versus, you know, um no, no.
SPEAKER_00Right, right, yeah, yeah, really important. Um, so and the the the the way that I'll kind of tie that conversation back to how we opened is um is to say this if there's any thought that if you have something critical to say about um about the state of Israel, that is the same as being anti-Semitic. Let me just give you this perspective that would say that if you had anything negative to say about Donald Trump and when his um when he was leader of this company, when he and those he um put into office were uh running this country, that if we said anything negative about them, then that would mean that we were anti-American. And I don't think that anyone could say that. That if you didn't like the government, that means you don't like the people. They're two completely different things. Um, governments come and go. Um we know that there are people living in these parts of the world that have nothing to do with the or are are staunchly against um the people who are governing them. And so let's just separate that right up front. And if you have to think about that other framing to help you, just a reminder, um, please let's separate that because it it it creates this the sense that you um that uh you're endorsing violence against a people and not complaining or having issues or disagreeing or being in violent disagreement with the government that is in power.
SPEAKER_02And I think that and the decisions that they're making, right? And I think that what uh because Ern and I had a brief discussion about it last night, and he was speaking, he mentioned how much quote, I'll I'll say it in quotes, anti-Semitism is running rampant at this point um in terms of um the Israeli government and their response to the uh awful Hamas bombing on October 7th. You know, and I asked him, you know, are you referring, are you saying that? If people, if the world is speaking against what Netanyahu and his government have decided to do in response to that bombing, in terms of um bombing non-Hamas related, not you know citizens of Palestine hospitals, cutting off uh water, gasoline to hospitals, electricity and resources to um if that's what you're referring to, I don't think that's referring to anti-Semitism. I think that they're making a comment about the behavior of the Israeli government in response to their attack early in October. Um, as I understand it, people are saying, and I'm not a a war um, uh I don't know war history, but I hear it's war crimes to intentionally bomb innocent people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Genocidal, etc., etc. Children, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, this is not different from what happens in Ukraine and what happens in parts of Africa and and all over, but we have to, as you would say, and call a thing a thing.
SPEAKER_00We gotta call a thing a thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We do. Yeah. Um the I I have to tell you, um one of the first kind of feelings I felt in my body when the um attack happened and the um the news reports first started coming out. I think I've I have seen that there has been some change in trying to bring in more than one perspective in what I hear on um the news programs that I listen to. Um it's it's not by far even or or anything like that, but I've I've seen that there's been some shifts. And I think that that comes from conversations, marches, whatever, that say, you know, there are people who are seeing the other side. And so it needs to be reflected in what is being shown on the news. Um, but I have to tell you, one of the first things I thought about, and I was I was like, Angela, why are you so weird? This is what I was thinking about. It's been that's been them for years. And you know what? Now it's like an answer yet. Nor do I gonna like it. Were you gonna reveal why? I'm gonna say why. But I okay well, I don't know why, but I like it. I like it now. But here's what I thought about, all jokes aside, this is what I thought about. I thought about Nat Turner. I thought about slave revolts. I thought about um who says who who is who's telling the story about what happened, what justification there was, there is, um who was right, who was wrong, is there provocation, is is there not? Who decides, right? If to say whether whether um this is what started it, right, came out of nowhere, all of those ways that this was framed, this was being framed, even yeah, calling it horrific. To who? I mean, just saying, like, so I was thinking of Nat Turner, and if y'all don't know, he was the person who um who led one of the um, I want to say many, I know that there were definitely more than one, but he is the most famous leader of a revolt of um enslaved people slave rebellion, um, rebelled against their enslavement, and it led to attacking their enslavers, killing, and um he was he was caught, and you you can't imagine what what they did to him, but he was considered barbaric, he was considered um you know unprovoked. Um all of these things, and that's what I thought about, and just yesterday it depends on where you start. It depends on where you are sitting, it depends on, it totally depends on that. And that's not um, that's not uh, you know facts really you can say that these things happened, but when you add the um the judgment um words like horrific, I don't think what Nat Turner did was horrific. I think what he did was fight for his freedom, for example. It doesn't mean that um people weren't killed, but I wouldn't put that label on it. Do you know what I mean? Um, so I'm just kind of calling out that it really these things really depend on, and that's almost one of the reasons why um you have to really be more critical about your points of view um on the internet.
SPEAKER_02And I yeah, and and and take a take a step back. I'll just add on to what you said. I would describe um some of the things that's going on in that part of the world in Israel and Gaza right now as horrific. I think it was horrific of Hamas to drop a bomb or um to attack people in um Israel on October 7th and the bloodshed and the taking of hostages. I think it's horrific. Uh I also think it's horrific the response to the deaths, bloodshed um that's going on on the other side to the Palestinian people. Um, you know, so I can, as a human being, describe these events as horrific. I would not say that it's an easy fix.
SPEAKER_00Would you describe Matt Turner, what he did, as horrific? And if not, tell me the difference for you.
SPEAKER_02If I were the family members, well, you're not killed.
