Challenging Stereotypes and Systemic Injustice: A Conversation with CNN Analyst Areva Martin

Ever grappled with societal stereotypes tied to natural hairstyles or wrestled with gender identities in a white male cisgender-driven world? Join your host Sanya Hudson-Payne and CNN and HLN legal analyst, Areva Martin, as we challenge these norms, uncover deep-seated systemic racism, and explore the journey to parity. Our insightful conversation uncovers personal narratives, the stereotypes black women often face, and the oppressive systems that shape societal norms.

We turn our sights to the sobering realities of racism and systemic injustice in America, combined with a stark portrayal of disproportionate healthcare meted out to people of color. Our discussion extends to the state of black maternal mortality, the power dynamics at play, and media representation - all feeding into the larger narrative of racial imbalance. Get ready for an eye-opening journey into the realities faced by marginalized communities and the power dynamics inherent in society.

The conversation takes a serious turn as we touch upon the heart-wrenching issue of missing black women, the so-called 'missing white woman syndrome', and the powerful influence of social media in the black community. We delve into the racial inequity in Palm Springs, California and the role Areva is playing in demanding reparations for Black residents forced from their homes. In a world where injustice is rife, tune in to hear how we can rally together and make a difference.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

This is not the only game Doesn't have any good games. Open like a window, no more window. Look at these videos. What's up with that good video? Because they're like, so sad on me and everybody on the east coast calls me Don. I'm like, what is Don? I was on the island, but I was at our homecoming. Let's go. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Speaker 1: 0:42

You're now tuned into another amazing edition of Sanya On Air. I'm your host, sanya Hudson-Pain, and how do I start a feature in every single show? You guessed that I have another great show for you. But before I tell you about today's guest, I need you to do me a quick favor. I need you to go over to every major streaming platform where you can find Sanya On Air and make sure that you subscribe. Now, if you're watching this on YouTube, not only subscribe, but make sure that you hit the notification button. That way, every time I upload an all new Sanya On Air celebrity interview and packing their pivotal moments and milestones, you'll be the first ones to know.

Speaker 1: 1:19

Today's guest is super, super important and amazing, just like every single Sanya On Air guest, but this conversation is so on time and so needed. Today's guest is Areeva Martin. She is a CNN and CLN legal analyst. She is the most leading voice covering everything law, politics, race relations and she's on Sanya On Air today. So we're going to be talking about just some topics that are affecting the black community and I'm hoping that you tune in, I'm hoping that you lean in, I'm hoping that you unpack and have these conversations with your family, your friends, your neighbors, because it is so important and is so on time. So make sure you subscribe.

Speaker 1: 2:05

We're going to do a few commercial breaks and we'll be right back with Areeva. Martin, stay tuned. Do you work out on the regular Feel your cart goals? With Instacart, the go-to service for quick delivery straight to your home, use the special Sanya On Air link below. Let's just jump right on into it. Would you prefer me to call you Miss Martin, or can I call you Areeva? Areeva, good, good, good. Now let me just tell you the first thing. I was excited to have you on my Sanya On Air platform because I was looking at a lot of your videos and I see that you are wearing plaques or either braids, and I said I'm proud, I'm proud, yes.

Speaker 2: 3:06

I'm wearing a cornrows.

Speaker 1: 3:08

Yes, because you know. Oftentimes, when women of color are, you know in media and we wear these type of hairstyles, there is often a stereotype that is attached to it. When you decided to just be natural with your hairstyles, did you face any type of backlash from your peers in media?

Speaker 2: 3:29

I have people question whether I was going to, how long I was going to wear it. So I started with what I call protective hairstyles about a year and a half ago. So quick story of my hair journey. When COVID hit, I had like a wig installed in my head Well, I guess, a wig more or less and hair salons shut down so literally my daughter and I had to cut it out and I, you know, you couldn't go to a hair salon, you couldn't do anything. And a niece of mine makes wigs and she saw me on TV or something. She's like oh my God, that weave is like five months old. Can I send you a custom wig? And I'm like I've never really won a wig. A lace front wig, sure, send it to me. So she sent me this wig and so for about the whole year of COVID I ended up my niece making me different custom wigs.

Speaker 2: 4:22

It was fine doing COVID, but I literally all my life I've had super long thick hair, so wearing a wig was kind of like in my brain, I don't know, just wasn't the right thing for me. No judgment on it. I did it for a year. I got some gorgeous photos and me and blonde and curly. So I went. Really I had a lot of fun with it.

Speaker 2: 4:41

But coming out of COVID I was like, hmm, okay, no more wigs. And then I had a dilemma Do I go back to wearing a weave or two? What do I do? You know what? I'm just going to do some natural hairstyles. And here I am a year and a half later, having done natural hair styles. So I've done ponytails, I've done cornrows, I'm working up to what you have. I have not formed box braid since I was a kid and the thought of the sitting to getting it done has been the impediment, not the look. It's just been the when do I have like four to six hours in my schedule. So literally I am loving natural hair styles. I've done, I said, I've braided it up, I've braided it back, I've had ponytails with, you know, curly hair. I've done all kinds of things. And right now that's the plan. I don't have a plan to go back to my weave, I don't have a plan to go back to wigs. This is it.

Speaker 1: 5:38

Yeah, yeah, you know I'm kind of the opposite with the pandemic and COVID. Well, I called the pandemic because I was able to really plan a lot. It brought me back to protective hair styles and getting back to my truth. So I was thankful for the pandemic because a new Sonya had emerged. But yeah, I was in this salon chair for six and a half hours.

Speaker 2: 6:01

Yeah, I think that's my thing. I am. You know my schedule so and then I have this issue I can't schedule anything because a minute I scheduled something, something comes up. So I need kind of stylists where I can literally call you this morning and say can I come in like in an hour? I'm like a stylist nightmare. So that's the other thing with the six hours. I'm trying to get my stylist to come to my house on Sunday, do box braids for me, and she's like you know. I got to check my schedule. If you see me next week in Martha's Vineyard, which is where I'm headed, without those box braids, you'll know. I just couldn't pull it off and I had to do something else. But it'll be either these braids or some other braids or something.

