Vote Like Slavery Is On The Ballot - Ep. 43

“The Map Is the Message”

The Supreme Court just redrew the rules — and not in your favor.

In a decision that strips race from the redistricting equation, the Roberts Court has handed white supremacy one of its cleanest legislative victories in decades. No hoods. No poll taxes. Just math — and maps drawn to make sure your vote counts less than your neighbor’s.

This week, Antonio, Jon, and Lybroan are back, and they are not calm about it.

From the 15th Amendment’s promise to the Compromise of 1877’s betrayal — from Shelby County to the latest ruling — the brothers trace the long, deliberate project to dilute Black political power and name it for what it is: not a setback, not a stumble, but a strategy. One that has been patient, funded, and waiting.

But grief isn’t the only thing on the table. So is accountability. So is economic leverage. So is the uncomfortable question of what “good white people” actually owe — and what it looks like when they pay it.

Brotherhood meets the breakdown.

Let’s get into it.

Thanks for joining us. Still got questions? Other things to say? Hit us up at Three for the Founders on Instagram, Facebook, or  YouTube and let us know. Til the next time...left on Founders...we out! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Tell him it's just LeBron's nature. Why? Why are you always so late? Why? Why? Why can't you get your ass here on time? Why? Why? Why? Why? Do you make us both wait?

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Think of the LeBron and movie.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Tell him it's just human nature. Why? Why? Why? Why is LeBron so late?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

We can't hear you, LeBron. He can very obviously hear us. Where is this uh what is the microphone thing?

SPEAKER_07 0:32

What is the thing that does the thing that does nothing he's got to do?

SPEAKER_01 0:35

No no it's so easy to go into Cosby, man.

SPEAKER_07 0:39

What is little button with the microphones and the footing pop and the why?

SPEAKER_00 0:47

I'm gonna be on this all night. Why? Tell him it's just human nature. Why?

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Still know LeBron. I see you moving. Your lips are moving. Alright, we're waiting. Matched only by his tell him that it's ghetto nature, not human nature.

SPEAKER_06 1:05

This is ghetto nature.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Tell him it's just ghetto nature. That's why I'm always so late.

SPEAKER_06 1:11

Always on brand, baby.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

We're brothers, we're happy and we're clean and we're colored. Alright, cut and print. Beautiful guys. I don't like that.

SPEAKER_06 1:31

Welcome to Three for the Founders, where brotherhood meets the breakdown. We've been having these conversations for years, and now you are invited to join us. We'll say the things you are afraid to say and ask the questions you've always wanted to ask. Three Brothers, all truth, no filters. Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Welcome to Three for the Founders. So, since the last time we've been together and we've had a conversation, the Supreme Court has decided that black people don't matter, white people are better, and they've ruled that way. President Trump, as you know, is leading a regime which is trying to wipe black people from everywhere. So I wore a t-shirt. LeBron bought some thought experiments, and John is bringing us news from the Caucasian underground on this episode of Three for the Founders.

SPEAKER_06 2:28

My brothers, man, so good to see y'all. I forgot how to turn on my microphone. I forgot how to log in. I forgot my name was who has been a minute. It feels like a minute, huh? Yes. And I owe y'all some drinks because you know it's mainly my fault we ain't uh podcasted in the minute. So cheers to my brethren.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Hey.

SPEAKER_06 2:49

Cheers, yes. Salute.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Chendani. Chin chin. Chin chin. Chendani. Okay, tell give us a t-shirt right now.

SPEAKER_06 3:01

They can't cancel this. They can't cancel culture. They can't cancel us. Woohoo.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

So yeah, see, it's all it's there's soul everywhere, LeBron. The soul everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Yeah, man.

unknown 3:25

See?

SPEAKER_02 3:26

I'm with that. Yeah, no. All right. Welcome to Three for the Founders, where we're a little punchy because it's uh Thursday night instead of a Monday. And it's been a minute since we saw each other in three and a half weeks. That's like forever. That's too much. I would apologize up front, but there we go.

SPEAKER_06 3:42

Not had enough of you. We're happy to be black, though. I mean, we're happy to be back. Trust and believe.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

I'm still working on that black thing. Uh welcome to three for the founders. Uh produced and edited and packaged and repackaged and loaded up to the interwebs by Reinaldo Antonio Asias.

SPEAKER_06 4:00

Yes, indeed.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Executive produced by LeBron and me, which means we point and then Antonio does all the hard work.

SPEAKER_05 4:06

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

And we get all of the no money. So, gentlemen, this mug is UCLA. I love that mug sign that uh uh my friend Mike Seeley, who I've known since elementary school, he and me and our friend Ty Miller all got into UCLA and started at the same time. And so Mike's mom got us all these mugs. Oh, that's beautiful, man. I love it. And I've kept it. So this thing is years old. Thank you. A couple of days ago. 30 37. Damn. Welcome to this episode. Ah, yes. I think we're gonna lean on you a lot tonight, Antonio Historian. I got some questions for you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

You're in trouble. I got some questions.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

That's not true.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

I got energy. I got energy for this guy. What? He's done with us already.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Antonio is done with us. He's already he's already wiping his brow. Like you had a long day, huh, Antonio?

SPEAKER_02 5:02

It's been a long week. It's been a long yeah, you know, people act stupid.

SPEAKER_06 5:07

And um that's a complete image, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Right, right. End of story. Just put it right there. Yeah, uh so many places to go. And I have developed ADHD in the last five days. Um, just because there's a lot of stuff going on. Yeah, man. They we're rolling back to the 1860s. There is so much. John, you got a question. Uh, what questions could you possibly have except all of it? Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

I just want you to give us some context for the the voting rights act of 1965. Beyond that, I just want you to help people understand the significance of this Supreme Court decision led by Justice Roberts and Alito. Did it did it overturn the act or did it just over it it overturned part of it? Help us understand.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

So the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, and the Voting Rights Act literally said you're not allowed to discriminate against anybody on account of their race in terms of voting. But it had several mechanisms, right? So that's not new because the 15th Amendment says you can't discriminate and people can vote. Well, no, okay, here we go again. Yep, it says that men can vote regardless of their race. And so that happened over 150 years ago, and then Clessy versus Ferguson said, Oh, everything can be separate as long as it's equal. So white people in the South started passing poll taxes, meaning you had to pay a certain amount of money in order to vote. And they weren't unique in the late 1800s because the New York Constitution was changed in 1821. See, this is where that paper, right? All this one is starting to do that.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

I knew I asked right then. I read this. I didn't ask the mathman this question.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Um black men were allowed to vote in New York, in the state of New York, from 1780 something to 1821. In 1821, the New York State Constitution was rewritten, and it basically said you had to have $250 worth of property or goods, which at that time was a significant amount of money, in order to be able to vote if you're black. However, there was no financial requirement to vote if you were white. And this is all spelled out in black and white in the New York Constitution of 1821. Fast forward to the uh 15th Amendment, which gave every male citizen the right to vote, and then all of a sudden you have these poll taxes where people had to pay again in order to vote, unless your grandfather was allowed to vote. So when somebody says something is grandfathered in, that's from the grandfather clause, it's actually racist in its origin. In its origin. Even if you're ignorant when you use it. And so white people, white men were still allowed to vote, even if they didn't have the financial requirement because they were grandfathered in. Their grandfathers were allowed to vote, but grandfathers of uh new citizens, new black American citizens, were probably not allowed to vote because even if they were free, even if they had money, they were denied the vote, right? State Supreme Courts, the United States Supreme Court in 1857 said no black person is anything. Um so you have Jim Crow out of Plessy versus Ferguson in 1896, and I know I'm jumping back and forth, but for the next 70 years, you have two-tiered citizenship out loud in public. And that's what the civil rights movement was built to overturn. It's what the double V campaign during World War II was. It's why Tuskegee Airmen were the most qualified pilots. See, I'm gonna I'm gonna have a pilot thing. Where are you, Reggie? Thank you. Um, although the 442nd, which was the all-Japanese unit in World War II, was the most decorated, all Japanese American unit uh was the most decorated, uh, even as they came out of the internment camps and into the cockpits. Wow. Um and so Brown versus Board of Education is another Supreme Court case in 1954, which says that segregation in schools is unconstitutional. And from there, the dominoes begin to fall. Uh, we have the Montgomery bus boycotts, um, dismantling segregation, dismantling that separate but equal citizenship all throughout the South, uh, doing in different ways, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, led by Coretta Scott King, led by Rosa Parks, led by um Bayard Rustin, led by James Lawson, led by a number of people, right? Uh uh Brother John Lewis, um, who the new John Lewis Voting Rights Act is named after, and one day Congress will pass this vote this law. But in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated April 4th. Um and then a little bit later, I'm gonna get this wrong. Kennedy is assassinated in 65?

