Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you've likely seen and heard about the public hearings of GA District Attorney Fani Willis. DA Willis is prosecuting the alleged Georgia election fraud trial of former President Trump and has found herself in her own legal entanglement. Willis is being accused of hiring a former romantic partner to gain financially from the prosecution.
Regardless of which side you find yourself — whether you believe this is her personal business and not relevant to the prosecution case, or yes, she's guilty of inappropriate use of taxpayer funds and thus should be removed from the case, or even 'how dare she behave with such arrogance and disrespect on the stand — one thing is clear: the outcome will reverberate across America and the world.
Besties Angella and Leslie have been consumed by the proceedings. In this episode they discuss the hearing from an African American cultural perspective by dissecting the trope of ‘Black Excellence’, that familiar category that (in Ange’s view) has present day adjacency to being/or not a ‘credit to your race’.
Black folks are raised to internalize that we must be, act, dress, enunciate, and strive better than our peers as any mistake is often magnified and discredits the community as a whole by the white gaze. Even more so for Black women, who have the added burden of the judgment of race-agnostic sexism.
What is clear is that Fani Willis is a skilled and successful prosecutor and litigator with a long list of accomplishments under her belt. Despite her being the victim of violent threats and vandalism of her home, she has brought an extraordinarily important charge to hold an election-stealing attempt to justice. As such, are we missing the forest for the trees?
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.
Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you've likely seen and heard about the public hearings of GA District Attorney Fani Willis. DA Willis is prosecuting the alleged Georgia election fraud trial of former President Trump and has found herself in her own legal entanglement. Willis is being accused of hiring a former romantic partner to gain financially from the prosecution.
Regardless of which side you find yourself — whether you believe this is her personal business and not relevant to the prosecution case, or yes, she's guilty of inappropriate use of taxpayer funds and thus should be removed from the case, or even 'how dare she behave with such arrogance and disrespect on the stand — one thing is clear: the outcome will reverberate across America and the world.
Besties Angella and Leslie have been consumed by the proceedings. In this episode they discuss the hearing from an African American cultural perspective by dissecting the trope of ‘Black Excellence’, that familiar category that (in Ange’s view) has present day adjacency to being/or not a ‘credit to your race’.
Black folks are raised to internalize that we must be, act, dress, enunciate, and strive better than our peers as any mistake is often magnified and discredits the community as a whole by the white gaze. Even more so for Black women, who have the added burden of the judgment of race-agnostic sexism.
What is clear is that Fani Willis is a skilled and successful prosecutor and litigator with a long list of accomplishments under her belt. Despite her being the victim of violent threats and vandalism of her home, she has brought an extraordinarily important charge to hold an election-stealing attempt to justice. As such, are we missing the forest for the trees?
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.
[Music] Hey, Anne. Hey, Lars. How you doing? I'm doing great. You look great. Nice to see you, pal. Thank you. Good to see you too. Welcome to another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn. Brooklyn![Laughs] I put a little x-ray into that one, a little x-ray sauce. I appreciated it. I appreciated it. I'm wearing these glasses today that I haven't worn in years, probably more than five or six years. So they're a little scratch, so I'm kind of like, am I seeing bright? Am I looking like Mr. McEw? I'm sure you're saying this in the school for sure. Pinchy, pinchy, pinchy. Anyway, there's a couple things in the news that... I've been consumed. Listen, you know that I've been really good at getting at least seven hours sleep, and I have literally changed my sleeping habits from staying up all night and sleeping and getting my seven hours sleep. And getting my seven hours to waking up 7.30 at a clock? I know. You've been doing that a little while now, months or a year, at least. I know, it's completely... Probably. I would say six months comfortably. Welcome to my world. I ain't getting into that world, sorry. Sorry. I like being right over here and like say, "Hey, world, hey, let's... Right, right, right, but I'm up at 5.30 every day, you know. Hey, hey, from afar. But last night, I was so utterly consumed by what we're going to talk about today. That is. Funny Willis. And the other... I don't even know what the term is because these people are not... It's not a prosecution, per se, it's not... It's not a trial. It's a hearing. It's a hearing, right? So her testimony and that of, "You have to help me with the names, David. David. I'm not sure who... The other DA who she hired. Oh, his name is Wade. Wade. That's right. That's right. His first name is... Can't recall. What's his first name? Okay. Wade, they kept calling him Mr. Willis. That was so hilarious. Yeah. And also her former friend who testified as well. And her funny Willis' father who testified, "I have been sucked in." My sister yesterday said, "You sound like movie because my mother..." First it was with... With... Oh, my lord. First name Anita. Last