Speaker 1: 6:51

I get you Just the nuances, the nuance of being a black woman. I'm headed to SAC.

Speaker 2: 6:57

I have two daughters and we talk about this all the time. They live in New York. That's their school, college in New York and New York, the humidity when they're home in LA, it's like what do they do to go back to New York? Stylus in New York costs a lot more than New York. I mean then LA. They don't have cars.

Speaker 2: 7:17

So it's just this whole thing where black women and our hair becomes, even when you're doing natural styles, like I did this and had the nerve to get in the swimming pool on Sunday. So it's literally jacked up. It needs to be redone because I wanted to swim and I, you know, I just laid in a pool like four hours on Sunday like I don't care, I don't care, right? Someone called me to do a shoot for Friday. I'm like, oh, I don't know, I got these braids, I got hair. Yes, there's a lot of hair, there's a lot of hair in our hair. This is like you brought it up. So I said I don't want to do this, you know, and you, because this is like always going on in my hair, my hair.

Speaker 1: 7:59

I had to unpack it because I'm telling you, I'm traumatized. Six hours in the chair yesterday, which was my birthday yesterday, as a matter of fact, I spent the whole day at the salon.

Speaker 2: 8:08

Well, I can tell you they're gorgeous and I want them and I'm jealous. So I've been trying to get them all summer. I've been, you know, hesitating. I had an appointment, canceled it, thought about it, had another appointment, so I don't know. But gorgeous, so you're going to get two months, right.

Speaker 1: 8:26

Two to three months. I don't have to do anything to this.

Speaker 2: 8:29

Yes, I love the colors. I want color. I've been looking at the different colors that I want Gorgeous, yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:35

Thank you so, so much, but let's just jump into another topic that is really really just setting social media, women on fire, and we're talking about conflating vaginas. We're talking about is it homophobic to attach womanhood to just cisgendered women? And when we say cisgender we're talking about natural born women. For those who don't know yes, so talk about that, you know, just attaching womanhood to just natural born women. How do you feel about that?

Speaker 2: 9:09

You know, I just had this conversation, ironically, with a group of friends, and one of the friends has two children who were born biologically male. One of her children now identifies as non-binary and one is gay. I have another friend who had a biological daughter who now is non-binary and identifies as male, and what we all conclude it was what these children are going through has existed forever. We didn't have the vocabulary, we didn't have the know-how that we have now to identify it and to give individuals the freedom to identify as they feel, to express themselves in their most authentic way. And now that we do have that, we have to give them freedom to do it. So I don't believe that I have the right to decide what any individual should present themselves as to the world. So I am the first to embrace individuals that consider themselves non-binary.

Speaker 2: 10:17

There's a woman that I have on my show regularly who wrote me an email and said she is a queer black woman who now considers herself non-binary and is changing her pronouns to they and them. I had her on the show and my producer after the show said all right, you, you, she. I said oh my God, I was trying to be so careful. I wrote her, I apologize. Well, them and apologize and they said girl, don't worry, I often still refer to myself as she. It's a learning process, it's a journey, we'll all get there.

Speaker 2: 10:55

So, to answer your question, I am accepting of individuals how they present themselves. I am not judging, because I don't want anyone to judge me and I don't believe the boxes, particularly the patriarchal boxes, that white cisgender males have defined for us, should be how we define ourselves. So I'm really I'm in a space in my life I'm pushing back on the white male cisgender patriarchy that defines pretty much everything in this country. So if they are defining what, who gets to identify as female, and they have decided that it's only individuals born with a vagina, I absolutely reject that.

Speaker 1: 11:45

You know, you just added another layer to my thought process because I was just like you know what?

Speaker 1: 11:50

This is? A white patriarchy system and you know we've kind of normalized those systems and now there is a major disruption to it and I think we're all just trying to unpack it. But another question that arose as you were talking is that so is womanhood just defined to a definition, or should it be defined by an experience? Because women, we do have periods and if you have, let's say, a non-binary or a transgender woman, they don't have the same type of experiences that women have. So I'll repeat the question Is womanhood going to be a definition or will womanhood just be an experience?

Speaker 2: 12:33

I don't think we necessarily have the definitive answer to that and I can say that I reject the notion that it's experiences only, because menstrual cycles obviously is one experience that people born biologically female have, but we know with science that could change, that could very well change and there are other experiences. There are experiences that certain women have that others don't. If you are born with a certain disability and you are born female, you're going to have experiences as a disabled biological female, that someone who wasn't born with that disability. So I don't think experiences alone can be the determining factor. I think it's complicated and again, our society wants everything to fit very neatly and nicely into boxes that have been defined by these cisgender white males and when it doesn't, people reject it. The Marjorie Taylor Greene's of the world, the people that want there to be simple definitions for everything. And the reality is individuals are complex and people are expressing their complexities and the layers that make up who they are.

Speaker 2: 13:49

And they make them fit so nicely. And again, I'm not trying to make everybody fit into those boxes, because I reject those boxes and believe had those boxes been developed by different types of individuals, they wouldn't be the same boxes. So who knows, if we lived in a matriarchal society, right Some of those earlier African societies that were controlled by women, where women were the dominant sex in those cultures, what would the world look like if we continued to have matriarchal structures rather than patriarchal structures? Maybe we wouldn't have this debate about who gets to be defined as a woman or female.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Yeah, I definitely agree. This whole conversation that has erupted on social media, even people's personal lives, I'm just thinking it's a distraction from the real issue, and that is just the rights of human beings to live their lives freely. I think we're just getting so caught up on the nuances that it is a real distraction from laws that need to be passed to protect everyone. So that has become a distraction and we're not really addressing the real topics of protecting transgender, binary, gay, the whole LGBTQ plus community.

Speaker 2: 15:13

Clearly, the LGBTQ plus community has been under attack. There was an African-American gay kid I call him a kid 25 years old, just killed in New York. He and his friend at that gas station just because they were dancing and expressing themselves in a way that the murderer didn't approve of. He's killed just because of who he is and who he wanted to be in the world. So I think we can't lose sight of that Again.

