Black Votes, White Fear: The Battle for America’s Political Future

What happens when Black political power begins to rise in America?

History gives us the answer:
Backlash.

In this explosive episode of Rethinking Freedom, host Aya Fubara Eneli sits down with community activist Dr. Rodney Duckett to expose the long history of white resistance to Black political advancement — from Reconstruction to Jim Crow, from voter suppression to modern redistricting battles happening across the United States today.

This conversation pulls no punches.

Together, we examine how fear of Black political influence has shaped American laws, elections, media narratives, policing, education, and democracy itself. We trace the deliberate dismantling of protections won during the Civil Rights Movement and ask whether America is witnessing the rise of a new era of legalized disenfranchisement.

Topics include:

* The true history behind the 1965 Voting Rights Act
* White backlash after Black political gains
* Racial gerrymandering and the fight over representation
* The Supreme Court and the weakening of voting protections
* Voter suppression tactics targeting Black communities
* The relationship between white nationalism and political power
* Why local elections are critical battlegrounds
* How Black communities can organize, mobilize, and fight back

This episode also confronts a deeper truth:
The struggle has never only been about voting.
It has always been about power.

Who gets heard.
Who gets protected.
Who gets resources.
Who gets representation.
And who gets erased.

Yet despite centuries of attacks, Black communities continue to organize, resist, build, vote, and rise.

From enslaved Africans denied humanity to Freedom Riders risking their lives, from Fannie Lou Hamer to modern grassroots organizers, the fight for political freedom continues.

And the outcome of that fight will shape America’s future.

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#RethinkingFreedom #BlackVotes #VotingRights #RodneyDuckett #CivilRights #BlackPoliticalPower #WhiteNationalism #JimCrow2 #Democracy #AfricanAmericanHistory #BlackResistance #VoterSuppression #PoliticalPower #SocialJustice

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Rethinking Freedom. Today we are talking about black votes, black power, and white fear. You know, yes yesterday and the day before, so you guys are watching this on Monday morning, but and listening on Monday morning, but this past weekend in Selma, thousands gathered once again on the Edmund Pettisville Bridge, the same bridge where in 1965 Black Americans were beaten, tear gassed, trampled, brutalized for demanding the most basic promise of humanity. I'm not even talking about democracy, humanity, the right to vote, the right to self-determination, the right to represent yourself. But this year's Selma commemoration carried a different emotional weight because many people gathered there. We're asking a painful question. Did the blood that we shed mean nothing? And what are we going to do now in response to very real attacks against all of the gains that our ancestors made on our behalf? Listen, what we are witnessing is something dangerous and deliberate, a coordinated effort, not just to redraw districts. And if you're here in Central Texas and you are still shaking hands and smiling with the representative called um Buckley, shame on you, because he is one of the many white men and women out here redrawing us out of our representation. But let me continue. They're not just redrawing districts, they're weakening voting um protections, they are suppressing turnouts, they are rewriting history, they are suppressing history, and they are doing everything they can legally and illegally to reduce the political influence and the power of black communities. And this is not really just about election integrity, as they might say. It's not about states' rights, it's not about protecting democracy. This is about every time that black people make political gains anywhere in the world, but let's talk about here in America, white lash follows. Today I have with me someone who is no stranger to rethinking freedom. He is my brother, he is a community activist, he is someone who serves in our community and asks for no accolades. He works with our children who are um in the juvenile detention system, he serves our veterans, he works with our young males, he works with our elders, he takes peak. I mean, there's so much that he does, and you've heard me introduce him in so many different ways, but I want to speak today about the heart of a man who is deeply committed to helping us remember who we are, to connecting us to our past, to ensuring that we're having those intergenerational conversations that we must have, and to equipping our young people for the future that they are inheriting. And that is none other than Dr. Rodney Duckett. Dr. Duckett, welcome again to Rethinking Freedom.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

I am always humbled to be in your presence because uh equally I see you as that force of nature that's out there with me. It's like the the great Marcus, honorable Marcus Garvey would say, man, we're gonna whisk them up in the whirlwind. So thank you for all the work that you're doing with the young ladies, uh representing those that are in the court system. And then also just being that fight. One thing that I do know is when the great Aya Nelly is on scene, people puck her up and want to walk right and act right. So uh it's that respectability because we, as we say many times before, uh when you sell out your people, you can't buy back and you make sure people don't come back. And I like that.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

Well, you you know that you know that I have so much respect for you. I appreciate your kind words and I pray that I can live up to them. But you know what is clear is that we have work to do and we need all hands on deck. So, what is also clear is that for those of us who are paying attention to history, anytime we make gains in this country, in this here, the United States of America, there is that whitelash. After Reconstruction came Lynching and Jim Crow. And some people may not remember Jim Crow, but we might need to remind them because when the 34-time convicted felon, the adjudicated sexual predator who is now in the United States in the White House said, What do you have to lose? And so many African Americans stayed back and didn't vote, and some even had the temerity to vote for him, we are finding out now just how much we have to lose. But what we're seeing is after the civil rights movement came the Southern strategy and mass incarceration. After the um, if you would say, affirmative action, even the white woman benefited the most from it, then came Reagan and all the backlash in rolling back any of the advancements they thought that we had made. After the election of Barack Obama came an explosion of white nationalist organizing, voter suppression laws, attacks on all the diversity programs, and open hostility towards Black political participation. And now, after decades of demographic change and increased Black political engagement, and black women becoming the most educated group of people in the United States of America, we are witnessing another wave. A wave that I believe is designed to, if they can, not just dilute but obliterate black voting strength before America becomes a nation where white Americans are now the numerical minority. Brother, tell me, how are you seeing what's going on right now?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