name is... Oh, Anita Hill. Anita Hill. Anita Hill. When she was testified against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas before he became Justice. And also my mother was consumed with the OJ trial. Right. And I really, but at school, yeah. Yeah. So I felt like my mother... Watching all of the testimonies and everything. I didn't watch snippets. I watched the entire... Many of them were hours long. So you would watch them and say, "Liz, did you hear such and such?" And I'm like, "Of course not." And then so you would send me a link and I'm like, "Okay, send me the link." I'll listen and give you my opinion. Oh, my god. I've been listening, too. But let's dig in a little bit because I've seen YouTube videos of the actual testimony, but then I've also seen people's opinion about the testimony. And it really goes both sides. Very, very many videos out there supporting her and her testimony. And then I saw a few that spoke about how inappropriate they thought that she was in her testimony. Oh, they were highly, highly critical. Whatever. One such... Well, it's a podcast, actually. It's called "The Standard of Truth Podcast." And we'll attach the link to it so people can form an opinion of their own. But it's a pretty popular podcast and they... The host, I don't even know her name, but she really......hastigated......DA Willis and her testimony. And what I thought was... I didn't particularly agree with, per se, was some of the other comments she made that were really personal and outside of the testimony itself. And the reason for the hearing. Yeah. And you sent it to me and I got hot like I... I know sometimes, like you and I both do this. We don't like being in an echo chamber, like living in an echo chamber. We listen to opposing views on things, pretty regularly. Often, yeah. So this was me doing that when you sent me this link because you know I have some very strong opinions about the ways that......the expectations that we place on each other as black people. You know, I really challenge the notion of black excellence and what it means, not that black people ought not be excellent, but black excellence as an idea around the show. Right. You know, showing up perfect Michelle Obama, President Obama, that beyond reproach, no one should be able to say anything negative about you. You should live your life as if you lived in a glass house and that concept of black excellence is what I strongly, strongly, strongly... And damaging to us. And these folks are not allowed to show any human characteristics. I remember Obama was criticized because he wore a tan suit. Maybe Tann is his favorite color. Maybe he wanted to express himself in a color that he thought he looked good in. And he did. But I just remember how much people... It was frontline news about what this president of the United States wore, you know, when we're used to seeing him in other......in darker suits. Right....and some of the newsprint that I saw contrasted actually prior, President Reagan for one, I recall wearing lighter color suits. But because we, Black folk, are not allowed to deviate from this very narrowly prescribed lane, any deviation from it is inappropriate or certainly worthy of media fodder. Yeah. And I think, you know, we expect that from people outside of the Black community. And my dream is that Black people can find safety within the Black community. And we don't have... And, you know, in a way, I'm kind of having these extraordinary expectations of our community also. So I have to check myself on that. Because we're people. And we have opinions. We have opinions. Yeah. And all of those things. I just really, really, really dug, um, funny, willis and what she represented, how she represented. I really dug her imperfections. I fell in love with her father. Her father, her father. If you guys have not seen her father and get a sense of who this man is, the, the, um, international, um, he, he presented at the Hague, right? Yeah. And he served and lived in South Africa, immediately following Mandela's freedom and his ascension to the presidency. Presidency. I know he was a part of Rwanda's Truth and Justice Reconciliation also. Yeah. So this amazing man and... With as they would say, with hella credentials. With hella credentials. Yeah. And the way that through both of their testimonies, I think primarily, I'll speak on a gentleman in a moment, but through their testimony to me, you saw a view of, um, of black culture. That you normally don't see in these situations and I just, I just, I just, I'm all, I'm all for it. Yeah. It kind of wore my butt. Can I cut you off as I always do? Yes. I'm sorry. No, you're always do, but you say things and I get like entranced and then I start like and then it's like, let's speak up. But anyway, can we just go back a little bit for the people who may have been under rock for the last few days and not really know what is this hearing about and what is the purpose of it because in my opinion, I think we're losing the farest for the trees. Okay. Yes. So the district attorney, Fawni Willis, Brought charges from Fulton County, Georgia, brought charges against the former president for interfering with election with the 2020 elections. And in Georgia, if you remember, he actually called, um, Huffins, right, right, right, and asked him to find 11,000 or so votes so that he could win Georgia. Um, that and several other charges were brought against him. Um, several other actions were pulled into the charges presented against he, but not only the former president also 18 other co-defendants. It's 18 other, yeah. So one of those, one of those co-defendants came to find out that, um, the DA Willis was having a romantic relationship with another DA that she appointed as