SPEAKER_05 10:32

I think so. Kennedy's assassinated after King. I thought it was November of the same year, 63.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

No, King is 68. I'm tripping.

SPEAKER_05 10:41

Yeah, King is 68. Kennedy's 68. Kennedy is 63. Oh, you're right.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Johnson becomes president, they passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, they passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965. And the thing that the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act both did was they provided mechanisms to ensure that those rights were going to be guaranteed. And so the Voting Rights Act said that any time that states, and they didn't call them uh Confederate states, but the states that had been in the Confederacy, the states that had been practicing segregation, um, wanted to change their voting maps, those had to be approved by the federal government. And that was the way, that was the mechanism, right? And it also said that if there are X number of people of a demographic, then they needed to have a district that allowed for them to vote. And so in 2023, excuse me, Louisiana? Louisiana had a map that only had one black majority district, but black folk, if I'm not mistaken, are 40% of the population. And so they were it was determined that they had to draw another congressional map that had at least two black majority districts. And so they utilized that in 2024. And then the Supreme Court, like, so we're coming up on the midterms, right? Yep. And they wanted to redraw that map. They actually went to court, they being Louisiana, to sue that their congressional maps were being restricted. And the Roberts Court took that opportunity to say that race can no longer be considered in drawing congressional maps. So that was the section two. So they didn't erase the Voting Rights Act, they simply dismantled the mechanism for enforcement. And so all of the states, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, right, this whole redistricting race that that Donald Trump set off allegedly to maintain GOP control, but obviously let's talk about it, to maintain white control and white supremacist control of the levers of government, right? He knows he's gonna lose the midterms. And so the only way that they could do that is to change the rules of the game. And so this ruling literally said, Oh, you don't have to consider race when drawing congressional districts. As a matter of fact, considering race is unconstitutional. And so whether or not like they people had already started voting in primaries, and they were like, ah no, we're gonna we're gonna redraw these maps to eliminate those black majority districts. And so they're diluting black political power and the organizing and the work that everybody has done, right? Bakari Sellers was on CNN the other day. He said there are people alive right now who fought and bled for the right to vote in the 1950s and 60s who are watching that work be dismantled. Um and so if we and I said this I think last year, if we get to the midterms, if people are allowed to vote, they're going to lose the House. They may lose the Senate, but Donald Trump will be impeached. And so, in order to alleviate all of that, right, he has stacked the Supreme Court, he has called out, he has blown the bugle, and all of these white supremacists, racists, MAGA Republicans in elected office and out of elected office have answered the call.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

What states are going to take immediate action and redraw the the lines now?

SPEAKER_02 14:30

I know Tennessee has been in the news. The five that I that I just mentioned Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, uh Texas had already done it, right? So when Texas redrew their maps, they were the first ones to do it. They literally made black votes. I don't know how to every white vote in Texas is worth five black votes and worth three Latino votes.

SPEAKER_06 14:52

Wow. Now, how do you get that map? Is it because of the way they they drew because of the way they drew the maps.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

So you had black majority districts, you had, I think, a Latino majority district, and when they redrew the districts, they literally cut them up. And I don't remember where the term gerrymander comes from. I know it's somebody's name. Yeah, I'm sure. But basically, if you look at how maps, how congressional maps are drawn, they're drawn in order for the politicians who want them, who want the voters to get those voters. Right. And they're gerrymandered uh in a lot of different ways, like or or for for the benefit of all politicians, um, depending on who's in power. And so there is not an equal distribution. It isn't you have 30,000 people or 35,000 people, and that's one congressional district. It's how can we change the shape of the congressional district in order, based on voter data, to get this group of voters all voting for this candidate.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Got it. Yeah. Like diluting it. So, you know, let's let's imagine the the the new map now goes down the street that I live on, Washington Boulevard, whereas before the map was like this whole neighborhood. So now my vote is gonna go on this side of that boundary, yes, and and all these people vote a different way than I do. So even though I vote Democrat, now that I'm in a Republican mapped district, yes, my vote basically doesn't matter anymore. So that they're doing that on purpose, yeah. Yeah. I find it so hypocritical. It reminded me when I was first reading about about this alleged puritanical stand that Alito and Roberts have taken. And they've been evidently they were like higher-ups in the Reagan administration in his DOJ, like they were senior members back in the day, and they've been fighting for this for a long time. And I asked you this because I want to clarify for myself, but I think a lot of people who watch or listen to the pod probably also are like, all right, what's the big deal with this? Which is why I appreciate that context. But they've put a lot of energy into this. They've been, especially Justice Roberts evidently has been like planting seeds for this, all the papers he's writing, all the decisions he's made to build up to this point, which makes me go anytime someone spends that much energy on something, it's not uh it's not uh happenstance. This is not coincidence. They they've got something they're trying to accomplish. And I just hate the idea that it reminds me of affirmative action, the stance that a lot of white folks take is like, no, we need to we can't take race into consideration in uh college applications. It needs to be a merit-based system only. And then you're like, bitch, you want to talk merit-based system? Let's zoom out and talk about uh equality. Like, you really think that by getting rid of affirmative action, turning a blind eye to the the history of our country and and just pretending like it doesn't that that racial discrimination does not exist and pretending that red lines weren't drawn that that disproportionately put certain people out of good schools and didn't give them a good opportunity. Like, you you really you really want to go merit here because that's if you're really talking about meritocracy, we got to zoom all the way out. And so this this zooms in on this one point says we're no longer gonna use race in drawing voting congressional districts. It's like you really, you're really a purist now. You're suddenly a purist about meritocracy and not using race. It's so hypocritical. It's it drives me crazy.

SPEAKER_06 18:10

Well, my thing is why weren't they redrawing the maps based on political party? Like we need to get rid of this democratic part.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

That's the language they're using. That's the language that's the language they're using. That's the language they're using.

SPEAKER_05 18:24

But they have to be.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

So what they said was you no longer have to you no longer have to take into account the impact that redrawing the maps has on certain political, certain racial groups, right? You have to prove the intent. So you have to so so prior to this ruling, right, if the impact of redrawing the map was that the black folk were split in half, right? And there's an assumption there that black folk are all voting Democratic, but we see enough Uncle Tom's uh in Congress that we know that's not true.

SPEAKER_04 18:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

Um and so the impact was taken into account, and so uh uh congressional districts were being drawn or redrawn based on that impact. The Roberts Court said, Oh no, no, you can do it along political lines, and you don't have to worry about the impact because the intent is not racist on its face.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Got it. And then you'd have to prove the racist intent in order to overturn.

unknown 19:27

Right.

SPEAKER_05 19:27

How do you prove a racist country is racist?

unknown 19:30

Good luck.

SPEAKER_05 19:31

See all of our history. Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Hold on. I asked that's what I asked Claude. And so I have a list. No, I'm just kidding. You should.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

I got one. In my light reading about this, uh, I have to read this word for word because Ruth Beta-Ginsburg just eviscerated Roberts. This is back in 2013. He once moved Shelby versus Holder. Yes, Shelby versus Look at you, historian. Look at him in 2013.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Well, that was the first that was the first piece, that was the first part of dismantling the Voting Rights Act.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Yeah. And so in it, he argued that stringent federal control over the electoral shenanigans. There's your word, LeBron. I love it. Stringent federal control over the electoral shenanigans of largely southern states, a system known as pre-clearance, was no longer needed because our country has changed. So basically, Justice Roberts is saying, hey, we're past racism. We don't we don't need to focus on race anymore. In a famous dissent, Ruth Bader-Ginsburg countered that if the country had changed, it was precisely because of the effectiveness of pre-clearance. She added that removing the safeguard was like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you're not getting wet. Like RBG dropping it, man. And it's like, yeah, why? If you're saying the country has changed, then you're admitting that these things worked. Thank you. And now you're taking the thing that worked away under the premise that we no longer need to focus on race. No, focusing on race is what got us. I think we have 10,000 black representatives in government across the country, whereas in the 70s it was like in the hundreds. Not anymore. Not anymore.