You know, this the system has always been designed to give us a situation, to put us in a disposition where we as a people or a group of people cannot aggregate together to move forward. Um, as long as this system that we have creates a situation to verfurcate us as a people, meaning someone's going left, someone's going right, someone's going Democrat, someone's going Republican, and splitting our communities to become neighborhoods, which we really don't know the people beside us, so we can't define it as neighborhood. It just creates this whole dynamic effect of people not getting along. This is the one thing that I've always challenged people with. You know, if you understand how we got here, that's one thing. Uh, change the language of slavery and say what we were, we were prisoners of war that was captive, and we was kidnapping human sex trafficked and brought over here and enslaved, and our first generation here were the slaves. You know, there's there there's a whole making to make what we call a slave. Do we understand that disposition that puts us in and what makes us so divided as a people? We'll never be able to progress and go further. But what I say is, what do you do with outdated pieces of technology? African Americans were technologies here for the United States of America to generate a profit for the people that own them. What do you do with the outdated technology? It's obsolete, right? You get rid of it. Now we can't get rid of it just because we want to get rid of it. You know, that goes down in history books. We can't hide stuff. So we come up with more scientific, more sophisticated ways to silence the voice. We thought if we rip the black man out of the home, the black woman won't survive. They forget the resilience of the black woman that kept little kept us alive in slavery. So now black women excel to the highest level and able to take care of their families, able to push their kids on to do greatness, and they're saying, oh wow, now we got to remove the black woman to show that she can't take care of her family no more and she can't excel to the highest level. They have put together a plan with Kevin Roberts and the Heritage Foundation to undo all of this permanent, and everybody that you think are your friends that are on the Republican side, they're not your friends. Hey, those Democrats are really not your friends either. Okay, simple. Well, we have to do today, the solution that I'm out. Why are you not working to the with the person next to you? That's the question that you should be asking. Why are you not working with the INLEs? Why are you not coming together when there are events to educate people about civics? Why are you not putting your vote together as a block vote? Meaning that everybody votes one way no matter how you feel. Guess what? That is what the Christian white nationalists are doing. Most Christian white nationalists they probably don't really feel the way like the vast majority of, but they're not going to get off the winning team. When have you ever seen somebody in a football game say, well, that team is losing? I'm just going to go over there and will them my support. It doesn't work that way. So those people will stay on their winning side, regardless of how they feel about the lady at work that they have worked with for 20 years, and she's just such a great Christian woman. They will not leave their team to go support her. So what we have to do is put ourselves together and move together as a unit, which is the most difficult thing because the system at hand won't even allow us to do that because we are our own internal energy enemy that implodes ourselves from the inside, so we can't connect with anybody on the outside.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

Okay, you have given us so much to unpack there. I'm thinking first of you saying we're obsolete. Yeah. Obsolete technology. And I'm go I'm I'm pushing back on that. Is it that we're obsolete technology? Because we were wealth itself. Yes. Remember, our bodies were insured, right? We were used as collateral for loans and so on and so forth. We were the basis of Europe and the United States becoming the world powers that they that they did become, right? That they are today. So is it that we became obsolete, or is it that we no longer chose, I shouldn't say chose, that we refused to stay in the positions that they wanted us in, and that they are actually trying to push us back into those positions. And the reason I'm asking that is we see the proliferation of for-profit industries, um, businesses, sorry. We see the proliferation of ICE, the new KKK, masks and all, paid for, funded by our own taxpayer money. We see where they are, just like with Jim Crow, writing laws that would allow them again to criminalize us even further. So for instance, I believe effective May 15th, here in the state of Texas, if I'm not mistaken, let me pull it up. I'm gonna read it exactly what it says. Um, the state of Texas, Office of the Governor, May 12th. Um, Governor Greg Abbott has officially signed House Bill 626 into law making aimless driving within the state of Texas prohibited effective May 15th, 2026. What is aimless driving? Under the new legislation, now remember Texas has some of the lowest test scores in terms of education. We're in the bottom 10%, I believe, of the country. In terms of health care, we are one of the lowest in terms of we have some of the highest uninsured um rates in terms of health care. We're not dealing with any of that, but this is the new legislation. Under the new legislation, individuals may no longer operate a motor vehicle without a clear and lawful destination. Cruising around, joyriding, or driving with no place to go, are now prohibited under state law. The law does not apply when driving to or from work, school, medical appointments, church, or other necessary activities. All drivers must be able to clearly state a destination is stopped by law enforcement. State officials say the law was introduced in response to rising traffic, congestion, unsafe road behaviors, and increasing incidence of distracted and purposeless driving. Governor Abbott released the following statement Texans deserve safer roads and stronger communities. This law ensures our roadways are used responsibly and with purpose. I could go on. My point to that when we talk about whether we're obsolete or not is if we study history and we go back to the Black Codes, to Jim Crow, go back to the writing of vagrancy laws and so many other laws that were created for the sole purpose of now having a legal mechanism of criminalizing black people because now you have a reason, a legal reason to stop certain people. You don't have to stop everybody and say, oh, where are you driving to? So now in the so-called home of the brave land of the free, I can't just decide I'm getting into my car and I want to see the stars. I want to enjoy the breeze in the car that I paid for. I want to enjoy the roads that my taxpayer money has helped to pay. I have to have a reason. Otherwise, what happens? And that's not what they're doing, they're not going through that. Now I can be stopped. Now I can be charged. Now add that to some other laws in the state of Texas where we're saying, oh, if you're charged, we don't have to allow you to be bailed out. And if you're not bailed out, now you can lose your job. And it goes on and on and on. And then now you're in these for-profit prisons, and now your labor is free again. So I don't know that it's that we are obsolete technology, as much as it's we rose out of the thing that they wanted us to be, moneymakers for them. And when we began to exert in a different way our own humanity, despite everything that they have done to keep us down, yes, that became untenable for them.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 16:03