the lead prosecutor. And so they are contending that she should be removed from the case. And by the way, when they're saying she should be removed, her entire office would be removed. So anything that has been done to bring the case to this point would be scratched. I wasn't aware of that. Yeah, I thought that out last night about. But the other thing that they're already, um, I started to say alleged, um, people that were accused, but they're no longer alleged because they've been guilty to many of the charges. Yeah, yeah. So of the, of the, of the 18 co-defendants, I don't know the number, but several of them have already pled guilty to certain amount of charges. In their cases are removed from this and there are few remaining. Yeah, I think four or five are remaining. I see. Each of their representative, their lawyers were there. But the final piece of just kind of sending the context for this is that they are claiming that she hired, um, in order to get money, right? So somehow their relationship would cause her to get some kickbacks, let's say. And that's what it is. It's a kickback charge. So we're not talking about the ethical charge. Right. There is an allegation of kickback in propriety because if she as the prosecutor has a relationship with someone on her team who gets paid by taxpayers, then she might in fact benefit financially from having a, um, or romantic relationship with them if there's some exchange of money between the two of them. And that's the whole charge. So this hearing is to determine if in fact that that happened. Yeah. Was there any exchange of finances there by making her guilty of a kickback charge or whatever. And it says and it, I got to say, they're not talking about any ethical considerations of their union of either, um, or they are. Well, then, and all. That's not legally. That's not the legal charge. Right. Um, I'm glad that you interjected in that way because I got to say for the last two days, what I've only really heard is the salaciousness and the airing of her and his perhaps dirty laundry in public. Yes. And I have a couple thoughts about that. Yeah. And it gets, it gets really into the muckety muck because the, the, the, the co-defendant that brought the charge, right, the main one. I don't know the person's name, but, um, their lawyer, her name is, um, it'll come to me. Um, Marshall, I think her name is Marshall. No, it's, it's not more, I'll show, but it's a stuff. Yeah, crosses, cross is, um, Fonies. Right. You don't think it's that anyway. So many names now on my head right now. Anyway, she's the blonde. If you watch. Okay. Um, um, what, um, she has presented in her filing that, um, DA Willis and Mr. Wade were actually living together. And, um, and so, but I'm going to, so I say that because you have to understand how angry DA Willis was. Because this is now in the public that you can have opinions about whether, um, this relationship was appropriate or not. Mm-hmm. But there's no need to lie and once a lie is out. What do you mean there's no need to lie? There's always a need to lie for people. They want to win. They want to get there. But if you believe, but if you believe that you have a case, then you should try the case. You should, right? Right. Right. The truth should work, right? Yeah. And, I mean, you know how I feel about the truth. And there used to be a time when that's kind of how things were done. Yeah. You know, basically to the, to the death, um, but you didn't, it wasn't a, a, a lie for lie thing. You know what I mean? It wasn't a, um, a, a battle of, of, on truths. Um, but I want to come back to one of the things that I loved seeing. Um, and in a way, I did that smile because it reminded me of something that happened in the theater. When, um, I was working on the color purple and there was an intimate scene between Cili and Shig Avery when she was, um, Cili was combing her hair and scratching her scalp. And, um, how important that scene was to me so much so that I asked the director if Shig could be unwigged at that point so that it would be an authentic moment. And, um, the cultural connection you recognized. Yeah. And so that came to mind because what I love seeing for, for the world to see is the way that, um, Pony, um, said that DA will is, oh, um, put some respect on her name. DA will is, um, said that she paid back everything that was spent as they went on trips, um, he would, because he's the traveler, he would put it on his, and she would pay him back every time in cash. And they really, the lawyers who were, um, on the opposing side really leaned in. They started using word hoarding cash. They started framing and like that. Mm-hmm. And she was like, this is what black people do. And, and stuff right there because the whole, today's I spent watching this testimony back and forth. I realized that if a black person were watching this and a white person were watching this, we saw two different testimonies. Yeah. And had two different mindsets. Yeah. Yeah. And I realized that I didn't even realize were cultural or endemic to the black culture or black people. But when she spoke about, or when I heard the dad speak about, I always keep cash in my house. I grew up with that. I grew up with my grandparents and my great-grandparents. And we always had a shoe box. Yes. Of money, of cash. I know that my family members have had or have cash in aluminum foil in the freezer. People don't realize that there's a whole population of black folk that have been unbanked. Yes. Culturally for years and generations. Yes. You all may not remember that there are banks that wouldn't do business with black people. Right. And banks have phones. Is a big problem. Yes. Remember when we owned our own banks in Oklahoma, they were bombed and raised