SPEAKER_06 21:10

But I'm trying to get at a couple of things, like the core of if white supremacists feel they're superior to everyone, why do they feel the need to lie, cheat, and steal and rig things as if they're not superior? But they take all these actions and tell everyone they they are superior. Like, what do you care about the black vote? What do you care about if just make access to college equal? If you're superior, it'll show up in in admissions and wealth creation and all these other things. So I don't I'm always struggling with how do you uh proclaim to be a white supremacist, yet all your actions speak of inferiority? That's part the part I struggle with.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

No, no, it it's a the I mean you're just calling their bluff. LeBron, right? You're saying, Yeah, oh, you're superior. Yeah, then prove it. Then prove it. It's like the unk saying, Oh, you think you run faster than me? Let's go. And then you pull a hamstring. Yeah, and then you see the video. That's and that's precisely what would happen to a white person who declares themselves white supremacist. But I think in this scenario that you bring up, it brings me back to so many conversations we've had that white supremacy isn't wearing a you know a KKK anymore. White supremacy is this yes, the overt I am a white supremacist, which is more rare now. It's more the subversive, subliminal, like everything that is white is superior. And a lot of folks don't even realize we are perpetuating white supremacy by these kinds of things. And so we think, what's the big deal? We're just being fair now. We're no longer post-racial society, which is just it that that is a vis that is a proof of white supremacy. If you think we're a post-racial society, that's because you look around as a white person and go, everything's fine, right? Things are good. Yeah, because your guy's in the White House and you think he's fighting for you. Yeah. And he's not unless you're rich. Gotcha. But um yeah, I mean, I just I don't, I'm sure there are if the someone who would declare themselves a white supremacist who would be extreme, it would that would be a good way to try to pull the rug out from under them. Like, all right, if you're so great, then who cares? Just draw the lines where they where they fall, and your supremacy will be proven over time.

SPEAKER_06 23:24

Yeah. But you know, at the same time, I'm like, okay, we understand white supremacists have created the country, run the country, and they use the same playbook over and over again. So after after the emancipation, we had change, and you know, we had Jim Crow, then we have all these different things that take place, and it's this is just happening again for like the fifth or sixth or tenth time. But then I'm wondering what do good white people and people of color do to counter it? Because to me, white supremacists have more energy than people who want equality. They they do more, and and people who want equality are more passive. So I'm like, how do you counteract that? Because if you don't have that energy, then it doesn't matter who's got the most energy is the ones who's gonna win. And they even waited 50 years of planning to get to this point to take it back. So are we planning right now so that we take it back in the next 30 years, 50 years, or are we marching and making signs and TikTok posts, or are we doing the work that white supremacists do? Because I admire their their game, they they fight, they believe white supremacists.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

To your point, well, yeah, to your point, they worked for decades for towards us, and I think the answer to that question, LeBron, is this not a sexy fight. It's a long fight. It's not a sexy fight. Like, where the good, the good white people or the good, whatever. This this is boring, man. Like on its front, on its back, it's crazy consequential, which is why, Antonio, I asked you to like essentially I was asking you to like give us context and help us understand why this is such a big deal, why this matters. Voting rights doesn't, it doesn't strike the core of a person like a black person being beat up by a cop or murdered by a cop and it being filmed like that. We have a visceral reaction. We know as humans, that's wrong. But it for me, it was hard to understand. Like, I needed to understand wait, why is this such a big deal? And I trusted you all and other people who were like, Whoa, this is huge, and the anger that people are coming up. I don't feel that visceral anger, I'm not connected to it. I've never been the victim of gerrymandering, you know, voter lines, as far as I know. I'm ignorant to it.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

And so you live in California.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, Andrew. Both of those things are true, and both of those things have consequences. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

I'm saying California has done voting things, right? To Latinos, they've done voting things to Asians. It's not citizenship to Latinos, but it's not citizenship things to Asians. Um, yeah, there were black folk out here, but it it wasn't a big enough population to worry about until you know they had to break into the mosque because the black Muslims were talking about uh we're gonna do our shit, you do yours.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

So yeah. Well, let me ask you one. So when you hear of like this decision, when it first came down, which was what last week? Yes, did it hit you at a like like an emotional level? Like when you hear about voting stubs, it's like, oh man, like are you connected to that emotionally?

SPEAKER_06 26:31

For me, I'm connected to it emotionally because of the fight that black people have had to for the right to vote. And whenever they do something to affect voting, it is the loudest form of racism personally that I can think of, other than physical abuse, like you said, which is visceral. That is that's the the dog whistle. Like, here they come.

SPEAKER_05 26:55

Yeah, here comes the Klan, here comes the clan.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

See, bro, that that right there blows my mind a little bit because look at the work I had to do even in this discussion right now. I'm like, Antonio, help me understand. And like as you explain it, I'm like, oh god, yeah, that's bad. But you see, I had to go through an intellectual process to get there. Yes, and I still don't feel it the way you feel it because I haven't had the personal experience with it. That's not and and so when you talk about the energy, LeBron, it's like you you fight when you're scared or you're threatened, right? You get the energy. It's very rare that someone fights for someone else until they feel something, they see something. Yes. And I'm saying, I'm saying if my experience is indicative of a typical white person in this country, right? When you say, when you start talking about voting rights and congressional district lines, I'm like, all right, next, like it doesn't it doesn't affect me at that visceral level. I'm not I'm not proud of that fact. I'm just saying it's it doesn't stir me because I don't get it and I haven't experienced it. I'm not I'm embarrassed by that.

SPEAKER_06 27:54

I'm not proud of that, but that's just yeah, and I think that's the interesting point for me, John, with hearing you say that is because I always use the term good white people because they're the ones who are not blatantly racist, but who benefit from it. So you don't feel the effects of what we're going through until later because you haven't had that experience. So it's not a visceral experience to because you haven't experienced it. So everything white supremacists are doing, even if you're again against white supremacy, it's to benefit you. Whether you don't agree disagree with their tactics, it's still gonna benefit you. So you don't have you don't feel it. And ironically, a lot of things they're doing would benefit you, even though you recognize that they're not you know, not humane, yeah, but you don't feel the the immediate uh effects of it. So then the hard part is then when we talk to good white people, we have to spend so much time getting them up to speed while the white supremacy is going on that we're having to do double duty. Yeah, it's not good or bad, it's just a reality. And so it's like, how do we operate in that reality? That's that's why I think white supremacy lasts so long, it's so hard to dismantle, because the good white people who I perceive to be the buffer, they're not working, they're not anti-racist. They're they're not in support of white supremacy, but they're not anti-racist. Yeah. And that's the that's the tricky part.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

It is, it is. Antonio, how do you feel? Like, I I think about your grandmother who's 103 and what a celebration you had in your family when she voted for Barack Obama. Like that that hit you all deeper than the average family, because you got this woman who had seen so much. Um, and so I just think about the emotional connection you personally and your family would would have to when voting rights are being hindered, it's gotta hit you in the gut.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

I'm constantly struggling with the energy that people of ill will have to collect all the toys. Oh, thank you. You said it perfectly. Thank you. The um the president of the Heritage Foundation, and I don't know this mother's name, but I know that he has a PhD in African American Studies. Um Tell our listeners what what why that's the Heritage Foundation, the the author of Project 2025, the man who architected Donald Trump's return to power and the anti-black um program and agenda that he has put into uh put into practice, right? This fire hose that we're all drinking out of as uh citizens of the United States, is um somebody who spent considerable time out of his life to study how black women particularly, but black people organized and successfully rallied in order to gain the full citizenship, the right to vote, um really I would say the right to walk down the street without fear, except nobody really does that. And um he got a degree in African American Studies. He had a PhD in African American Studies in order to write the Project 2025 in to dismantle black political power. So everything that you're witnessing right now or hearing in the news, and I understand when people are numb to it, I understand when people don't understand it, because nobody that I know can drink out of a fire hose. It's not possible. Not possible. And there are so many fronts, right? The Supreme Court is doing bullshit. Um Tennessee just removed every Democratic legislator from every standing committee in the state government. Not just the black people, but the black adjacent people.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Hold on, say that for the folks in the back again and say it slowly. What what just happened?

SPEAKER_02 32:14

So the state representatives, right, are the ones who pass laws in a state. In Tennessee, there are two young brothers, Justin Pearson and Justin um what is his name? I don't know. The two Justins, right? Right.

SPEAKER_06 32:26

One with the Afro, one without.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

One with the Afro, one with the do.

SPEAKER_06 32:30

One with the one with the one with the do. The do, right.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

But but either way, they are both uh phenomenal, and they are uh got elected. Um not only did they get elected, there are a number of other black uh legislative legislators and democratic legislators who, for our purposes, are black adjacent, and the Republican majority in the state of Tennessee removed them from all standing committees, like all of them.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

Under what grounds?