What would you say to that?

SPEAKER_00 16:04

And going with the obsolete technology, we would come in here as industrial workers with our hands, manual laborers, is what we do. We bring our technology, which is our mind, because everybody knows that to make America it was a real life monopoly game, meaning that everything had to be aligned on the boards the way that it had to be aligned on the boards so we can use our gifts, our hands, our skills, our talent. Now that that is no longer uh a part of us, because technology for us in the South was updated with a tractor. Okay, that was the AI machine at that time. So it caused us to leave our point of origins where we were able to make profit uh for someone else to go up either up north or try to live within that area, which in a sense created what we call the vagrancy laws and all that, because now people don't they can't work because they can't make any money or doing anything like that. But that sheet of paper which you're talking about, uh, well, the sheet of paper that I'm getting ready to tell you about is the sheet of paper that a slave needed for to leave one plantation to go to the next plantation. It's called Meritorus Manumission Release or the uh Manumission Release paperwork, which gave a slave permission to actually leave the plantation and like travel to another plantation, maybe to see a family member, uh, or whatever the case may be, or if he was getting married, because sometimes slaves were allowed to get married if they fit the status quo. Um, so now you can't even have meritous manumission when you're traveling down the road to actually wander and and and enjoy the goodness of America. So that's a very crazy thing. And I was unaware of that that was happening, but it doesn't surprise me with uh you know Governor Abbott and everybody else that's in toll. And I like to say something like I made a comment that really made a lot of people upset. Um, and the comment was simple. Um, we we looked at turning point because turning points are now in our Texas school, um, and turning point points right back to Mega. And Mega in Texas points back to Confederacy, and the Confederacy points back to not Texans, but Tennessee. Everybody that's here that sits in a position, you're not Texans, you're from Tennessee. Most of you guys are from Tennessee, you warved with Mexico, you you you you won the war against Mexico, you assume the land here in Texas, but your deep origins are from Tennessee, and you're doing the exact same thing Tennessee has done because you've already done it here. We've already seen packing and cracking here throughout the state of Texas. Really in our county, if you take a moment to look at our county, it was it was it was packed, it was cracked, and then it was packed. Uh, and if you look at the border that circulates around it, majority of the people that irrigate in the city of this area, you know, they're all black, and the people in the surrounding areas are all white, so you consolidated the void, the the actual void vote of the people by doing that, and it was done right in front of our face. And I know you were very vocal in it. I was just without with our support, yes, with our support, and we were seen as crazy and nuts and starting problems and issues and being disrespectful and everything, but it's just common knowledge that if you take the time to educate yourself on the civics portion of who we are as a people and why these things are happening, especially in Bell County, you'll understand why this is happening. There's a consolidation of a lot of blacks in this area, and if you drive through Colleen, it is like little Atlanta that's there, it's a little Black Wall Street within itself. Um, but those votes don't carry any weight out in the county.