Speaker 2: 15:40

The cisgender male agenda is to keep us in the confines of which they have defined for us.

Speaker 2: 15:48

And, yes, if they can keep us debating things about who gets to call themselves a woman, then we don't have to deal with some of the oppressive legislation and the oppressive standards that are being imposed by some of these Republican white men.

Speaker 2: 16:10

So, yeah, I think we have to keep our eye on the ball, and that's why I think it's so dangerous for people of color or any marginalized group to buy into these narratives, because if they come for that group, they will come for you. No one is safe in this environment, and we've seen that white males will come for white women. So when white women don't stand in solidarity with marginalized groups and people of color, they are delusional if they think that they somehow are off limits or they have some special place in the hearts and minds of these white men that wanna dominate and control the world, and us included. And the wake up call should have been the overturning of Roe v Wade. If they were ever going to be concerned about anything is Roe v Wade, it should be affirmative action, because white women have benefited greatly from affirmative action programs. So a lot of these programs that on the surface may appear to benefit other groups, we know that white women often are the beneficiaries and have every reason to stand in solidarity with marginalized groups.

Speaker 1: 17:18

Yeah, I think it's gonna come a place in time where they will be forced to stand alongside marginalized groups because they're not exempt. They just haven't gotten to them yet.

Speaker 2: 17:28

Yeah and in some ways they have I mean Roe v Wade is an attack on all women. There's a story in the New York Times about two women white young women who got caught in states where they couldn't have abortions, forced to have to carry to term a pregnancy that they did not want, and how they are struggling to raise these children because these are children having children. So again, you know it was, you probably will recall Dr Jocelyn Elders, first ever African-American female surgeon general, appointed in the 90s under Bill Clinton. I had an opportunity she's turning 90 in a week or so to interview her recently and she was such a visionary ahead of her time.

Speaker 2: 18:11

And during her confirmation hearing she was challenged by a white male Republican senator because she made a statement that these pro-lifers love fetuses more than they love life.

Speaker 2: 18:23

And he says what do you mean by that? And she basically said they love to advocate and support fetuses, but when children are born, they won't expand Medicaid, they won't make you know books available, they won't make a quality education available, they won't provide affordable housing, they won't do those things that will enrich and improve the life of a living being a child, but yet they rant and rave and protest to be, you know and proclaim to be, lovers of life, but you know, and again, that whole pro-life movement is rooted in a lot of misogyny and rooted in this cis gender male agenda to control initially white women and then all women. So you know, we have to be careful about, you know, judging, attacking and thinking that somehow you used the word exempt I love that word that somehow any particular group is exempt, particularly in what we see today in terms of the power grab by white men. It's astonishing and keep everybody up at night worried?

Speaker 1: 19:39

It definitely has. I remember waking up maybe it hasn't even been a week and I automatically turned on social media, and I shouldn't have, but it brought me two tears to just think about. To look at once again how people of color and that includes the LGBT community, how people are treated. But you talked about, you know, people caring more about the fetus than the actual person. I wanna talk about the disproportionate quality of healthcare that people of color are receiving. What are your thoughts about that? Well, you know we know.

Speaker 2: 20:16

I mean you start with the increasing number, stats around black maternal Mortality and how that gap, how it's more dangerous for black women to have a baby in the United States Than it is to have a child in a third world country, the continued widening of the. You know health disparities that we see in this country and again so many of these issues that we see around healthcare around. You know educational access around. You know the black white wealth gap. You know housing of the homeless crisis that impacts so many states and cities like Los Angeles, san Francisco. All at the core is about race and racism and you talk to the experts whether it's a homeless expert, whether it's an economic expert, whether it's a health care expert it all goes back to systemic racism, anti-blackness and barriers in this system. I had a homeless expert tell me that if the majority of people living on the streets in this country were white Rather than being, you know, 35 to 40 percent African-American in some cities, that homelessness would be solved. Yeah, they know what to do. He says it's not, as if there is some, you know, dirt of knowledge around. How do we resolve our homeless crisis? There's just not the will to do it because of the color of the skin of the people who live on our streets. And that's in health care as well, you know. You look at what they teach in medical school. How good will they teach about black bodies and black people, some textbooks not even having examples of black bodies, again, the cisgender white male being the Prototype that is used to teach Med students about medicine. All of that is by design and all of that could be changed very, very easily. But that really scares me, sonia, the most is In this country. Now we are going through the browning of the country, where the minority will become the majority, and that's not like in a hundred years from now, right, and so like Texas, in California, I mean, we're talking about in five to ten years, so in our lifetimes, there will be a majority of minority people that live in these states and eventually in this country, and the White power structure knows this, and what we're seeing is the struggle to hang on, to hold on to power, because of the fear that once the numbers change, then that lays the foundation for a power ship, a paradigm shift the likes of they can't even imagine. Yeah, the extremists.

Speaker 2: 23:04

Slavery really was job, for Slavery really was an opportunity for you to learn some skills. I mean so that that is something even a lot of historians have said they could not have ever imagined, even the lost cause, you know, moving right after slavery and other movements to a fantasize about slavery. They never thought we would see a day. Yeah, so slavery was all about a job training program and you want to be happy, right, that's to make the skills you know. And again, a black historian told me just yesterday in an interview that that is such a flawed and fallacious arguments for so many reasons, starting with so many of the African people. They were brought over to the US, were already skilled artisans. Yeah, already trained, already, had skills that they had acquired in Africa. So this notion is somehow white folks gave them skills while they were beating them and killing them. Right, it's just so fallacious. But hold on to that power and this, I think, is gonna get even worse. I think we're going to see, you know, even more Extremism.

Speaker 2: 24:13

A poll out today says that in a one-to-one matchup, joe Biden and Donald Trump or are tied. Yes, I'm right, it's twice indicted, about to be quadruple indictment. Yep, mm-hmm is tied. So there, we can't let that go. We can't just say oh, that's white folks that don't want, you know, a big government, right? We could used to say that about the Democrats, right, that's just white folks that don't want big government. That's just white folks that think Joe Biden is too old. No, this is white folks saying Donald Trump is our only hope Power in this country, and he has made it clear and will say the quiet part out loud, that this is about white power.

