Lemme Ask You This
From the minds of Talib Kweli and Tef Poe comes Lemme Ask You This, a podcast that lives at the intersection of art and activism.
Lemme Ask You This
Episode 6 - Minnieactivists Featuring Toussaint Morrison
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It's Episode 6 and the LAYT Gang is still in Minneapolis. On this episode we meet Minneapolis artist and activist Toussaint Morrison from On Site Public Media. Toussaint talks about originally being from New Orleans and then him and Tef have a conversation about balancing being an artist with being an activist. Tef talks about how conscious artists are not given enough room to experiment artistically. Toussaint talks about walking away from his job at PBS due to racist experiences and the value of activist journalism. Talib talks about how white people often treat police as personal bodyguards and the group has a discussion about the inherent racism of white liberals. Toussaint recounts a story about a run in with Gwen Walz which leads to a conversation about how racist the prison system is. Tef asks Toussaint about which Minneapolis activists he's been inspired by. Talib asks Toussaint about how his training as an actor informs his activist work and Tef shows love to Prince Paul. Toussaint uses an anecdote about an overzealous ICE agent he has named "Captain Ray Bans" to highlight the moral depravity of ICE. This leads to a conversation about censorship around Palestinian issues. Talib asks Toussaint about the importance of not depending on social media for your content. Talib talks about why he joined Substack and Toussaint talks about the "copaganda" that permeates Minneapolis. Tef asks Toussaint why he stays in the Midwest. Talib brings up political violence and how the right wing is responsible for most of it. Tef talks about Dave Chappelle's MAGA fans and how people act when they regret voting for Donald Trump. Toussaint talks about the hypocrisy of Minnesota democrats and the ineffectiveness of elected officials.
What's up, everybody? It's Tyler Kwali to BKMC.
SPEAKER_00And I'm the one on any Tef poll.
SPEAKER_01And this is, let me ask you this, and as you can see, we are still in Minneapolis. Because Minneapolis is ground zero for the movement for the liberation of our people worldwide, at least in America. Thank you for being with us here today. How you feeling, Teff?
SPEAKER_00It's a privilege to be here, man. When I get to come to cities like where we're at today, it gives me that old Black Panther vibe, that Oakland vibe, that vibe I get when I go to the bottom.
SPEAKER_01That old Black Panther vibe, not the new Black Panther vibe.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the old original. I don't even want to put the word original in front of it no more, because even that means something different now. But yeah, it just gives me a good vibe, you know, see people who are uh about community, um, good Midwest ethics. You know what I'm saying? I'm a Midwest guy myself, so you know, just happy to be here.
SPEAKER_01And we have a guest who was born in New Orleans, is that correct? Yep. But ended up in the Midwest. And I'm very honored to have this guest with us. We have the brother Toussaint Morrison in the house tonight.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much for having me. How are you feeling, brother? I'm feeling well, I'm feeling very well.
SPEAKER_01I want to tell the people a little bit about you.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01How I came to even know who you are. Shout out to Brother Ali.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01When I told Brother Ali, who is from these parts, that I was coming to Minneapolis and I wanted to tap in with the people on the ground who are really doing the work in this current uprising that's happening in Minneapolis. He was like, you gotta tap in with Tucson. And looking you up and looking at your videos and seeing how you've just taken control of your destiny as an artist, as a journalist, for people who don't know. You used to work for Twin Cities Public Television. Yep. Twin Cities Public Television. In spectacular fashion, you quit because of your morals.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, we parted ways. We parted ways.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and um, you focused on, you know, having our voices not have to compromise our blackness.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I feel like that's been a focus of yours. You have on-site public media.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. On-site public media is an independent media outlet uh that does hyperlocal, uh has a hyper-local lens on Minneapolis and the Twin Cities, and then you know, fans out internationally. We'll talk about Palestine and other things as well. Um but it was definitely it started in 2019 before a little bit, a little bit, a little bit after I started with the Twin Cities Public Television, and then I could kind of see uh the limitations to being a part of TPT, uh, and then kind of just started seeing the nuances of independent media and what it could be at that point.