SPEAKER_03 19:45

So uh yeah, so it's really and I'm glad you brought up the vote because I definitely, since we started this Rethinking Freedom platform, and of course, you have um your radio show, which I want you to share a little bit more about as well. Um, you have also been sounding this alarm, and we have all been sounding this alarm even before we got these platforms, is the importance of voting, not as the only tool, but just like if you um, you know, you're you're working on anything, you use all the tools that are within your toolkit as appropriate, and voting is certainly one of our tools. And when people say, Well, what's the big deal with voting? I'm like, it's not just about voting. You have to understand that it's about power because voting determines who controls the courts, voting determines who controls the budgets, voting determines who controls the police, who controls education, who controls the minds of your children. That we are Malcolm X said, you know, we're sending our kids to people who don't like us to educate our kids.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 21:04

Voting determines who receives resources, who gets protected right now. If you are under, I think they've raised the age to what maybe 41. If you're under, if you're 41 and under, I believe, is the age now, there is an automatic draft in place.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

And if you don't like it, but you didn't vote, or you voted for the felon in place, you voted for this. Vote and their children aren't going to go to war. Illegal, unnecessary wars that they start. Voting determines who gets erased.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 21:46

So today, if we can, I would like us to educate people a little bit about the origins of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. What has been happening in the last few years and just happened this past couple of weeks? And talking about Tennessee, how quickly Tennessee responded, Louisiana, the Supreme Court, and Virginia, and now Texas looks like they even want to do more damage. Um, would you like to address any of that?

SPEAKER_00 22:24

I I would like to really, yes, I would like to address that. But what I want to really say is why are they attacking us so much at the polls? Like that's the question sometimes we have to think. Why are they attacking? Why is there such a big thing about the vote and why are we being attacked? And the only answer that I can come up with is the power of the vote, the ballot of the budget is what I call it. The ballot of the budget. Who controls the ballot controls the budget. And if the right people vote the right way, because human decency is the most important, then people that have this old way of thinking, what we call white Christian nationalism or white supremacy, if you want to be technical about it, they are slowly but surely removed. So voting gives people an actual voice. Well, the great Nillie Fool says, always think here in America that you're at war. You're at war. And the first battle that they have to win in war is the battle of your mind. Once that battle is won, then truth is left hemorrhaging on the ground, and people have to decide. Do I go opposite of the truth, which is the lie itself, or do I stand with the truth and try to revitalize the truth? What we're seeing is the Republicans and some Democrats really don't care about the truth. What they care about is the budget and how to keep people away from the voting booths by any means necessary. Coming up, Malcolm X, May 19th, any means necessary to keep people away from voting.

SPEAKER_03 24:03

So if you go back and you look at the 96 is it is it to keep people away from voting or is it to keep black people and women? White women think that they're on the winning side, but to keep women, because this is there is a white male agenda going on here. Just read Project 2025. Carry on, sir.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

Yeah, yeah. Well, you're right about that as well, too. I again I find myself in a lot of trouble sometime with you, but I this is the one thing that I want to say. At one time, white women had no voice here in America. Matter of fact, blacks and black men and black women had premier voices here, period. White women decided to jump on the bandwagon of the civil rights movement to have a voice, spawn the feminine movement that we all talk about. So now, since the power is back in the hands of white supremacy within itself, now white women are saying, now it's time to jump off this bandwagon and go back home. Okay. And if I go back home and I negotiate myself at the table, then maybe I'm able to get a slither of the pie, which we wanted anyhow. So the white, the white supremacist is okay with doing that. But again, every treaty, every deal that he makes, he always breaks. You can ask the African, you can ask the natives here, you can ask the blacks that are right here, civil rights movement. Mr. Roberts breaks a deal, breaks a treaty, something that's good for America, he doesn't. So it's this big push, like you said, with the Christian white nationalists. They're trying to get back to what they said made America great again, which was Christianity. But what form of Christianity are they talking about? They're surely not talking about the Christianity after out of Africa and places like Sudan, Egypt, and Ethiopia. They're not talking about that Orthodox Christianity. What they're talking about is that white Anglo-Saxon Christianity.

SPEAKER_03 26:02

They surely would have lynched him.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Most definitely twice, too. So yeah, so it's amazing when you see what they're doing. So if you take walk with me for a moment so that way we can understand what's going on. Because I always like to go to the history side of it. Whites see things in two things. They see things as white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, and they see things as non-white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, and they put them together and they say we're white people because we don't have enough white people. So now when you look into the non-white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, you have the Italians, the Spaniards, the French, uh, the Belgium, you have everybody kind of rolled in the one that called non-white Anglo-Saxon Protestant because they have black blood blood in their system. They call them non-pure white people, but we need these non-pure white people here in America to help us vote.

SPEAKER_03 26:52

If you go back to Games, uh you mean you mean like the Latinos who are also considering themselves whites, like Radio.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So we're seeing that a lot. So going back to 1965, there was a major shift, or actually 1963, if you want to go, because that's when the reconstruction happened. 1963, there was a major shift that happened by way of voting. Because I think at 63, we were at a power base with Dr. King, Malcolm X, people really getting together with the plan and moving forward. A lot of bickering that was going on, but everybody stayed to the agenda. And then the people that wasn't a part of the agenda, they separated themselves from the agenda, agenda. And I say it a million times over. Dr. King had to be one of the greatest strategists, his whole team of people that he had to discipline people enough to let the camera show just how great America was in 1963 to 65. And it showed a lot in America. Matter of fact, we were ridiculed and we were made fun of in America to the point that Johnson was forced to sign that Civil Rights Act. He was forced to. You couldn't get away from it because you showed your true colors that you're no different from the neo-Nazi or no different from the Nazi Germany that you fought against some four 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