Speaker 1: 25:02

Yes, it is, but you mentioned that very soon we will become the majority. When we become the majority, do you think that there will be some sort of power shift? Because I just want people to remember their why. I recently looked at one of your TED talks and your why is the government cheese this whole conversation? I just want people to tap into remembering their why, my why for me, when I talked about the disproportionate quality of healthcare about two years ago, my mother was murdered in a hospital and I'm in the the middle of a major lawsuit against one of the biggest hospitals here in New York City. What can people hold on to to remember their why? A universal why, why we need to keep disrupting these systems. What is our why?

Speaker 2: 25:58

Yeah, I think people need only look, you know, at their own families.

Speaker 2: 26:01

I don't care if you're, you know, african-american and you're now wealthy or you know you can probably go back a generation or two and find your family that struggled and that paid, you know, a serious price for whatever privilege you may have today, whether it's economic privilege, education privilege, you know. Whatever you know status you have today, I think our family structures tell us everything we need to know. That's why I think, for me, listening to those Florida educators, or so-called educators, that education committee, talk about changing and Introducing these new standards about slavery, I think our why has to be our history. It has to not ever allowing ourselves to get sober, move from our history. And that government cheese is just symbolic for me of my history, of growing up poor in a housing project, of you know, experiencing what it is like. I was literally having a conversation with two friends yesterday. We're talking about cockroaches. Really, we're having a conversation about growing up and the conversation got really bizarre, like the American cockroach Versus the Oriental cockroach and what we call a water bug versus a cockroach cockroach, and all of us having lived in, or or visiting relatives, homes that were infested with cockroaches and you know, you may not have had that experience and I wish to God most people never have, but that is an experience that is very much a part of Lots of people, millions and millions of people in our country today. Today, though not just back in the day, today, yeah, it's like Places like LA that live in poverty and our history has to keep us grounded, I think, and keep us connected to those communities and keep us, as you said, fighting and disrupting.

Speaker 2: 28:02

Yes, again, I don't care how your, your privilege takes you, how far you've been able to go. If you get removed, so far removed from that, then you know. No, to answer your question, we will be a brown country, but we will act in the same way. Yeah, as the you know. So just because we come out of oppression doesn't mean that we Will act in a way different than those that oppress us, because we see that often right. But the two of the people that are defending those standards in Florida, they are two African-American Republicans. Yes, white folks on that committee have said they fought against the language, they thought it was wrong. So we can't lose sight of the fact that the white supremacist narrative has been. You know we have been inculcated with that same there. Yeah, we have grown up with that patriarchy narrative right, which is why, as women, sometimes we can be harder on other women than even men. Yes, so sometimes people think a white supremacist is a white person with a hood.

Speaker 2: 29:13

No no, it's not, no, it's all in. Can folk? Yes, and we have been taught the same way that to hate ourselves right, that's self-loathing that would cause someone to try to rewrite the narrative about slavery is because we have also been taught that black is Negative, associated with everything that's wrong in this country.

Speaker 1: 29:39

So true, and we've also been taught. You know, for me. I come from the projects in Brooklyn and I was always taught Okay, once you go to college, you leave your community. That wasn't true for me. I said okay, once I go to college, I have to return back to my community. I walk through my community every single day, where my father is still a resident in the projects.

Speaker 1: 30:03

I even went to go teach for a few years because I felt that it was my Responsibility to educate black and brown kids in the state of Florida. Now it was. It was a challenge because I did make the news, because while I was a teacher, I also wrote a book and my principal called me into his office, a white man, and he said how dare you think that you can write a book? You're only a teacher. It was one of the most traumatizing experiences of my life because I would incorporate Black history into the curriculum. I would get called into his office about every single week Until they told me okay, we're not going to renew your contract. I said I already planted seeds, my assignment is done. Now I'm off to go. Now share this blessing with the next black and brown community.

Speaker 1: 30:53

So I really want people to understand their why. My wife, from my wife for me was, like you said, my mom. It was also for me growing up in a community, in the projects and I had to remember they gave to me. I have to show some form of reciprocity. So, once again, I'm really encouraging people to tap into your why so that you can now take whatever was blessed to you and Now give it back to your community. So I'm glad that you mentioned that. Another topic that I want to talk about is the world not believing us, the world minimizing our voice, and I'm connecting this to Carly Russell and her alleging that someone had kidnapped her for 49 hours and Now the world is believing, because she lied, that no one will believe another black woman if she is Kidnapped. What are your thoughts about that case?

Speaker 2: 31:52

Yeah, you know, when Carly's story first broke, I honestly had some doubts about it, and I had doubts about it just because of the work that I do as a lawyer. I've been, you know, a part of so many of these big stories when people are missing and Having listened to so many law enforcement agents talk about, you know patterns that emerge when someone is missing, you know, and so just some of the things that I learned, that I've learned in the work that I do, caused me to have some doubts about the story. Like the child there hadn't been anyone calling saying that my child is missing. So that, and then the length of time that later came out that she said she saw this child walking against, struck me. As you know, that was odd.

Speaker 2: 32:39

Yeah, but you know what I did. I say quiet. I'm quiet because I, rather than impose my doubts into the conversation. You ain't got to have something to say about everything, you just don't. You know, one of my coaches once taught me that you don't have to opine on everything, you don't have to weigh in on everything. There are things that are going to happen where you have an opinion but nobody's going to want to hear it, or sometimes you don't need to express it, so I just held that.