SPEAKER_02 32:58

No grounds. They just did it.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

You can just remove them from Sure. You said for Speaker from committees.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

So, you know, there's a committee on education, there's a committee on health, there's a committee on policing, there's committee on right, but that's where those legislative um legislative attempts start. It has to be passed out of committee into the full house, and then so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

And you can just boot someone off the committee, be like, sorry, we don't need you anymore. Hold up. There's there there has to be policy or procedures to get.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

Because they can, basically. Because they can. And this isn't just black legislators, this is white legislators too, who are impeding a white supremacist agenda. White supremacists undercover of a Republican. Um, you know, and so I'm amazed at the energy. I'm not amazed at the boldness. It's pretty safe at this point in the United States of America to be a white supremacist is pretty safe. I mean, unless you try to do it one-on-one, because Godfrey the comic has a whole show about uh on Instagram and TikTok. Leave black people alone. Dude, it's so good. And and you know, if we want to talk about how do we feel about it, I am one that hates to see violence in a public manner. I'm not a fan of boxing. I really don't watch MMA. Um, and yet there is something viscerally satisfying watching white people come out of their ass step and try to and try to use the N-word and try to, you know, puff say it with their whole chest like they're JK rolling and get knocked the fuck out.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Get their get their windshield kicked in and get their most important things.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

Oh yeah, I'm not I'm not seeing any property damage. What I've seen is white people acting out their ass and damaging property and then being held to account.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

And so um often the black person going, don't dude, seriously, stop. I'm telling you like six warnings. Dude, you mess with the wrong uh. No, I'm telling you, like like more warnings than cops give you. Definitely like one time.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

That's because they're conscious that when the cops get there, they're the ones who are gonna get locked up. Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

They're gonna have to have some evidence that they tried over and over to retreat, and this will sell it.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

And so um, how do I feel about it? I I um at the moment I'm confuzzled. I don't know what exactly it is that we're supposed to be doing, especially from you know, California. Like Orange County is trying to be uh Confederate county.

SPEAKER_06 35:51

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

They're trying to trying to vote white supremacist, they're trying to send this uh what the fuck is this name? Chad Bianco and Steve Henry.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Chad the last name is Bianco, which means white. Literally, that's the whitest name. It's like saying white, white. Chad Bianco.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

My name is White White. He's a sheriff running for the Republican nomination uh for governor, right? And and California has an open primary because we're just like vote, and the top two will be in the general. Yep. But we had so many apparently qualified Democratic candidates trying to run because California is a uh an overwhelmingly democratic state that they were everybody was trying to jump in. And I was just having this conversation the other day, but you know, everybody was also waiting for uh Vice President Harris to decide whether she was gonna jump in. She decided not to. So we have former uh Secretary Beceta who's running. We got a billionaire, Tom Steyer, who has um he's paid for the most commercials. He's paid for the most commercials using money that he earned from investing in ICE detention centers. And so you know, you I can't I can't have you be the Democratic representative and talk about you're the billionaire that billionaires hate um when that's how you got some of your money. Your money, thank you. That being said, Katie Porter, who apparently, you know, lost her lost her mind on camera on somebody, but it's just coming out. Like there are a lot of Democrats, and so Chad and uh Hinton, I guess the guy who just so Donald Trump has actually endorsed uh this little short Australian dude who's a naturalized citizen. Because it's okay for him to be naturalized, he's white. Um God.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

No one's checking his birth certificate.

SPEAKER_02 37:41

No, right, right. He's a he's a white man of good character.

SPEAKER_05 37:46

He's probably first cousin of California, so I was in 1790. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Um and so um, you know, I'm we're watching it from here, and I'm confused because I'm like, what is it I'm supposed to do? Phone calls ain't gonna make it. And and LeBron tried to get us on this conspiracy thing and talk about long-term planning, right? They've been planning for this. They've been trying to dismantle, they've been trying to dismantle the voting rights act since the voting rights act was passed. They were trying to dismantle Roe versus Wade since Roe versus Wade was passed. They managed one, then they managed the other. Because, you know, it's a patriarchal white supremacist foundation. I'm still confused about why they didn't just write it in the Constitution, except that I think the assumption was, I think we came to this conclusion, the assumption was I don't need to put white in there because everybody already knows.

SPEAKER_04 38:46

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

And what they've what they found over the years is every place that that vagary has been exploited, that that lack of definition has been exploited, whether it was in New York or Pennsylvania or Ohio or California or Texas or New Mexico or Louisiana or Mississippi or Alabama, every time they didn't say white, which is what they meant, black folks stepped in, Latinos stepped in, Asians stepped in, they didn't put mail in there, so women stepped in, they said we're citizens too. Yep. Don't forget the ladies, Abigail Adams, right? And every time they've had to enforce what they wanted to do, they're still scared to say, no, white people are better. They're still scared to say men are better because they don't have a logical argument for it. It's just that happens to be the two boxes that they check, right? And and so they keep moving. But I I don't know. I don't know how you have this much energy except that you're insecure and so you feel like somebody's gonna take something from you when all somebody wants to do is live their life.

SPEAKER_06 40:00

Yes, so John, to the best of your ability, please once again explain to us the psychology of your folks.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

We're asleep, man. That's what I'm that's why I was asking these questions, because you know, like uh you guys like gin? You all like drinking gin? Oh yes, with juice, okay, Antonio. No, gin with gin and juice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't like gin. And I can I can intellectualize myself into drinking some when I've someone like you says, John, let me tell you I'm telling you, this is good gin. I'm like, all right, I'll take it. But it's not like a viscerally pleasing experience. Why? I had a bad experience with gin when I was 12 years old. I don't need to get into it, I don't want to talk about it. So is there a good experience with gin when you're 12?

SPEAKER_07 40:50

Yeah, probably in 12.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

Um, so the smell alone, I go, oh god, it makes me act, right? And so your experience determines how your visceral, like your first reaction, your prime before you're able to think, your limbic system is is going, am I safe? It's the fight or flight part of our brain, right? And what I'm trying to say is that you all, when it comes to voting rights, that hits your limbic system. Like right away, you feel something like, oh, here they come again, here they come. It doesn't hit my limbic system. So I have to I have to engage my cerebral part of my brain and think, think, think. Oh, that's why this is a big deal. And so that's when I'm saying, like, white people are asleep. It goes back to our first episode is detachment racism. And what I heard you say, LeBron, is like there's a lot of good white people that are just disconnected uh and they're quiet because they haven't been activated really by anything, nothing until we feel like something is being taken away from us. And that's what that's when you see us moving, that's when you see us acting. And this voting thing doesn't hit us at in our limbic system, man, because we haven't had those same experiences, like with gin. Like, what? Okay, what's wrong? What's wrong with the districts? But that seems like you know, you just move the districts around and they're trying to be fair. What I hate about it is that they, as I understand it, they're using the language of we just we say that you race should not play a part in the drawing of these lines, and that's just so convenient that you're now a purist, like I said earlier. Um but yeah, man, that's the psyche. LeBron, I'm speaking for my people. Yes, we don't feel it, we don't feel it, and so we don't do anything about it. Um and that's that's the sad state of sleepiness of being uh in the majority that's in power. You just you're disconnected from the struggle that other people are going through. Right.

SPEAKER_06 42:51

So then who who are the people then to fight against white supremacy? Because for me, in terms of like the human body, white supremacy is cancer. And it's infecting the world. It's not affecting America, it's uh infecting the world. Because white supremacy it usually expresses itself through government and through capitalism. Those are the two mechanisms I see white supremacy expressing itself through government and through through capitalism. And so if it is if white people are like eight percent of the world's population, I say maybe two percent of them I would consider like extreme white supremacists. So two percent is controlling the other 98% of the planet. So when someone gets cancer in their body, how do you eliminate cancer?

SPEAKER_01 43:52

How do you get rid of cancer? Is you chemo? Aggressively. Aggressively, aggressively, you don't take it, you literally poison your whole body so that it Can't fight the can't that it fights kills everyone.

SPEAKER_02 44:02

I've seen four four hundred people on on threads. Um, but Jamel Hill is the one that that sticks out in my head. Um, said this is what happens because we didn't punish the Confederacy. And she's right.

unknown 44:16

Right?