So it is it is truly fear of a black nation. And what I want our understanding. So that even though they even change the demographic changes with immigration through incarceration, through forcing white women to have more children, ultimately, they're only trying to make sure that even if they are numeric, they still control all the power. Going back to South and going back to the voting rights acts. So many of us don't totally understand what that voting rights act. And why they've been why they've been so vigorous in their opposition. So as you know, after Body Sunday, when Lyndon Johnson act into law and five people. And what it did what it did was it addressed the fact that after the amendment meant to give black men the rights to know Southern states created to create that right that right. Literacy tests and taxes, taxes, understanding causes, white women, white, and so on and so forth and so forth. And what the voting rights was basically saying you can no longer use any of the tactics. It banned literacy and it also instituted a nationwide ban on racial voting discrimination. And then it also had section five, which was a voting clearance, which required penalties within the histories of racial discrimination discrimination to obtain federal information for changing voting laws. All of these things sound familiar. And then it also had to have a popular and what these white supremacy, yeah, these white nationals is systematic work on electric on elect legislation that and president that would then would then appoint the kind of justice at the level that would then wouldn't be right to act like that. And that is the word of the word Chief Justice Robert 2010. Gradually in a way to act. And every time the company is given all of the space that were required to now immediately go back to and of course the with um so it's part of the jelly holder, which dropped down the section of the public formula formula, and then um at that point had a famous had a famous defense where she was saying, don't throw out the police clearance because saying that it's not needed anymore is like saying, Oh, throw away the umbrella because we're not wet anymore. The reason you're not wet is because you have the umbrella. And as soon as Shelby the older was over with states started to account all of these ID laws and laws in places and so on and so on. Then 2021, they had versus the democratic national three, which weakened section two. Now they may have a higher burden of discrimination, which again to go even further ensuring that the minimal values are voting, which they said is about power. And then, of course, finally here in 2026 with a um um cloud um um ruling is now we're not looking at districting as long as it's along the party lines and almost immediately redraw their map to ensure that they will have no black representation at all if it is up to them now. Of course, if we come out and votes our numbers, you can still counteract that question are we going to vote? So, what message do you have for our key with all of these attacks in our way? I mean our way.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

Yeah, I and again, mine is a little outside the box, and I've always said yeah, we don't do block voting anymore. Like, and it really takes a lot of work for us to come together as black people in a room and just aggregate our vote into one vote. Um, one vote of 10,000, 20,000, 40,000 people uh at the table is more powerful than this uh this helterskelter way of voting that we do. So to put our votes together in one black vote, because we have always voted that away, um is is powerful, but we don't do that. And I don't know why we don't do that. I don't know why blacks themselves run away from politics themselves, because if they understood what basic civics class is something that me and you have tried to put together, and like I've always said, you and other people will be phenomenal to run these classes, it gives them the power to understand why their vote is so important. Most people go and you ask them, like, who did you vote for and why did you vote for them? They'd be like, Oh, I just they were Democrats, I don't know anything about them. I just bubbled in something. I mean, that's how carelessly we are when it comes to voting. So I think it's more education as it relates to the voting itself. But looking at Texas, looking at Louisiana, and and looking at Tennessee, I mean, I'm not surprised. Like, people are hidden behind that, but I'm not surprised. Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas, come on, like they they they are the anchor that holds racism, white supremacy to to to the core. They do not allow it to go anywhere. Uh, they are perfectly happy with black people running with a ball, dribbling the ball, or hitting the ball on the field. Anything outside of that, they don't care unless you can sing a little bit. They don't want you nowhere near politics, they don't want you nowhere near big business. Um, matter of fact, they are okay with you just disappearing off the planet. You you you hear it, you hear it in the rhetoric, you see it, you talk about it. It's this it's this mistaken identity of what it is to be black here in America, and what it is to be black here in America, from my personal point of view and opinion, through the eyes of a white person looking at me, is why am I still here? Why am I still here? I've always said if you aggregate your vote together, if you move together as a block together, and if you do what the tribal nation has done, sue the United States government as a nation, we sue the United States government domestically, internationally for our labor, you get more done with that because we have never been paid for our labor. And you it's just it's the psychological thing behind it is like you know, voting, like I mean, people ain't even asking for reparations, they're asking just to vote, and you're not even happy with that. So yeah, listen to it. I'd rather lose. I'd rather lose big. Let me go ahead and fight for the reparations on the domestic and international front. Tell me where I can sign up, who I can get with, so that way if I lose, I lose big, you know, and we we don't want to lose at all. Matter of fact, we don't even want to show up.