Speaker 2: 33:14

So when the story broke that it was falling, you know things were falling apart, it wasn't adding up. And then finally, you know, the lawyer came out and just acknowledged it my heart broke because I wasn't sitting back saying, oh, this is some BS, this girl is tripping. I was saying the story isn't making sense and I hope that this is not a hoax and I hope that this is not a cry by a young woman that is in serious trouble. Right, because we know there's so many of our women, younger people in particular, are in serious crisis coming out of the pandemic. You know, the suicide rates amongst young black women and boys in particular is sky high and I've heard of just too many young people that I know personally that have taken their lives. So I was just hoping and praying that this was not going to be one of those stories and, to your point, recognizing that there is a thing in this country called you know, missing white woman syndrome and that when a white woman goes missing, news rooms and news outlets will spend an in an order and amount of time focused on that story. Because that is a story that the American people are interested in. It resonates, the news is not reporting anything that doesn't result in ratings, right, and missing white women people are fascinated with them or whatever reason, and we can go into a whole another show about that. And missing black women, missing black children, missing black men just they don't resonate and it's hard and I've talked to news directors inside those newsrooms and it's so hard for them to get their own stations to report on those stories and oh, don't let the person have a slight blemish on their record because now you know that's a whole different way that that story is told.

Speaker 2: 35:08

So I do think we have to continue to push news outlets and media outlets to focus on black women. There's a group called you know, missing in black, I think that's the name of it that really, you know, tries to highlight the stories of missing African American people and we can't let this one story because there's a white woman out there. There's a white woman who left and was gone for a couple of weeks with a next boyfriend, who you know, and there was reported that she was kidnapped and she returned. So white women have done that too. Carly is the first person who has staged a disappearance, so let's be clear about that. So this should not cause media to say, for every black woman that's ever missing, we can't look for you because of Carly Harper, because there are white women that have done the exact same thing. And it has not stopped newsrooms for looking and giving media attention to white women. They go missing.

Speaker 1: 36:05

Yes, you know, I definitely want. I'm glad that you added on to that facet, but I also want to address just the online vitriol that Carly received from her own community. When I look at social media and how we address, how we attack one another, once again, I need people to remember the why. Because it sends a message to white America, to misogynist America, that we don't even care about ourselves and we have to keep leading with a sort of intentionality, because it is becoming too much, where they are continuing to devalue us, because we are devaluing ourselves.

Speaker 2: 36:48

Well, you know, social media is a two-headed beast, right, we love it because it's democratized information. So, you know, folks can go online the way we are and have conversations and we don't have to pay a big network to take out an ad or to. You know, we don't have to do those things that made information, again, you know, confined into the hands of a small, you know, group of people controlled everything that we saw and heard. So now we all get to be newsmakers, we all get to be producers and storytellers. Flip of that is, we all are producers and storytellers, right? So sometimes those stories and that content that we are producing is incredibly demoralizing, dehumanizing.

Speaker 2: 37:38

And yeah, folks went in on her heart and you know, I knew it was coming and you know there were some people who were pushing back, who talked about, you know, if she does have some mental health issues, hopefully she's getting some help, if she has some other kind of issues.

Speaker 2: 37:52

But, yeah, people like to sit behind their screens and very anonymously, right, attack. You have to answer. You have to, you know, come face to face with the person, the subject that they are, you know, directing all of that vitriol and hatred towards. So that that is the flip and that is the negative side of social media and that's what we have to be fighting against, because the positive of social media is, like I said, you know, my 91 year old aunt can go on Instagram and go on tiktok and have access to the latest news updates without having to pay for cable, you know, pay for an expensive internet service. So there are positives, but everything positive has a negative. So, yeah, I didn't like what happened with you know Farley, and I hope her lawyers and her family are getting her help.

Speaker 1: 38:54

Yeah, yeah. So going back to a topic that we briefly discussed, you know, just the reimagining of black history in Florida schools, what can Florida parents do in order to make sure that they are children are armed with correct black history? And then, overall, what can other black parents do in every other state, because if they got to Florida, they're going to get to you too. What can I?

Speaker 2: 39:21

do? No great question. First of all, the Florida people. To remember, florida was not this maga red state until the last two election cycles. Florida is a state. What is the state where Obama won? Florida is a state that sent, you know, val Demings to Congress with Val Demings just ran for Congress. It had a conversation with Val Demings about what happened to Florida and she said the Democrats went to sleep at the switch and there are now 500,000 more Republican voters than Democratic voters.

Speaker 2: 39:52

But it doesn't have to be that way, right? So the thing I say to parents is pay attention to your local elections, because it is your school board, it is your state legislators who have say over the curriculum that your children will be taught. So we can't just engage when there's a, you know, a presidential sexy election going on. The school board elections matter, those state rep elections matter, and if there are 500,000 parents outraged in Florida about these standards, they need to send a message to Florida legislators, including Ron DeSantis and including those Republicans that have been voting consistently with Ron. You know DeSantis is, you know, anti-woke initiatives to throw them out of office and replace them with people that will represent them and the values and traditions that they hold. So that's number one. If you are a parent, you need to be actively engaged in the politics in your local community and voting and encouraging your neighbors and your family members to vote, because Florida doesn't have to be red. Florida has the potential with all of those minorities that live in Florida and we don't have to give up on Cuban Americans. We don't have to give up on, you know, latinos. You know you hear a lot about. You know they're trending Republican, they're more conservative. I don't think we have to give up on any demographic because I would say they have more in common with us than they do with. You know folks who tend to vote Republican. So register, vote, push back.

Speaker 2: 41:24

You can show up at those meetings because oftentimes, as you know, being a teacher, it's the loudest parents. It's not the largest group of parents, it's that one or two parents who have the loudest voices that show up at everything that the school is yielding to they. You know they respond to the pressure from those one or two parents. So the rest of the parents that disagree with these policies have to show up and they have to show solidarity and unity and they I think the majority of parents are anti these policies in Florida. You know, don't say gay. We don't how many parents of gay kids there are, so you could not be in favor of these policies. So I think we have to show up at those meetings. We have to make our voices heard.

Speaker 2: 42:15

I think parents around the state of Florida should be in collaboration with the teachers union. Andrew Spear I think Spears, or Spears is the president of the Florida Teachers Association. They are vehemently opposed to many of these policies. So teachers have allies with parents and parents have allies with teachers, and I think that kind of allyship can have a very powerful impact. Yes, so we need to make sure that that is happening. And then parents have an obligation to teach their kids. Yes, teaching their kids. They should be teaching their kids this important and critical history. Yes, organizations like the Urban League, the NAACP, other, you know, african American focused organizations. I think we all have an obligation making sure that we are supporting the teaching of black history in our communities, where we are. So we can't just say the teachers are teaching X or the schools are teaching X, so that's what my kids are going to learn. No, we got to make sure that we are countering those lessons with true, accurate, factual black history.