SPEAKER_02 44:16

100% correct. There was a there was a there was a period of time where uh people who had been active parts of the Confederacy were not allowed back in government. In 1877, Rutherford Hayes was trying to become president, and so he made a deal with the devil, or he made a deal with other white people. I'm not saying white people are the devil, because I'm not Malcolm X.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Okay, Malcolm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

He made a deal, removed all the federal troops from the South, said that people who had participated in the Confederacy, the rebellion against the United States, literally trying to overthrow the country in order to own black people. Rutherford Hayes made that made that deal to become president, removed all federal troops from the South, stopped Reconstruction, stopped, uh allowed those Confederates who were at that point Democrats.

SPEAKER_06 45:04

Yep, we switched, yep.

SPEAKER_02 45:06

Back into the government, like the Confederacy was never punished. Those mother should have all been executed. All aggressive.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

Yeah, I was gonna say, what would have a good punishment have been? Execution. Execution picked up arms against the government. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 45:20

You're supposed to be killed. No, the leaders. All of them. All of them. Bye. Millions of Southerners gone. Because that's the law. That's the law they created, John. Not us. That's their law. You commit treason, you commit treason. Your own law. Thank you. So why don't you exercise your own law? And that's the the I the hypocrisy of the United States.

SPEAKER_02 45:42

Because the Northerners had the cancer too. See?

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Let's play.

SPEAKER_06 45:49

He said the quiet park out loud.

SPEAKER_01 45:51

It's 1865. Uh Lincoln was assassinated. By who? By who? John Wilkes Booth.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Yes. A Southerner.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Yes. All right. So a white supremacist. Yes, he was. And so why?

SPEAKER_02 46:10

Why? Because Lincoln stood on the porch of the White House and he gave a speech and he said, if soldiers, if black people have fought for this country, have fought to keep this country, I think they should have the vote. And John Wilkes Booth in the audience that day looked up and said, That's the last speech he will ever give. Because Lincoln was going to give black people the vote.

SPEAKER_01 46:35

Back to the vote. Here we are. Yes indeed. Back to the vote. All right, so let's do this thought experiment. So instead of what actually played out with Rutherford B. Hayes, let's say he didn't make that deal and he punished the South, and millions of people were hanged. Yes, publicly gallows or shot. Right. Firing squad. What do you think that does to our country? It's the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 47:02

Do you think that black people get the land that they were supposed to get in the South? They were supposed to get their 40 acres in a mule. In a mule. I think you have communities where people are thriving. I think that it's like read Tanahissi Coast. We were ages in Paris.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

Read Sky Full of Elephants where all the white people just died.

SPEAKER_02 47:19

Sky full of elephants, right? I read that every night before I go to sleep.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

When we get to the biggest, manifest, manifest. Hey, wait, can I can I stay though, LeBron?

SPEAKER_06 47:27

You and John. We got you on the list.

SPEAKER_02 47:29

But when you get to the point of that book, that point wasn't about killing white people. That point was about black consciousness and happiness. Tana Hesse Coates, right? But this is not about Obama. Right. Everybody thinks this is about Obama. It's not. We were eight years in power, is talking about Reconstruction. It's talking about the development of public schools. It's talking about Robert Smalls. It's talking about black people in Congress making the government work for people. White, black, and indifferent.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

Yeah, I got a better idea than.

SPEAKER_02 48:00

I'm going to play out that thought experiment. I don't have to. I know what happens when they were there.

SPEAKER_01 48:07

What if instead of killing all the Southern, all the Confederate loyalists?

SPEAKER_06 48:10

Well, wait, let's stick with the killing them first and just see what would happen. Don't leave that point yet, John.

SPEAKER_02 48:16

No, I've got a better one. Because John, John Roberts and Clarence Thomas are not on the Supreme Court. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 48:23

If you would have killed them all for committing a treasonous act, it would have made Americans believe in the Constitution. And the law, and the And the law. And the same way they would hang black men, cut their penis off, the way they would burn them, it sent a message to us do not fuck with white people. They mean business. So if you kill those white people, their kids or grandkids would be like, I want to be a racist. Like, uh-uh, you don't want to do that because they're going to hang your ass for treason. Look what happened to your grandfather, your great grandfather. See, it would have changed the trajectory from that experience. Like you said, what is that visceral? That's where the visceral would have came from. Right. If they would have paid attention, if they would have actually followed the law of the land. And that's the problem. We followed the law of the land and it never worked for us.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

Yeah. No, that's that's such a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 49:18

I don't have to hear George Florida doesn't die. I don't have to tear down Confederate statues. I don't have to rename streets because they weren't named after. Like, how do you rename? What is Pete Pete Heggseth and Donald Trump doing? They're renaming military bases, they are re-invigorating the Confederacy. They are utilizing the language of white supremacy, and they're not scared to do any of it. Yeah. Why should they be? What they've been taught is they're going to get a slap on the hand. Yep. And I got a lot of energy for people who haven't been held to account. Leave it right there. That way I don't have to edit this shit out.

SPEAKER_01 49:49

Thank you for listening to the Three for the Founders podcast. The views, thoughts, and opinions are the speakers only and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of any professional or educational institution.

SPEAKER_06 49:59

Man, but we got to do this podcast to pay this mortgage.

SPEAKER_02 50:02

Yes, and we do both. So the thought experiment, if you play it out, if you actually hold people responsible for treason, then you don't have the daughters of the Confederacy trying to tell a story that's not true about how they were noble and it was about states' rights. You have a historical markers, right? We've talked about walking through Germany and the markers a Jew was was murdered here. Yep. Right. And I don't know they don't exactly say that, but people were harmed and that the public, right, the public knowledge is that this is something that we reckoned with, we rectified, and we moved on from. That accountability has never happened.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

Yeah. I mean, and and the reason why I said just the leaders, I'm thinking of Nuremberg, Nazi, like you know, holding the leaders accountable because they're the ones who led them in that direction. This this thought experiment is far more brutal, it's far more far-reaching, and far more visceral, like you're saying. I mean, even in my response, I'm like, wait, wait, wait, all these people just die? And it's like, hold on, think about all the enslaved people that died. Think about all the harm that happened in Jim Crow afterwards. Think about, right? And do is that worth less than all the white people that would have been killed?

SPEAKER_02 51:19

Who, you know, according to the law that's you mean the Confederacy that's saying if they catch a white soldier in uniform, they're gonna make him a prisoner of war, but they can't catch a black soldier in uniform, they're gonna re-enslave them or they're going to execute them. Yeah. You want to talk about the slaughter of black soldiers fighting for the United States, fighting for the Constitution, fighting for liberty and freedom. Yeah. Who were summarily put to death? Come on now.

SPEAKER_01 51:48

Yeah. I mean, I bet if you I bet if Math Man, if you quantified and said, all right, we didn't do that, we didn't kill all the Confederate folks, soldiers and leaders. But and and like come up with a number. Like it, if we had X number of people would have died, let's call it 200,000. Let's call it half a million. Let's do half a million. Okay, half a million. Yes. And then go, all right, but what actually happened? How many black and brown people died as a result of Jim Crow? As a result of probably more than a half a million. Yeah. Since we're in the millions now. Yes. With no recoil. So even numerically, it would have made more sense just to kill the treasons. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 52:26

Remember, like, I don't care about people who are prejudiced. You can be as prejudiced as you want. I have no care. But when you're sanctioned by the government, that's racism. That's a whole nother level. When your actions are sanctioned or looked over by the government, that is a problem. And so for what I'm wondering is one thing that Papa James, you know, he has I haven't had a Papa James saying in a while. He said, I was like, how do we get past racism? He says, the way you get past racism is don't participate. Okay. See, the people of color, we participate in white people's racism. If we stop participating, who's gonna build your house? Who's gonna work in your restaurant? Who's gonna entertain you? Who you're gonna watch Sunday morning? See, if we stop participating in white racist systems and you just take your money and create your own system, then you don't have to worry about this. You don't. I don't care about voting personally. I know people fought for whatever. It's proven that they're gonna take it away, or it doesn't work. What does work is you pool your money together, like a certain group of people I know, and you buy the politician, whoever gets elected. Then it doesn't matter. Your vote doesn't matter. I got a pool of money and said, look, you're in office now, here's 500,000. Build this, fund this, do this. So you don't need my vote. I just need us to put our money together so we can pay off whatever politician they vote in. Then it doesn't matter because there's people who don't care if it's Democrat or Republican, because they pay them off anyways. In their community, they can have their own schools, they can have their own religion, they can have their own talk their own language, and nobody messes with them. So they are detached from society and attached in when they want to. Because they control their own community's money. Do you know that Latinos can control the whole state of California if they just pull their money? Think about how easy it is for Latinos to control things. 80% of the students are Latino, and they get about each the school districts get about $15,000 per student a year. If they say, you know what, we're gonna homeschool our kids for a year. Because you can actually pull out of the district, get money, and you can homeschool. Listen, we're gonna homeschool, I don't know, two million, two million Latino kids. We're just gonna homeschool for a year. We'll just have them go online, and Tony's gonna teach them history, LeBron teaching math, John teaching music. John teaching music. Teaching music. Boom. That would cripple, that would cancel every school district in California.

unknown 55:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 55:26

And they would do whatever they say, okay, what do you want? What do you want? You want this, you want this, because it's a to driver, because now you're gonna get rid of the teachers. Now all you're gonna get rid of the bus drivers. Now it's gonna impact the governor. All of that. But see, it all of the Latino community and black communities is missing is organization. That's it. We've been treated bad anyways. Let's take a year off a public school. Just that. We'll take a year off, damn it. It would grapple the whole system.