SPEAKER_00You're not. And and neither, neither are you an Israeli citizen or a Palestinian city. So just kind of based on your proximity in this situation and your proximity, even just that you read about this in history. Sure, sure.
SPEAKER_02I would still I would use the word horrific.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02I I would use the word horrific because of how bloodshed is this um would be described or multiple people murdered.
SPEAKER_03Okay, fair enough.
SPEAKER_02I would call um enslaving a group of people and bringing them out of their homeland and that whole history horrific.
SPEAKER_03Right, right.
SPEAKER_02So I'm using it as a descriptor without speaking about the history or mitigating um the horrors of it by what history or what have you. Someone I was speaking to about Israel said, um, oh, it's easy. You know, this is an easy decision. He was speaking as a um a Christian person who says that, you know, the uh the land belongs to Israel because God said it and this is it, and it's easy. I said, if it were easy, we wouldn't have the conflict.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, I l I what I said at the time, I said, um what if you as a Christian, what if um how did I put it? I said, what if a group of devil worshippers pounded on your door and said that our Lord Bezabub said to leave, I don't know, the devil.
SPEAKER_00No, you're right.
SPEAKER_02The dark one. It's just who keeps that like the dark one said to vacate this premises because this book right here says right here on verse such and such that this is our land.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And you get the heck out, and we're gonna make you live in a shack in the in the backyard. Right. Because this is our home.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02So it's not easy, and anybody who says it's easy is is, you know, right. I don't I don't think they were thinking that clearly or being very serious. The situation is horrific, and that whole region there in my prayers every day.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And one of the things that I pray for, one, is that the innocence be uh granted mercy. I just was um listening to and and I've been off of the television, I've been off of social media because it's too much for me. I just think about the people in hospitals suffering and having surgeries without anesthesia, yeah. People without pain medicines for their suffering. And these are not people who voted for Netanyahu, I as I understand it, he doesn't have a very high um approval rating. Um, or not the majority, as I understand it again. This is just information I've heard.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh nor does Hamas have total support from the Palestinian people. Yet these are the people that are suffering and being held hostage. And all they want to do is live their lives.
SPEAKER_01They just want to do the things that we all want to do. We just want to go to work, we want to love our children, we want to live in our home, we want to drink clean water, we want warmth when it's cold.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Somebody has to. We just have to pray. God help them. God help us all, you know? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But God help them. Indeed.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this is uh really difficult. I will I will add to that that um you know these at the end of the day as you just said, Les. It's it's people. It's people and um and whichever whichever way you're leaning um or even if you have a neutral position on the.
SPEAKER_02That's what I was just thinking. It's like why do we and I think that's the misperception in my mind that we don't have to lean one way or the other.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but some we can yeah. Some believe that if you don't lean, lean fully into one side, then you're for the other side, right? That's that's kind of a common thing. If you're not with us, you're you're against us. That that way of thinking. Um but war has never led to peace. I'm gonna say it that way because um it may simmer, it may calm things down, but what typically happens is the losers they start to um branch off, they stay angry, they they form groups like Hamas. That's what that came out of.
SPEAKER_02But do there I don't know, I'm just talking, and um maybe this is why I went into medicine and not politics. Does there have to be a winner and a loser? Does it have to be? I mean, yeah, there can two people equally win or equally lose so that there's no hard feelings? You know, I I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I I think um I don't think that we're built that way, or I don't think that our civilization has developed that way. I think that um maybe that has been or will be again, but I don't think right now, in in the way that things are designed around winners, losers, rich and poor, um, you know, haves and have nots. Uh so much of our systems are built around um uh binary.
SPEAKER_02I was just gonna say, we make these binary choices when these human beings and we are not the world is not always binary.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, right.
SPEAKER_00Binary is easy, it's not kind, it's easy. It's easy. Um so anyway, Les. All right.
SPEAKER_02Let's just continue to pray. Pray absolutely pray for clearer heads, pray for the hostages that are being held, that they be released safely. Pray for the people who are wounded that their wounds heal and that their mental wounds are not so pervasive that the children get to Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I want to pray for the the trauma. That the trauma be eased. You know, you just see people, especially little children, shaking like they are in that uncontrollable state of their bodies just reacting to what they've seen.
SPEAKER_02Um we we know Ange from the other war-torn areas around the world, Serbia, uh country many countries in Africa when the children of war grow up into adults that's when they're grown-ups making decisions out of dysfunction.
SPEAKER_00That's that's what I mean about war leads to war because um survivors remember holding their bodies and their minds the the trauma which leads to the next thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, and so people then hurt people, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yep, okay.
SPEAKER_02Wow, what a way to end. But um serious things happen. That's right, and but I'm glad that we we talked about it a little bit because you know we haven't talked about it publicly, but we don't feel, you know.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02And don't forget to get out and vote. It's important. Please if you hear this today, this is election day. If you haven't gone, it's important. All right, so this has been another episode of Black Woman Essence from Book of Brooklyn.