to the ground. Yes. Right. So so many of these cultural nuances that came out of in testimony, for example, always keep cash on you. Yeah. I keep cash in my car. And every car I own, there's cash in that. Just in case. I have cash right now in my home. I have cards in my, you know, and I use cards, but you ain't going to find me stranded out there, you know. No, no, no, no. And when she said that she really uses her currency, maybe cash or I save money as cash, people looked at her like she had two heads, certainly like she was lying and they were impeaching impugning her credibility. Yeah. That's not true. It's not. And I don't really. It's a black thing. I don't expect you to understand. I know. And that's exactly what her father said. I don't mean to be racist. He was such a charming. Yeah. But he gave an instance where it's a black thing. He didn't accept his credit cards and he had to use the cash that he had on hand. We've all had experiences where people have looked at us as scants when we've pulled out a check or a credit card. Is this you? Do you have another form of ID? I do. We fall to this very. We've experienced that. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's a. I remember a few months ago I went to a walking tour of Durham, North Carolina and it was a really central part of black thought during the civil rights movement. And one of the largest, the largest actually black owned insurance company was is in Durham. And so I learned even more about how and why insurance became such an important part of the black community is because banks would, would, would steal from them. They would either the bank would dissolve and they wouldn't, they wouldn't give them their money. You know, the money left and so they had insurance companies did that also and so they started. So there is this legacy of theft and loss of. Yeah. And so this idea you keep money her father told her she should have six months of living expenses in her home and gave her a safe. Yeah. A lot of people are. And she said, have father had three. Three people are saying, Oh, do you have ATM receipts to show us that you took this money out? She was like, where have I laid my head? I have money. And they're looking at her like she's crazy. Yeah, because they can't relate because they haven't had the experiences and banking and theft that we've had generationally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, it's, it's really something. Can you go back to what you talked about black excellence because I, I think it's important to mention in this case about some of the criticisms. I see of DA will assist testimony and this hearing in general that because she was romantically involved with a man who was currently married. That therefore her legacy and her experience as a successful prosecutor does not count. Yes. In this regard and she is no. And I think it is because of her humanness, the flaws. I mean, we're Christian women. So we are not excusing the. In propriety of what she did, but as far as I'm concerned, the who is without. You know, we're not talking about that. I would love this hearing to be concentrated on. Did she. Did she hire this person in order to get financial gain and thus. Causing an impeachable offense that she should be off of this hearing. Remember what she said was really telling. I am not on trial because this is the hearing not a trial. I am not on trial. The person who tried to steal the election in 2020 is on trial. Yeah, the persons. Yes. And it seems like we're forgetting that point. Right. Right. So this is my understanding of the married. I would say technically he was married. Yes. You know, technically he was married, right? Yeah. Yeah. But if you heard his testimony. I did. So what you know is that his wife had an affair in 2015. He told his wife that they were going to divorce and they agreed that they were divorced when their youngest child went off to school. And so yes. But these people were not. Were not. It was married in name only. It was not a they were not in relationship as husband and wife is my understanding. I get that. And what I want to say is because it goes to the humanness and you know when we hear adulterous and those types of language, there's a whole spectrum of what that looks like to people. Yeah. There's a home wrecker. There's the you know you broke up my marriage. Yeah. But you know and so I just want to make that clear. You can judge that either way. But the other thing that I would like to that I would like to say is that a very vulnerable moment that came up for DA Willis is that when she became DA and I guess in the months prior to that her home was constantly vandalized her father. Testified that they would spray the B word the N word. And she had to have a security detail. She left her home that she bought and paid for at her father's insistence and her father did not want to know where he never even knew where she moved to because he did not want anyone to torture him. To get that information from him. So he never visited her. So I say all that because she became a very lonely person. And she talked about and sacrificed her social life because of the her job. Right. She talked about her 50th birthday and that it was miserable because she spent it alone. So I'm just bringing it back to this idea of perfection that we have for one another. And this you know you your your life has to be without reproach. That is stifling. Whether you have anything that someone would bring under scrutiny or not. If you believe that that is the way that you're meant to live and your human is is to always be controlled and dimmed. And yeah, yeah, I got to tell you I grew up as I've mentioned just now and probably many times I grew up with my grandparents and