SPEAKER_01 55:59

And then they can demand anything they wanted. So now, like most audacious ideas, LeBron, I sit I see people waiting in the wings. I hear people going, yeah, LeBron, tell them. That sounds great. You first. Who's but see they don't do it?

SPEAKER_06 56:12

Well, white supremacists don't say you first. They all jump in because they But no, but we don't have to jump in, LeBron.

SPEAKER_01 56:17

The system exists. I don't have to do a damn thing to keep white supremacy in place. I do this.

SPEAKER_02 56:22

But you're not a white dude. You're not a well, let's let's let's back up two steps. Yeah. You're not a white supremacist. Thank you. Thank you. You're simply a white person who benefits from racism. Yes. Right.

unknown 56:31

Right.

SPEAKER_02 56:32

So therefore, no, no, that's different. I do nothing because we talk about but when we talk about good white people, right? So I've been seeing a lot of stuff online. People are like, oh, these black athletes shouldn't go to any school or play uh in any of the states, right? And I'm like, how about the white athletes don't go play? Thank you. I'm not saying on their own, I'm saying as well. Collective. I'm saying, what what do good white people do? Right. And I put that John Pavlov John Pavlovitz thing up on the three for the founders Instagram. Three for the founders on IG threads. Check it. Not TikTok anymore. Check it out.

SPEAKER_01 57:10

Spelled out in letters.

SPEAKER_02 57:12

Three for the founders. Three for the founders. Um but his point was we need to organize. And I'm like, cool. Like black folk can organize. You can say, hey, black athletes don't go play over here, go play over here. That's fine. I'm good with that. How about white athletes don't go play over here? Go play over here.

SPEAKER_06 57:31

How about the white quarterbacks go play for HBCU?

SPEAKER_03 57:35

Good luck. If you're good. You talk about meritocracy.

SPEAKER_01 57:38

White people. Because that's when affirmative action is no longer the case. It's like, oh, this is a true meritocracy. White dude, you're going to show up to a black school and try to take the quarterback position. Good luck.

SPEAKER_06 57:51

Uh John, by the way. Do you know where white people who can't play golf get a scholarship? They play for HBCUs. Because it's golf. The black swim people.

SPEAKER_02 58:02

Do they get a scholarship? Yes, they do. Okay, so they can get a scholarship. Of course.

SPEAKER_01 58:07

But that's golf. I wouldn't say the quarterback of the football team would have a chance. Swimming, gymnastics. The white people swimming. Do you know how many white professors I have at the HBCU? Because we belong everywhere, LeBron. We feel like we belong. It's our country.

SPEAKER_06 58:23

Look, man, I'm that's the that's the game that people don't understand. Everyone's like, no singers. Yes. I just want to say I want to be in the first one.

SPEAKER_07 58:36

I want to be in the first one to say.

SPEAKER_01 58:38

In this world that you're describing, LeBron, where black people say we're not going to participate and follow Papa James' lead, I know we've said it before, and you're like, so who are you gonna watch on Sunday? Who are you gonna? And I'm like, damn, you know who's gonna do great is the National Hockey League. It's gonna be the best thing ever.

SPEAKER_06 58:53

And who's gonna watch that? No one's watching it now. So when you go to the think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation, all these the Rand Corporation, all of them run all these scenarios for 50, 100 years.

SPEAKER_01 59:09

You futurists.

SPEAKER_06 59:11

So I'm saying I've been in the rooms. I know I've played out the scenarios, the pros, the cons, but you gotta understand the impact. Are you willing to make a two-year sacrifice for equality? Because the good white people aren't gonna do it. They're not. So it has to be the people of color.

SPEAKER_02 59:36

Are they uh is it that they're not because they don't want to sacrifice, or is it they're not because it hasn't been presented in a clear manner? And I'm not being funny, I'm really asking that question.

SPEAKER_06 59:52

In my opinion, you can't get good white people to participate at that level because they enjoy white privilege. It's like they'll they'll they'll allow other white people to do the dirty work for them, and they're like, oh, they're bad, ooh, they're bad, but they love it. They're like, ooh, that's this feels good. But I didn't do the dirty work, I didn't do it. My cousin did it, my uncle did it, my grandfather did it, but my hands are clean. I that's bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

I don't like that it was done. I would not ask for it to be done.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:20

Exactly, but I enjoys it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:22

But so there's an example of a okay, Antonio, if it's presented in a clear manner, uh Frank Sinatra, who was no saint.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:33

By any means.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:34

He was uh okay. But at some point in his career, he started to recognize who were the good jazz musicians. What do you guys think? Yeah, a lot of black folks. Uh of course, sure. And he went on tour with them, and Count Basie became a partner of his Count Basie famous band leader, like killer killer dude. And where where did he make his name after like all the movies and stuff? Las Vegas. Was Las Vegas a progressive town? No, it was a mob town that was, you know, casinos. And uh he he had a contract with a casino and it was a big hotel, and he started to find out that his band members couldn't stay at the same hotel as him. So now it's affecting him. So I'm not saying he was a saint, but according to legend, according to other people who've told the story, or black people tell the story. I've also heard recordings of him telling the story. He came to the hotel, and these are his words get yourself another boy, because I'm not playing here.

unknown 1:01:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:39

And they're like, We're sorry, Mr. Sinatra, your band members could stay at the hotel. Now, did it change their hearts? Probably not, but it affected their pay, their paybook, their paycheck. And I don't even know if it changed their policy. I don't know if suddenly they just said, Okay, all black people could stay here. They probably just said, okay, well, Sinatra's band can come here. And they may have made them come through a side door. I don't know all this, all the stuff, but that's an example of a white person in power. Yes, who and when he talks about it, he said he his words were, I loathe bigotry of any kind. And in that era, Italian Americans were the recipient of white racism towards them because they were seen as less than another. They had it pretty easy compared to all other forms of racism. But you know, he he had a personal stake in the game. He obviously he could have gone to any other casino and they probably would have said, Sir, Mr. Sinatra, we'll take you. Um, but that might be an example of there's a person that who said, Nope, I'm taking my power, and I am going to, I'm gonna play elsewhere until you all make a change. So now, John, you make a great point there.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:46

So the the the good white people who have power and influence, which is not a lot of them, but the few of y'all that there are, he exercised it not for what was right or equitable. It was in his best interest. Yes, it was.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:05

Practically, monetarily, and I think reputationally. Yes, it was in his best interest. Because guess what? Guess who was watching? The other black musicians. And who did he want playing with him? Black musicians. There you go. So you know he wanted a reputation among them to be like, hey, it's good to play with Frank. Yes, because he he knew he knew who gave him the good stuff. After all, this was your music. This was black music that he was singing. I mean, there's no question. And he, you know, yeah. So yeah, you're right. Uh I don't again don't see him as saintly. I'm not saying that was a purely moral stance that he took, but at least he took that stance and he had the power to do so.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:40

Yeah. Um so just like you know, like Nick Sabin or the top college football coaches. If all the black players said, we ain't playing for nobody white no more, we're going to HBCUs. And he says, Well, damn it, I'm gonna make sure XYZ happens for my players. And they're like, Oh, well, I'll play for you then. Then he's a champion again. So white people only do what's in their best interest. The problem with people of color is they don't put white people in a position to where their best interest is to support us. Unless it becomes in your best interest to support black and Latino people, you won't. Whether you're a good white person, whether you're a white supremacist, white supremacists feel they're doing what's in their individual best interest, which is to collectively shit on people of color.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:28