Speaker 1: 43:28

Yes, yes, open up your kids book bag, open up their textbooks. As I mentioned, I've been in education for over 20 years and for the past 10 years I partnered with the school to introduce and connect them with an organization called the Family Leadership Training Institute. Oftentimes schools will look at families and say, oh, that's just the PTA, you know, they're just going to bake cookies. Oh, that's what you've minimized them to. Okay, so I'm going to get a group of parents, I'm going to send them to DC for formal training and advocacy, then I'm going to place them back in your school community so that they can be the leading voices of families. We wanted to disrupt the system with families who were adequately trained and armed to sit in front of school leadership and administrators to say our voices matter, our kids education's matter, and we're going to move this dial forward because you want to stuck in a place of complacency and ignorance and not on my watch. So that's why I did here in the state of New York, and I'm encouraging other school leaders, other families. If you're looking for an organization to partner with so that you can get advocacy skills in order to disrupt schools, please look into the Family Leadership Training Institute and they're located in the DMV area. So please research that Great point.

Speaker 1: 44:52

Thank you for sharing that, no problem. So let's move on to something else. Another topic reparations. That has been a conversation on our tongues for so many years, but I think the definition and the purpose has become lost. Can you please define reparations?

Speaker 2: 45:12

Yeah, I think the common definition of reparations is restoring restoring to African American families what was taken from them by racially motivated laws, policies and actions.

Speaker 2: 45:31

I mean that's the simplest definition of it.

Speaker 2: 45:33

And cities around this country are looking at the role that they play, the cities and states, in terms of their treatment of descendants of slaves.

Speaker 2: 45:44

There's treatment of black people, cities that abuse redlining, cities that abuse eminent domain, cities that have had racially restrictive housing policies and other policies. They're looking at how those policies were used to discriminate against and to target black people, to deprive them of land, to deprive them of other economic opportunities, to deprive them of health care, to truth them and to confine them, to relegate them as second-class citizens. And how can they rectify that? So the California Reparations Task Force met for two years, went around the state conducting hearings, hearing about racial atrocities in the state of California that happened to have not been a slave state but had some of the same Jim Crowism laws and anti-black laws and policies dating back to the 1800s as slaves who had been freed or who were escaping slavery came into California. And they have written a thousand-page comprehensive report that contains 105 recommendations. Other cities St Louis, detroit, all of them have now developed reparations task force that are studying again the roles that those cities played in depriving black folks of property and other opportunities and looking at how they can right those wrongs.

Speaker 1: 47:23

But you, specifically, you're working with the residents of Palm Springs, california, correct? To award them reparations. Talk about that, because I don't think that this is on a lot of people's radar. We've all heard about what happened in Tulsa, oklahoma, but people really don't have an ear and eyes on what happened in Palm Springs, california. So please unpack that.

Speaker 2: 47:47

Yeah, so Palm Springs, California, is a desert location about 90 miles outside of downtown Los Angeles. It is considered to be one of the nation's top exotic desert vacation spots. Tours from all over the world descend on Palm Springs, particularly during the winter months. So when it's cold back east in New York and Washington DC, snowbirds come in to Palm Springs, California, because of the weather, the tropical, the desert heat and lots of natural springs that have been, that have developed in Palm Springs just because of the geography of the land. And lots of beautiful hotels, golf courses, tennis courses, hotels, restaurants, the Fit Convention Center, lots of fit conventions there, Beautiful second homes in the 50s and 60s that became the getaway for the rich and famous of Hollywood Gene, Archie, Frank Sinatra all of them having homes in Palm Springs and when they wanted to get away from the glare of the studios they could get on the freeway, get to Palm Springs in an hour and a half and they have beautiful architectural homes built. So it's just a beautiful location but it has a very dark, ugly past that isn't often, as you said, talked about or even known by people that live in California.

Speaker 2: 49:15

Tulsa, Oklahoma, became more known and, let's be clear, a lot of folks did not even know about the massacre in 1921 and the burning down of Black Wall Street. That became popularized after George Floyd's murder and likewise, what happened in Palm Springs became a focal point of local media and now national media, because it was after George Floyd's murder and the racial reckoning that this country was having that residents in Palm Springs started to look at their past and look at how their city had treated Black and Brown folks and moved into the city during the time that they were building up this location this, you know, this desert getaway, and what they found was not pretty, you know, it was startling, it was shocking, it was despicable, reprehensible. And it was that the city had engaged in a campaign in the 50s and 60s to burn out and to bulldoze the private homes of Black and Brown families living in 646 acres of prime downtown property in Palm Springs, now referred to as Section 14, property that was owned by the Indigenous tribes, a property that was actually made available by the tribes to minority people, Black and Brown people, to live there because of racially restricted covenants that said, you Black person that have come into Palm Springs, that have helped to build these golf courses, tennis courts and these houses for these wealthy people. You can't live next door to them. How dare you think that you're good enough to live next door to them Now? Your cheap labor, your under compensated labor can build their homes, but you can't live next to them because you are colored and you are inferior, and this is whites only.

Speaker 2: 51:02

So you have now this built up community that is marketing itself to the world to come party with us, vacation with us, bring your dollars into our town, bring your tourism, your millions of dollars, your tourism dollars.

Speaker 2: 51:20

But we don't want you to see in a heart of downtown this Black and Brown community. We can't have the projects, we can't have a poor community of Black and Brown people, a community that we have starved of resources so it doesn't have the same veneer, the same gloss, the same beauty as neighborhoods adjacent to would have. Neighborhoods where we've invested, where we've paved the roads, where we've provided water service and trash service and we beautified with landscaping. This little Black and Brown community that has none of that because we haven't provided it as a city, where we've allowed dumping to occur, where we've removed the trash service, the water service, where we've made zero investment to beautify, we can't have Life Magazine or a national media outlet come here and see this. That would tarnish the image that we're trying to project to the world. So we need Joe to be gone and, like yesterday, and because you're so unimportant and because you have no power, we're not going into court and asking a judge for a court order to remove you, they just did it.