my great grandparents. I was blessed to say. But I have generations of yeah, yeah, yeah, people in my home. And I recall so often. I mean, we were children, but Nana. All of the Nana's would tell us to kind of like pipe down in public, pipe down in public because we were black children. You know, she didn't want other people looking at us. We couldn't be too loud and public children allowed in public. There were three of us. We were having a good old time in church and in restaurants and wherever we went. But we always had to be mindful of our behavior. Not because we were just typical children, but because we were black children. Definitely no doubt about it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's legacy also because the stuff makes me so sad. And I grew up in New York City. Could you imagine what how my grandparents would have had to admit to me if we were in the South in the early 60s? Yeah, look what happened to Emmett Till, a person from Chicago who just went on vacation in the South and lost his life in the most horrendous way. No, I see black children out, outstanding black children are in danger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And your, your grand, grand mothers knew this. That was there. That was their existence. So when I think of some of the criticism of DA willis' testimony and her tone during it, first of all, it's embarrassing to have her personal life put in public in this way. That's one thing. So you got to feel a certain kind of way. I felt badly for her in that regard. But the other thing is that who wouldn't be angry? Right, right. So it's not that her business was public, but there were, there were lies according to her. There were lies that were printed in the lawyers. And she held them up and said that you lied in this case in a ensemble instances. And because she's prosecuting and have found many guilty already, a crime against the Constitution of the United States. It's her job. It's her literal job. It's her literal job to do this. And as a result, she is being one accused of impropriety in the way that I mentioned earlier. She has been run out of her home in the way that we just talked about. And now she is not supposed to get indignant and you're arrogant and you're at good. And this and that, she is supposed to stifle her personality in her anger, unless she be called an arrogant black woman. Or this, we are not allowed to be indignant. But what we think is transgressions and it's. Right. I mean, this idea of, you know, always being classy. It's a beautiful thing to see. I remember Isaiah talks about that when he goes to an HBCU, my youngest. And he says to me, often, mom, it's so good to see black people doing well. And because when they have events and they homecoming and things like that, their network of alumni is the strongest that I've ever seen. It's world renowned. And so the idea and when I see pictures of, you know, the Harlem Renaissance and the folks in Chicago, there's some iconic photographs. I remember you had one, I think, some young men sitting around a car. It's beautiful to see us living in these, these. I'm going to say elevated for less of a life. Right. And I was going to say grand in grand ways or grand joy. However, they kind of normal ways. They kind of know if that is the ex, if that is what is expected at anything other than that is shunned is your, you know, we don't use the term, your accredited to your race or you, or you're discredited to your race anymore. But we certainly act that way. And when I, and when you say we, I'm hearing black people, like the, like the woman, like the podcast that you mentioned. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that why, yeah, she should be wearing space and clothing is a why you're not supposed to be comfortable. What if I don't want my back to be contained while I'm giving testimony? And what if she might have had it on, but she was, she was in the back. She literally said she was pacing in the back. She might have taken it off because it was uncomfortable. And why are we even discussing what she had on? You know, it's such a, it's such a middle school mean girl thing to say if you have nothing substantive to say. Right. To criticize someone's personal appearance. Really? That's where we're going in 2024 when you're speaking about. Yeah. District attorney. Who's doing the job that she's doing? Who's trying to see our democracy? Yeah. I know. I'm cutting her all kinds of slack and love to hear opinions on this. Yeah. But I, I, that is how, you know, I really think that there as, as in any other group of people, we need to be more accepting of the range of ways that we show up. We shouldn't be expected to be model citizens. You know, growing up as an immigrant, this idea of the model immigrant, there are certain ways that we should behave because we don't want to be seen as, you know, those black people. We want to be seen as these black people. We want to be more accepted. You know, those types of things, I utterly reject, utterly reject. Yeah. And the division stigma and the pressure that that type of thinking puts on, you know, interpersonal relationships. I mean, look at you. You're an immigrant and here I am an American. And, you know, we fortunately have these types of conversations about it and stuff and it's, it's, it's really something else. Well, I heart you. I'm going to, I want to see the heart again on this thing. I heart you. Come on. Come on. You know, it does not cause you don't have a, you know, I heart you. I heart you too. Oh, I didn't do it this time. I didn't do it. All right. What is it? Some am. Thumbs up. Anyway. We'll do it. Okay. Um, so less. Yes. Another episode of Black Puma Bestie's from Brooklyn. Brooklyn![Music][MUSIC]