But I feel like I'm centering whiteness, gentlemen. You warned me against this, but like how do we get white people? They are at the center about this voting rights thing. Like, how do you get me and my ilk because LeBron, you you speak in these these superlatives, and I get it, you're making a point. Like when you say white people just love to shit on black people, I know you're not saying that like white people wake up in the morning and say, I hate black people, and I'm looking to go against them. But when you do something like no, no, no, no, no. I am saying that.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:55

I'm saying like at least all of them. No, no, not only about 80%, not all of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:59

You think 80% of this is like your 80% number of Latinos in schools. Yes, no, 80% of white people wake up wanting to shit on people of color? I think eight. Wow, that low? We got a big disparity right here, man. So here's the United States of America.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:15

Long enough. I've 55 years. Okay, I was a hill, son.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:21

I am never doing that accent.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:23

You should never do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:24

Stick to the Germans, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:26

Even during the Civil War, you had the percentage of the people who were elected in those states, and then you had the foot soldiers. Less than 1% owned more than 10 people, enslaved more than 10 people, right? Less than 10% enslaved anybody at all. But all of them were fighting for white supremacy. You have, to the point that was made earlier, this large swath of white people who benefit from white supremacy, who think that it's normal for them to do whatever, who feel like they live in California prepared. Perpetually because they're just living their lives as individuals without understanding that the system is set up to benefit them. And so you don't have 80% actively who want to be white supremacists, which is why the Constitution is written in that vague language, which is why the Supreme Court is ruling in vague language. You have a small group who is pushing actively white supremacy as the norm, a large group who benefit from it without paying attention to it, to your point, John, that apathetic group or that dis uh what'd you say, detached group. Detached that group who is just going along and doesn't understand the system, and then the 10% on the other end who are like, this system is fed up, and I actually believe in the equality of all people. I actually believe in the words of the Constitution. I actually believe that one person wouldn't vote. So you have the extremes on the end, the big middle group, right? And you can say 20%, 20%, but I don't think it's 80% who are actively engaging in white supremacy.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:18

I think it has been more. That's that's just that like numbers-wise.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:23

I get it. And that's why I said I believe it's 80%, because you have the the 8 to 10% who are actively, and the other 70-80% are complicit, which means they allow it. Okay. So that's their stuff that's not. That's different than what you said. If Barack Obama was doing these things, those complicit, you know, uh, I'm not white, they would be active. They would get activated.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:50

The president's not supposed to do that.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:51

He would be activated. The fact that he can get away with all the things he's doing and the stuff we're seeing is because 80, 90% of white people are complicit. Like, yeah, I don't agree with it, but it helped it's helping white people. So I'm I'm I see you. They voted for him.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:04

Yeah. So that's what I'm saying about. Well, 80 80% of whites did not vote for Trump.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:08

No. Uh yeah, they did. You want to check the you want, you won't check your own. I do want to check that.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:13

Yeah, I'll do it. Someone just got you.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:16

It's I think you have a machine who will that will be.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:19

By which I can ascertain.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:22

And what I'll say is those same people who, whether it's 80% or 60%, those are the same people who think Spencer Pratt is uh is a good choice for mayor of Los Angeles. There were more uneducated, uh less educated white people who voted for Trump than more educated. But the more educated white people still voted for Trump over Hillary.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:47

I'm I'm challenging your numbers, LeBron, because I'm def I'm defending my white people. Because if you say 80%, yeah, that would have been 120 million votes for Trump. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:58

I didn't say they voted, I said they're in favor of. Do you know how many white people vote Democratic who are racist or who are pro-white? Lots. Lots, the majority. But it feels good to be Democratic. It feels good to be if you look at look at all this. The funny thing, John, is that most people of color say that the biggest challenge is well-meaning white people are a bigger challenge than upfront racist in your face. Because if you see someone with racist in your face, you know what you're dealing with. As opposed to someone who smiles in your face and you get along and you say, Hey, can we come to your house for the for the barbecue? Like, well, you know, I would invite you, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:55

I mean, I don't disagree with that. I when when you hit those numbers that big, as as one who lives among the whites. Yes. From the Caucasian underground from which I emerge for this podcast alone, and I burrow back down into our into our caves because you know the sun's not good on our skin, bro. We got to stay out of the sun. The sun's trying to kill us. Comedian Sam J, she says, I'm convinced white people are not from this planet because everything about this planet is trying to murder you. You're like, the sun is trying to kill you, like you just you're not from here. Like black people, brown people, like we're we're fine. We're clearly from here. Um, you all are the aliens. But when you say 80% or like 80% wake up and want to shit on black, I'm like, that's not my experience, man. But the majority of white people I know are just bopping around being white people, right? Completely out of touch with the plight of black and brown people. And then they get pulled in when something dramatic happens, then we go back to our merry way. So, yes, we benefit from this system, and so nothing really bothers us unless it starts to bother us.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:59

Right. So that's a great point, John. So my question is if you bopping along, whatever, what if things were changing because of people of color so that you lost some of that your current privileges? So things that you that's when the rubber meets the road. So what if what if you went to the what if you went shopping at the mall? And you know how there's a handicap parking, right? What if all the front parking said black and Latino only? What if they said, you know what? All black and Latino kids, if they get into college, tuition free for the next hundred years. But white people gotta pay.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:44

This scenario you're painting is what white people think is happening with you. That's why they cheer in the Louisiana courtroom or Tennessee or wherever happened, because what you just described is what they think is gonna happen.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:52

They know it's not, but that's what they think.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:54

They know it's they're activated. Oh, they're taking over now. Oh my god, next thing you know, it's gonna be black and Latino parking only, and there goes the neighborhood. Yeah, and we just yeah, and all we have is delicious food and wonderful communities and great music. Gosh, what a terrible thing. There goes the neighborhood. Come on.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:13

But but you see, the I the the that's what I'm saying. The execution of equity, that's why I say 80% of white people, because even the good white people are gonna push back. Like, look, y'all been fucking us over for 400 years. Now we're just gonna we're not gonna ask for reparations, we're just gonna ask for equity. Just give us back. Like right now, white school districts get $200 billion more than black and brown districts. Because they take that money. So let's give black and brown districts $200 billion a year more than white districts. You know what would happen? White people we go into school in the hood because they want to do what's in their best interest. Yeah, that's the tricky part. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:55

The other, maybe this is going backwards, but the other imagined scenario thing. That's okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:00

Voting is going backwards, so fuck it.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:02

Yeah, there we go. It's part of the theme. Here we go. The other thought experiment I had about okay, the Civil War is over. We're just gonna hang the generals of the Confederate Army and we're gonna enslave the rest of the Confederate soldiers for a while. Let's play this out. Let's play this out. Let's play this one out.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:19

I'm down to play this one out.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:20

No, no, fucking, but then that falls apart. There's a movie about it. It's called Django Unchained, and it's bullshit too.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:27

It falls apart because we're at a war against slavery.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:32

Yeah, all the white people are now. So the conf listen, we have the who's gonna pick the cotton, who's gonna do the things that the South was relying upon for their economic growth, now put the black people in charge, white white Confederate soldiers are now enslaved. Like, like for one generation. Let's just see how it goes and see how you all like it. Do you like this thought experiment, LeBron? You do and tell me.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:51

Now we're moving. Now we're moving somewhere. But I might I like I think it's better if you just killed them and then we just start from scratch. Let's just follow the law of the land. Let's just follow the constitution.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:01

You make a compelling case.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:03

I'm telling you, when I just follow the constitution. I'm not saying enslave white people because we're not for slavery, anyways. And then we just followed war over that, so my thing falls apart. If treason is punishable by death, then they all gotta go. According to your law, not because according to me, double jaw wrote.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:20

Yeah. I have never thought about this before. Have you all thought about this before? That that's how the South should have been punished? Yeah. Yes. Yes. I have never thought about this once in my life. That's because you Because of white privilege. Well I'm serious.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:37

I never had to think about it's not a have to think about it. Right? There's there's a part of education. LeBron said this when we were talking about religion. Like, there are very few things you get to pick about yourself. Actually, I think it was the names episode when he was like, What would you name yourself? Because you don't get to pick your name, right? You don't get to pick your religion. And um you've said, you know, that we were born into a struggle we didn't ask for. No, we were born into the United States, just like you were. And you were.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:18

Are you thumping the desk when you're making points, dude? Are you hitting the desk?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:23

You are either forced to pay attention to the history of the United States by your experience, or you are allowed to ingest the propaganda that passes for history. And so it's not that I have a visceral reaction to voting, it's that I understand what the constitution actually was. Right? And it was a bunch of people trying to further their own interests at the behe at the at the expense of other people. And when we get to now, if you don't know that, if you weren't taught that, if you weren't shown that, if you didn't see that, because it wasn't in the interest of the people who were educating you or raising you, right, to show you that, and I can't blame you for that.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:38