Speaker 2: 52:31

We are just bringing in the city fire department and we might knock on your door and tell you hey, you know, tomorrow your house is going to be burned if you're not out. We might, maybe we won't, but in the end what they did was they burned a community of 5,000 people. They forced them out through the denial of services and those that wouldn't leave the 2,000 plus that wouldn't leave who had nowhere to go, whose jobs were next door, who didn't have cars and didn't have money because they were already making substandard wages they called the city fire department and they literally burned their homes. And then they were sent to bulldoze, right to bulldoze that which was left.

Speaker 1: 53:19

But since then hasn't some officials apologized for their wrongs? They've admitted it, but still no reparations have been awarded. Am I correct? A couple of things have happened.

Speaker 2: 53:32

The city actions prompted a criminal investigation. A criminal investigation by the California attorney general came into Palm Springs in the mid 60s, did a skating report, called what the city did a city engineered Holocaust. And you know white folks don't use the word Holocaust for you, nope. So you know if a white official is referring to something related to black and brown people as an in just city engineered Holocaust, it had to be bad. Yeah, the city's own human rights commission a couple of years ago did its own investigation and again highlighted that this community was targeted because it was black and it was brown. And yes, after some activism on the ground by local activists, the city did issue an apology. It hasn't made good on that apology. It has taken an important step, but we are fighting and pressuring and pressing forward an action to make good on that apology, because an apology without action is meaningless. I'm sorry, I stole your money out your bank. Hello, there are consequences to your actions.

Speaker 2: 54:50

And this has not lived up to and it's not paid the consequences for its actions. And that's where I am involved. I'm leading the charge, representing over, at this point, a thousand We've identified 700 plus and we believe they're close to 2000 out there, survivors and descendants who are now standing up, who have found their voices, whose voices have been buried, have been silenced because of fear, because of intimidation and because of racial trauma. But they now have found their voices, they're standing up and they're demanding that the city compensate them, acknowledge their contributions and make them old so do you think in our lifetime that the residents or the descendants of the Palm Springs Holocaust will receive reparations?

Speaker 1: 55:44

Do you think that'll happen in our lifetime?

Speaker 2: 55:46

I'm confident, I am optimistic, I'm cautiously optimistic, but I am very optimistic. We have put together a strategy that involves not just legal action, political action, community organizing and a media strategy. So we recognize there's no precedent, there is no court case that we can look to. Johnny Cochran and a professor of mine from Harvard, Charles Ogletree, went into Tulsa in the early 2000s, filed for reparations for those descendants of Tulsa, took it all the way to the US Supreme Court and the case was dismissed. Yeah, a new set of lawyers just in the last two or three years have filed for those descendants of Tulsa using a different legal theory. That case was just dismissed at the trial court level. Now it's up on appeal. We'll be going up on appeal. So there aren't any favorable legal precedents. But we believe that we have an opportunity to create the first collaborative model and I say collaborative because we think we can do this in a negotiated settlement that doesn't require a full-blown trial before a jury.

Speaker 2: 56:58

Now we are preparing. I have brought on co-counsel. One of the nation's largest civil litigation firms that has an untold amount of resources, has signed on to this case with me. So if we have to go into court and if we have to press our case before a jury. We are prepared to do that. We have the manpower, the legal acumen, the resources to do that. But the city has said over and over and over again that it doesn't want to spend millions of dollars mitigating this matter in court, that it wants to make these families whole. So we're going to hold their feet to the fire. We are negotiating with them now and we're going to find out how serious they are about resolving this outside of court. And if it turns out that this is window dressing and performative, then we're going to take our case, as far as we can take the case, because these families deserve it.

Speaker 2: 58:03

And one thing about legal actions legal actions often fail. So the action Johnny Cochran and Charles Ogletree filed was necessary and failing is a part of this process, because it laid the foundation for this next generation, my generation of lawyers, to be encouraged, to be emboldened to fight these cases using the court system. So oftentimes when there is a breakthrough, whether it's around same-sex marriage or it's around abortion rights the case that breaks through is not the first case. It's usually because there's been somebody out there advocating and pushing forward and they lost. And their losses empower and embolden that next group. That then will have that breakthrough. So I'm hoping that Section 14 is that breakthrough. But even if it's not, I know that the work that I'm doing here will be the foundation for a group of lawyers that come after me and there will be a breakthrough. So I know that this change is going to come. I have no doubt about that.

Speaker 1: 59:08

Yes, and I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you. I stand on the shoulders of so many people. I have so many people who are lifting me up and I just wanted to use the strength that people have lifted me up to now raise you even higher. There are so many women, women of color, who are laying it all on the line, and for so many years we've heard the term angry black woman and I think that we've gotten to a time. I had to admit to these lawyers, these doctors, this hospital institution that I'm in the middle of a lawsuit with. Yes, I am an angry black woman. What do you feel about that term and do you think it's about time that we became angry? I?

Speaker 2: 59:56

said embrace it Again. I started by telling you I am rejecting all cisgender patriarchy, bs, yep and ul. Anywhere I can publish blah, blah. You want to use angry as a pejorative term, we can embrace angry as fired up, ready to go. Yes, so you know, we get to define angry however we choose to, because we know when we are standing up and being affirmative and assertive in the same way that that white male does, he gets called, you know, he gets called a leader.

Speaker 1: 1:00:30

Yes.

Speaker 2: 1:00:32

We get called angry so we can reject that like boy by you. Play with our heads, manipulate us into silence, which is what you're really trying to do, because when you're calling us angry, what you're really saying is how dare you challenge me, how dare you stand up for yourself, your family and your community? Yes, when they do it, they are called leaders. Mm-hmm, I ran on this bravado that somehow, when he yells and screams and uses profanities and insults people, that's a leader. That's the guy I want fighting for me and Hillary Clinton, kamala Harris, michelle Obama, any number one, any of those women. When they stand up, they are angry, they're emotional and that's just BS and we can reject it and call me angry.