SPEAKER_03 37:51

So all right, so I'm gonna ask some questions here.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

Yeah, all right. Right now, right now practical steps that I would say right now within your community are people that are very well-knowledged. Um, those people that are well-knowledged need to get with groups of people, and you need to really start civics classes right now. You you can't stop this combustion engine from running right now, it's not. So you have to plan. If you think that they just woke up one morning to do this, you're absolutely wrong. Okay. All right, Mr. Roberts is a graduate from UT, uh Heritage Foundation. All of his masters, all the way to his dissertations, been studying black people. Yeah, you have to study your point, uh, opponents, you have to study your adversaries, and that's what he done. So, what I say is we go back to those simple groups and we study the Brad Buckleys, we study the governor Abbott's, we study the Hillary Hicklins, we study them. Know a little bit about the history, know about the sons and the daughters of the Confederate, know that Hillary Hickman is directly connected and tied to that. Know Brad Buckley's history. He graduated from the public school system, but he dismantled it. Know their history, know who they are, know who these people are. It's very important. If you know who they are, you're less likely to shake their hand. And if you are talking to them, you can talk to them about business and business only as it deals with politics. You know, but most of the time we don't want to do that. We are such great spiritual components that we want to connect with people just and trust them off of good faith. So bringing those small groups together and doing the studying that's necessary. There's a lot of great things that we can study. You know, Dr. Josephina has written multiple books. Um, his his latest book, well, this is one of his books. I enjoyed this one, the The Reconstruction, the Third Reconstruction. Great book to read. He's UT. I mean, UT guy, Black History Studies. I know you probably know him. I this was a great book for me to just truly understand at an in-depth level because I'm not a politician, nor am I a top-flight attorney like you. And his latest book that I took the boys out, me and the boys actually went out, um, is the the Freedom Season in 1963. It's another great, it's a thick book, but it's a lot of information that's there. We have a lot of people like yourself that's knowledgeable. Um, you can listen to Roland Martin, uh, your great friend Dr. Carr is like online. It's information is free, no one's charging for this information, but we just don't want to take this information in. So I say come together, bring in the reading clubs back together and formalize a plan locally in your city that you live in and institute these plans and hold some of these people accountable for their sits in these spots. There's several different people that I've had my discourse with because I know they should not be in the positions that they're in because they have proven themselves to be ineffective for us in our community.

SPEAKER_03 40:48

All right. All right, let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. We have local elections, local election, presidential election, election. What's your take on what's more important? People can look at them the same.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

Local is the most important. Local is the most important. Locals happen more frequently. Uh, county commissioners, very, very important. Super important in this area. Uh, city council, super important. Uh, the judges, the JP, super important. You got to know these people that's out here, and that's how you vote. You start local, you vote local. I will also say for a lot of people, get on some of these committees. You don't have to run for office to be on the committee. I've been on the emergency service advisory board for like six, seven years. All right. I want to know how quickly fire EMS and police is getting to a scene. You know, it's very important because you know, minutes means lives. So for me, if they're not making it to the uh east side of Temple quick enough to get them to Scott and White or Seton Hospital, then there's a problem. There's a problem, you know. So I look into that. So you can join the uh rezoning committee, is one of them. Um, you can be a part of uh uh commissioner's court is another thing that you can go through and step through. But a lot of people, when I go to these places, I mean, I'll run into um a few people here and there, but nobody's really serious about it. I've been on the uh emergency service advisory board, it's just me and another uh a black gentleman that's on there, and we're the only ones that's there, and we sit stick out like a sore thumb. No one really knows who I am and what I do. Uh, but join some of these committees and be a part of it, you know. Follow, follow your city council meetings. If you don't go, all the stuff is online, watch it, you know, listen to it.

SPEAKER_03 42:39

Oh, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

Oh my goodness don't get me started on the school board, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:44

Well, let me ask you this we know how how how um how impactful civic organizations and church in the city. How can churches, civic groups, and community organizations help mobilize voters and voters today?

SPEAKER_00 43:12

That's a difficult one. Civics groups are easy, only thing you have to do is dedicate yourself uh to setting a platform to allow the but allow politicians, uh people that's running for office, come in and speak. Uh, you can do a lot of informationals uh where you bring people out where they can talk about why they're running, how they're running, or uh make them give updates. I think Jessica Gonzalez just gave an update uh for her district not too long ago. You can do that once a quarter, which is highly recommended. And if you don't know what's going on, ask questions. You know, it's nothing wrong with asking questions because there's a lot of stuff that I don't know. I always raise my hand and ask a question so I know about it. Uh, churches, once again, that's a difficult push. Churches are so funny because um if you go to the church, they'll give you a platform to speak. Um That might not be the person you should vote for, but they'll give that person a platform to speak. And then other people that are there that might be great candidates that do not go to that church, they won't have so I say church is a really a good place to have a good debate. Because you already have the people aggregated that's there. Let the people talk it out, let the people have a civil debate. There's nothing wrong with a civil debate uh in church, especially if there's some hot button topics that need to be addressed.

SPEAKER_03 44:27

All right. Another question What role should young people be playing in this moment?