What I can do is be the person who says, Hey, there's more to the story, which is why when I do talk to the good whites, and they come to this point where they say, What should I do? My current answer is look at yourself first. Before you get a sign out there and protest, before you post something, identify within yourself where you have been racist. And when I say that, I'm gonna use the LeBron definition and say, not prejudice, because everybody's prejudiced. We but where have you participated in a system, benefited from it, and not been in touch with how the fact there's a lot of people who don't benefit it from it, who don't look like you. So I feel like our job is introspection, and that's where these questions are coming from, where I am genuinely vexed by my detachment to all this. But then when I do a little introspection, I'm like, well, look, we've talked about culture. How does culture get passed down? Through language, through stories from your family. LeBron, you have stories about Papa James in Vietnam. Antonio, you got stories about your grandma, your mom, your dad. And in my family, I have no stories of voter suppression. In my family, I have no stories of redlining. In my family, I have no stories of being refused access to a place because of the color of my skin. So I have there's nothing inside of me that tells me, oh shit, here it comes. I've heard about this. Mom talked about this. All I have is the propaganda machine that I grew up in that showed me white is good, black and brown and Asian are other. And the good whites are gonna be a little attentive to that, but just march on, white boy, do your thing. Right. So that's why I feel like, and I don't know if you I'm genuinely curious because I want to know is this am I down the right path? As I as I go back among the whites and they say, What should I do? I say, introspection. Find how you are racist first and work on that. Because when you work on that, suddenly you start seeing everything differently, and then you start seeing in other people, you're like, shit, we gotta do something about this. Am I on the right track? Yes, and I knew an and was coming.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:55

Well, there's always an and, right? So those people who those people who claim to be Christian, but don't act like the Christ have some introspection. Yes, right? And for them, I would say, have you met John Brown? Great question. Right? Um, those people who claim to be patriots, have you read the Constitution? These are like these are real simple questions that basic right? And and you know, LeBron likes to swing the big bat at the Catholic Church. But you and I, as people who raised in different faiths and whatnot, like Catholics don't read the Bible. Catholics believe the stories that they're told.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:53

LeBron, you didn't know that? No, they don't read the priest's Bible, it's the priest's job. The priest does it for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:00

The priest does it for you. That's why you go to church on Sundays to find out what the Bible says.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:05

They memorize catechisms, which are sayings of the Catholic Church, but they're not known for like really getting deep into the scripture. No, no, no, they they don't get into the scripture at all. Kind of proud of it, actually.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:16

Yeah, they're very proud of it, and yet, and then they go and they question the Pope.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:21

And I'm like, just passing the Who are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:26

The the the he's but he's not passing. He's never like like nobody's ever challenged him about that. Yeah, this is one of those things that they throw up, right? Like, how are you, JD Vance, newcomer to the Catholic faith, going to tell the Pope to be careful of us speaking about theology? Last time I checked, that's his PhD. You high school, you high school freshmen. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:53

I can't stand that, man. Him and Hegzeth make my skin crawl. Right, but you know what?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:59

But I hear you, but you know why they make your skin crawl? Because they represent you, because that's your representation in public. But my point is only that if people paid attention to what they say, they are pledging fealty to. Right? Protestants, and this is just to finish that thought. Yeah, Protestants were protesting that intercessor, that person between them and God. And so they read the fantasy novel that we call the Bible. Yeah, it's a great fairy tale. But they tried to it's it's fantastic. It's another hero story. It's not Star Wars with shitty lightsabers. We'll leave that for JK.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:47

Hey, dude, LeBron's got to get his hits in every episode, and Antonio's got to get his hits in every episode. I gotta get it. And it's JK. They both have the letter J in them. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:57

I love I love Harry Potter. I really do. I really do. I know, but JK can Yeah. But she can she can kick rocks. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:05

Um Protestants, Martin Luther.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:09

Paid attention to what they pledge fealty to instead of believing the stories that other people tell them about it. Go to the primary source. Yep. You're a patriot of the United States, go read the Constitution and then act accordingly.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:27

But that's not enough for white supremacists or folks who are trying to be anti-racist because they're we because of the propaganda we've been handed down, we read it a certain way as white supremacists.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:37

But those are the intercessors, that's my point. You could read it as what are you gonna read a certain way? It says you cannot discriminate against somebody to vote based on their race. Period. There's no there's no mixed interpretation, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:56

You don't need a doctrine for this.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:58

There's no, unless you are listening to the story about white people are superior and we're really talking about them, we just didn't no, no, no. I'm just reading the words on paper.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:11

Sure, yeah. I'm just trying to say that there's a lot of you know, very MAGA-like people who allege they read the Constitution and they see it their way. And I'm like, how about we put okay, thank you for reading that. Read it again more slowly, maybe, or also read all the things you talk about. Read Isabel Wilkerson, read James Baldwin, read Thomasie Coates, read SIBO Maxwell, read read Merriam-Webster. But see, the two of you sent me down a path because of my love for you, my respect for you, because of our relationship. You continue to send me down a path of introspection. When we have good talks like this and others, I go and I think, I'm like, damn, I've I've learned so much from talking to you all. And I that's where I go. I wanna I want to move some of these good white people who are just doing nothing towards. We joke about like get yourself some black friends, and I'm like, no, seriously.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:06

Yes, you need to.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:07

We need to get a pro. You know how we have a big brother program? We have like like big brother program, and just like like we were just you're just gonna go with this white person to work, and you're just gonna like sit and watch. No, it's not my job to get I know it's not your job, but we'll put me to work really well. We'll go to your work, yes, yeah, double your salary, yes. Okay, I'm ready. They can go to me with they can go with me. No, you're right. It's not your job to educate the oppressor, and that's unfortunately the thing that happens all the time. And that's why one of the things that I've become more thoughtful about comes from the earlier podcasts. We're like, yo, John, stop censoring whiteness, stop bringing every conversation back to well, what do white people think about this? Because I felt like it was my job. And that's caused me to think a lot, it's caused me to to broaden my aperture and be like, not everything is about how white people see it. Oh, really? Oh, really? And then that and that made me look at myself, like, damn, how do I do this? Um, so yeah, I guess I guess I'm trying to take marching orders from y'all as I go back to the caves where where we are not in danger of sunburn. To Caucasia, to Caucasia, to the Caucasus Mountains. LeBron's picture. That baby from the Caucasus Mountains.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:20

It won't go. You just fuzzy. That's how white people see you. I wish. Here's what I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:30

I don't know what we talked about. I'm glad we got back together. Yes, it's been three and a half weeks. It's too long. I miss I miss you both. Like it's uh it's a thing. Politics, modern life, citizenship, voting, what white people should do, what shit, what black people should do, and Latinos, because LeBron said everybody should homeschool, which I think is just the Latinos thing on target.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:01

Yeah, just yeah, just California Latinos specifically. And we talked about why we should care about this heinous, you know, Supreme Court decision that just came down. It's pretty big. There you go. There you go. Um, thank you for staying with us.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:14

Yeah, much appreciated, people. My Latino brothers and sisters, think about it. Just rough it out one or two years, take your kids out of public school in California, and you'll own the state. You already do, you just don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:27

Como dije de Lore Huerta, si se puede. Si se puede.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:32

Si se puede. Left on founders. Left on founders. Peace. We are out. Thank you for joining us. Still got questions? Other things you want to say? Well, hit us up at 34hefounders.com on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or TikTok. Or send us a text through Buzz Sprout. Remember to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcast and share the pod with someone you think can benefit from it or add to the conversation. Till the next time, Left on Founders. We out.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:07

Thank you for listening to the Three for the Founders podcast. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of any professional or academic institution. The material and information presented here is for general information purposes only. Listen at your own risk of becoming woke.

unknown 1:27:31

Woop.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:33

At the buzzer.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:34

It's easier when you do when you do the intro after.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:41

Every single time this is what we do. I love that. Do the intro and dude, he just wrapped it up too. That's dope. He's good, man. He's good this one, LeBron. We should we'll we'll keep it, man. Remember that meeting we had about maybe it's just two for the founders? I think keeping it. Just go ahead and disregard it. Disregard it. He's in. Yep. He makes it now. This season.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:59

Three Is the magic number.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:02

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:03

Oh yes it is. That's the magic number.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:06

Alright. So I will see you all on Monday.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:08

Yes, you will. I can't believe it. Love you, boys. Love you guys, man. Uh