Speaker 2: 1:01:21

You call me whatever you want. That's not what all me is what I answer to. Yeah, I know my name and I answer to that name and in any given day I may say I'm angry, just like you told those doctors and those ways you are angry. Yeah, I'm not afraid to be angry because I hear is a necessary emotion and Everybody manifests their anger in different ways. Some people are silent when they're angry. You have anything to say, it can be angry. I think we are Angry. Black woman, that trope Again. I think we are reclaiming, yeah, folks, and redefining them.

Speaker 1: 1:02:02

Yes, we are. Yes, we are. You know, people can choose to call me angry. They can choose to call me disruptive. I Don't even care, as long as I am setting precedence for the future generation to come after me, because I want to make it easier For them, because I'm always remembering my why and I thank you for that, because you know I was always I Attributed to this. No, I'm remembering my why. So all of you tuning in and listening, please remember your why and everything that you say, everything that you do, it is supposed to Frame your why and lead with excellence. I'll read it. Thank you so much for this conversation that is so necessary, so needed. Once again, I wish you nothing but the best as you continue on this journey, because I know it is an easy, but you have people like me cheering you on. Power to you, my sister. You keep on keeping on.

Speaker 2: 1:02:59

Thank you so much. I so appreciate an opportunity to be in conversation with you today.

Speaker 1: 1:03:04

Thank you so much. You take care. I have to finish this show, but I'll be in touch soon. Take care.

Speaker 2: 1:03:09

I thank you so many. Take care, sweetie Bye.

Speaker 1: 1:03:12

Bye. Amazing conversation. These are the type of conversations that I love to hear People who are the front line, fighting for you, fighting for me. I'm at this point in my life, like I mentioned, I had a birthday yesterday and I'm 51 years old. In case you're wondering, 51 years old. I'm at this point in my life where conversations have to be meaningful.

Speaker 1: 1:03:39

I don't want to talk about what. I just don't want to talk about what you watched on television yesterday. I don't want to just talk about a Mean that you saw or a video that you saw on social media after we discuss that. I just want to talk about what contribution are you making to making this world a better place for black, for brown, for people who are are minimized, for the LGBTQ plus community? So for one, just going back to one of the first topics that I addressed with a Riva, when it comes to, is it homophobic to Assign womanhood to natural born women? I don't have a problem With that at all. I just think that terms need to be defined, because it shows the different layers, and a Riva did add something else to my nuanced way of thinking is that we really do live in a Misogynistic driven world, created world, white world that never thought that it would get to a place where it had to include blacks, latinos, lgbtq plus in their conversation. They probably thought that we would just be the help, that we wouldn't be seated at the same tables as them, that we wouldn't create spaces and invite other people To have a seat at the table. They never thought that this day would come.

Speaker 1: 1:05:17

So I'm just asking all of you to lead with a little bit more grace and Mercy. Stop with the online ritual, especially when it comes to someone who looks just like you. The world is already giving us enough. This is what I tell my household every single time. I can't go out in the world and fight this battle and then come home and fight you too. I refuse to do it. I don't have enough energy. I Don't have enough energy. So I just need us To lead with a lot more grace, mercy and Responsibility. Civic responsibilities, social responsibility. Have better conversations. I Employee, I'm gonna charge you just once a week. Once a week. Do something to someone in your neighborhood, in your community Schools about to start soon. Give a kid a backpack full of a black history book, pins, paper, something. If you have a friend who has a black child, have a conversation. Let me give you a teachable moment in black history Once a week, please, because they are really trying you to erase our black history, and not on my watch, and it shouldn't be on your watch either.

Speaker 1: 1:06:54

So thank you to a Rita Martin for sharing her thoughts on so many topics, so many topics that are current, so many topics that have ignited in the past IE reparations, the Holocaust that happened to the residents in Palm Springs, california. The officials admitted it was similar to a Holocaust, admitted their Rome doings. But it is taking this long for them to provide reparations to the descendants. Some of them are still living.

Speaker 1: 1:07:28

How many gentrified neighborhoods do we see today? How many black and brown residents are kicked out? The rent is too high Today in this space. Recently they just raised people's rent by $500 per month. I live here in New York City. The rent here in New York City is just too damn hot. It really is. It makes no sense at all. Let's say, for a One-bed room you're gonna be paying. If you want a good neighborhood, you're going to be playing at least 2500 Over $2,000. It makes no sense.

Speaker 1: 1:08:19

So I am once again just encouraging us to just lead with some grace and some mercy, to pour out in your, into your communities, to not stray away from the real goal and agenda, because talking about Does a natural born woman, is she entitled to just be a woman? That is a nuanced conversation and we are so far away from the bigger picture. It really is, because they are taking taking away so many rights from us. They were already taken away the right for a woman to have an abortion in certain states. Soon is going to be in in certain countries.

Speaker 1: 1:09:00

If you are a part of the LGBTQ plus community, you could be murdered. Yes, today a Black boy Was murdered. A gay male was murdered at a gas station because of his mannerisms. Another case in point someone was murdered just for being black. So if we don't stop the online vitriol Against ourselves, it makes it so much easier for the white folks to come in and Continue dismantling, because we have already chipped away at our foundation. So the only thing that they have to do is go and it all comes tumbling down. So that's enough for me, but it is not enough for the time that I am going to spend that. I will continue spending to make sure that Spaces are normalized for people who look like me.

Speaker 1: 1:10:13

So thank you for tuning into this edition of Sanyo and air. Once again, special shout out to a river. Please make sure that you follow her her on social media, because she is our unsung hero out there fighting for us, and we have to make sure that we support people like her, because I know she's going home every single night and Many majority of her nights probably crying herself to sleep. So let's continue to give her wind beneath her wings, because she deserves it. Thank you so much for tuning in. Make sure that you share this conversation with your family and friends. Make sure that you also subscribe if you're watching this on YouTube, make sure that you hit the notification button. That way, every time I upload an all-new Sanyo and air interview unpacking Celebrity pivot moments and their milestones, you'll be the first ones to know. Smooth justals, take care.