SPEAKER_00 44:35

Oh, great. Young people should be heavily involved, invested, period. If you are a mother and a father, and if you're not talking about politics at the table, your grandchildren are gonna be on the menu, period, point blank. Okay, I if you're a parent and you're not talking about to your child, your child about politics, guess what? Your grandchildren will be on the menu. Trust me. Trust me. So we have to have this open dialogue about politics. Talk to this is why I voted for who I voted for, and because of the merits of this person and the work that this person has done before, and I think ethically this person is a great person, and I made that vote, and then let him debate you back if he has questions about it. It's okay because this is how we learn. I talk to my kids about voting. Um, you know, my daughter is you know with the signs and everything. She's a rah-rah type person. My son is very, very, most of my sons are very, very quiet about it. Um, but you have to invest the children that's there. Like with impact, all of our kids have been heavily a part of all different uh campaigns that's there. I've even taken them to places where we probably shouldn't have gone to Republicans. Uh, let's sit down and just listen. You need to see this, you need to see this, and they see what's going on. They was like, I felt very uncomfortable. And I said, you know what? They probably felt more uncomfortable than you, but you need to see the rhetoric and you need to hear the rhetoric, you need to see the fakeness because this is this is how it happens here. And then also, I've always said, and I put this out to several different people, so from Zoe to Gonzalez to everybody, why are you not taking these young people to these city council meetings with you? Why do you not take these young people to these other meetings with you? This is how we learn, this is how I learned from Al Dunn. Sit up, shut, sit in the corner, keep your mouth shut, listen, watch, and learn. You know, you gotta see how adults conduct themselves with other adults to handle business. This is how you learn things that you like and things that you don't like. Uh, kids are smart enough to either mimic an environment that is conducive for their growth or say, I'm not gonna do that. That was not a good way to do it. And I get kids that call me out all the time, my Mr. Tristian, you know him, that's my attorney. You'll be like, Come on, Dr. Duncan, come on, Dr. You shouldn't have said that word. You know, that's not a good word to say. I'll hold you in better light than that. And it shows him shaping his character because I always say you don't mentor children, you facilitate them because you want them to grow outside of the the the actual proverbial ceiling that that's whole uh above your head. So so getting kids involved early with anything is is the most important thing.

SPEAKER_03 47:21

So all right. So let me ask you this we can see that as a whole life is a blind one in America, the oligarchy. Or white people attacking hell as well, my dogs are not recognizing or do the reality of their health. How had we here mobilized white white and what would say though we still have the conscious and want to tap into the humanity?

SPEAKER_00 48:07

You know, a lot of you know, propaganda is the greatest tool that's always been used, you know, and America is the greatest propagandist that's there, second to Hitler, of course. Um, and they use propaganda at his will. You see that all the time on an ad, they'll throw up a propaganda's ad real quick. Uh, I would I would highly urge people that that see something, hear something, don't believe it. You know, not all black people are like that, not all white people are racist. I've met a lot of great white people before, and and they really have bleeding hearts for what's going on. So, what I always say is you have to understand that blacks are in a dispositional outlet, and the situation is what they're always facing because of the system puts that pressure upon them, and there's a lot of unmet needs that blacks have to deal with that creates these high emotions and some of this behavior and aggression that sometimes you don't understand because you have never walked in the shoes of being black here in America until you can walk into those shoes, then you'll truly understand what it means to be black in America, what it means to be looked down upon in America, what it means to be wanting to be eradicated from America because you're no longer obsolete to pick cotton anymore. All right, no make get any indigo, pull any tobacco, okay, and we don't know why you're here because you're not entertaining me by any means, you know. So again, you have to understand the unmet needs that us as black people are are dealing with because those unmet needs lead to this disposition that we're in, because we're always fighting a system that keeps putting the situation upon us. And I say the situation they put upon us is the pressure and the stress to work a hundred times harder than them why everything was given to them. Like that is the silliest thing in the world that I've you've got to work harder, you have to work hard. How am I gonna work harder when someone has a head start? You know, let's say I have some supernatural abilities or power. Um, so again, I always say to the people that may be looking down upon certain situations, study and know the situation, talk to the people, hear different sides of the people. One thing about black people, regardless of how you may feel we're some of the most loving people that you've ever met before in your life. You know, you can probably go to a black community, a white person in distress, and they will probably take care of you better than if I was distressed in a white community. I'm pretty sure I'll be bust upside the head at gunpoint, cuffed and ran over by the car before the police get there.

SPEAKER_03 50:49

But the white matter right now is it is our generosity that has put us where we are exactly whether it's the stranger who arrived in Africa, or whether it is us not splashing the throat of every enslaver that we had to shave, or we're breastfeeding their children or cooking their meals. Okay, let's just be very clear about that. But the points that you were making, I think part of the problem is knowing that you have this cat, that you have you have thrown every obstacle in our path, and in the words of my angelo, and still we rise and still with an anchor weighing us down, we come and we compete and we surpass you. And that is truly fear of a black nation. Like you've done everything to annihilate us, and still we are here. Um so another question for you as we wind up our time together. What lessons can we learn from earlier generations of organizers because we have faced this kind of um pressure before and we met that moment. Now it took us a while because we know after Reconstruction, we're talking from 1877 all the way to 1965. We were fighting this fight. But what lessons can we learn and how can we make sure that we're not about to go through a whole nother 80-some years of literally no representation, which is what happened to us in the past.

SPEAKER_00 52:41

Yeah, and again, I'm out of the box slightly. I really believe in our heart we have to go back to studying our own history, but in in conjunction of studying our history, also look into why their history is attacks our history because there's there's an importance behind this. We keep forgetting, we keep forgetting that every time you say something like we were slaves, but see, your people sold you, you know, or we were a Jim Crow. Well, America was different at that time. You know, we have to go back and study the why. Why, why, why, you know, and once you study the why, it makes sense. But some great leaders, of course, uh coming up on uh May 19th. Oh my goodness, if you want some solutions to the problem, I mean just look up any Malcolm X, ballot of the bullet. So, yeah, I mean, anything Malcolm X has put out throughout his time has been incredible and it is still valid today. It is still valid right now, today. Um, Megret Evers is another one. Dr. King is also great. Uh, you can dive into as they call black nationalism, uh, Marcus Garvey by all means aggregating the dollar. Um, you know, people that have been synonymous in my life that still living, Dr. Claude Anderson, uh uh, you know, uh white power uh black power uh uh power economics is what I'm trying to say. Power economics is definitely a good book because it gives you the structure and the platform, how you build a strong political system, starting with the bottom of the pyramid, which is the actual economic portion, building all the way up to politicians, because you have to have economics to make politics move. So that was definitely a good shape. Uh Frederick Douglass, um, you know, we just missed education of the Negro, we the boys are working on right now. Uh, another one because you begin to see what everybody is saying. What and what everybody is saying is we have to work together as a people. You know, we just have to work together as a people. And we don't work together as a people because we don't love one another. We love the people that are.

SPEAKER_03 54:52

So I gotta shout out some of my sisters here. I agree with all of the recommendations you had, but I gotta shout out Ella Joe Baker because she was an amazing strategist in terms of how to get young people involved, how to bring them together and then get out of the way for them to lead. Septimaclark is definitely one that I would say study, of course. Our sister Fanny Lou Hamer, looking at people like Mary Cloud Bethune and the work that they did, um, looking at um, oh gosh, Marianne Elderman, looking at even the work of um to an extent, um, I would say Audrey Lorde and some of her teachings, Francis Cress Wilson. And my one of my all-time favorites in terms of understanding the mindset of whiteness is Marimba Anise Yurugu. So I think she breaks it down in a way that I got it, I understand, and I'm no longer confused about what is ailing you all. And maybe y'all want to study it so you figure out how to heal yourselves. So, having said all of that, it is important to me that our listeners know a little bit more about how they can hear more from you because you also have your own radio show where you are weekly talking with other people in our community who are actively making a difference. Can you share with our listeners and our viewers where they can find you?

SPEAKER_00 56:33

Appreciate the plug. Yeah, we're lively art of conversation where we live, we learn, we earn. My goodness, we pass alone. It's a show that's every Sunday from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. My kids FM 103.1. Uh, we also got our YouTube channel that we're posting, you know, well, every three to four weeks we'll post a series of videos that's out. And what I say is I as more of the technical genius, I is more of the the the strategist. No, I'm not. I'm bringing in ordinary people with extraordinary wisdom. Um, my thing is I'm having those basic porch conversations, the ones uh that mattered when we were growing up, where grandma says, slow down, sit down, let me talk to you. You know, uh, those are the conversations that I'm trying to bring to light because those conversations made me the man that I am. I say there's many hands at Moses to clay of Rodney Duckett, and it was those old people that didn't have that doctrine, but my goodness, they gave you a volume of dissertation work when they talk to you. You know, I mean it was chapter after chapter after chapter. So that's kind of what our show does. So we just have, you know, I has been on the show at least three times. Um, I've had uh several different people on the show. They come on and they talk and we talk, talk about life. That's it. Talk about life.

SPEAKER_03 57:54

And what I appreciate about your show is these are everyday people who are quietly doing the work, and they show us how every one of us could be doing the work. We could be adding to our liberation, like no excuses. So thank you for all the ways that you show up. I don't know how you do it all, I don't know when you sleep, but I certainly appreciate your commitment to our community. Now, for all of you who are whether you're listening to us on the radio, whether you're watching us or you're downloading the podcast, we thank you for your support. We thank you for your donations. Um, I think we are now a little over 17,000 subscribers. So, hey, get us to 20,000 subscribers by the end of May. We have so much more that we are planning. Um, and we are gathering a team together to make this work happen because I'm not smart enough to get it done myself. But I do know that we each have a role to play. And if I can use this platform to help us think a little bit more about the gifts we've been given in this moment and the work that we should be doing for our liberation. No one is coming to save us. We have to save ourselves. And each generation has to rise up and deal with the challenges of its time. So I'm excited for the challenges that we have right now. And I'm excited to link arms with others, to punch white supremacy in its mouth and to knock it out, hopefully, once and for all. Um, so let's join arms. Let's make this happen. Dr. Ducket, thank you again, as always, for answering the call, for the way you look at things, for walking the walk. And of course, we know you'll be back because you got an open, open invitation. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 59:49

You're welcome. You're welcome. Pleasure.

SPEAKER_03 59:52

Thank you all. Till next week.