SPEAKER_01Yes, indeed. And you were born in New Orleans.
SPEAKER_03I was born in New Orleans.
SPEAKER_01How did you end up here?
SPEAKER_03So I was born in New Orleans and my my parents split, and my mom was like, you know what, I'm going back to Minnesota with these kids. So she took me and my sister back here, and I fly back frequently. And actually, I went back uh recently, about uh two or three years ago to see you at a show.
SPEAKER_01Really?
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was a black star.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah, that was a good show. That was fun.
SPEAKER_01So I listened to some of your music.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01And you have a song dedicated to New Orleans. It's a very bluesy piece.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's a cappella.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's it's it's yeah, it was one take and we were out. So it was uh that was one that we when we started off, so the idea was in the beginning, I toured with a live hip-hop band called The Blend, and we toured around the country, you know, ran out of money several times, you know, several ways from Sunday, and then that stopped, started making mixtapes, and then I was just like, this is if I don't do music or write, you know, I just I I don't know. That's just part of like what I do in the day. You know, I just I'll get up and write. And so made a bunch of mixtapes, then made some solo, then made solo albums after that, and that's where New Orleans came in, and it was kind of navigating. You know, the song is very rough, but it's also, you know, the the stuff leading up to now and the album coming out in the next few months is all things just get more polished as it goes along, and you know, you work with different producers and and it just evolves at a as it goes in time. But when I was in Minneapolis here, living here obviously in 2020, uh, all that stops. You know, you just I'm sure you y'all can, you know, resonate with you wake up, you write, you have a creative mind. Yeah. Uh and when George Floyd was murdered, it almost there was this guilt to like doing art for me. Yes. And I I I don't know how other people felt, but I was like, I just gotta get out into the streets. So that was the that was the first step into uh being very involved with actions in the streets.
SPEAKER_00Wow. I appreciate you for sharing that, brother. Um I kind of have had had similar experiences. Yeah. Um I remember I was on tour with, I'm from St. Louis, Missouri, so I was on a very small college tour with Chingy and Murphy Lee at the time that uh Ferguson kicked off. And I was home initially when Mike Brown Jr. was murdered, so I could go to the scene, it was like five to ten minutes from where I lived. And I came back and I had to do a party that night. And I remember not feeling good about doing the party. I remember I got on the mic and snapped on somebody unnecessarily because I just was shifting into this very militant-like mode. Yeah. And uh I had to make a decision if I could still do those shows while people were in the streets, and I had to I basically chose to just walk away from music for a little second. Wow.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. How long did you walk away for?
SPEAKER_00I mean, part of my persona is that the music is already baked in a rev with a revolutionary intent. So I mean, I was still doing things that made sense, but uh I wasn't my normal music businessman, chompy type of self for a while. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I know Muslims who struggle with that spiritually, who struggle with the idea that making music invites negative energy and invites and it's it's it's frivolous in a time and place when we shouldn't be frivolous, we should be focused on higher vibrational things. Uh I don't necessarily, it's it's it's it's created a conflict for some people. That's why the Sufism is so interesting to people, right? Because like they're able to tap into that and to still be spiritual and still achieve that higher level of spirituality. For both of y'all, I want to ask, what is it that allowed y'all to keep going with the art? Because you said you got a new project coming out. Yeah. You always have new music. You both kind of spun the block and came back to adding the art to the music. I mean, adding the art to the movement.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think what happened for me was so George Flood had been murdered May 25th, 2020, and then Dante Wright was, for lack of better term, I would say murdered in April of 2021. And so it kept going. And then Winston Smith was killed in summer of 2021. And so there was this, there was this like mechanism where it just kept like pulling you back to the trauma or pulling you back to the action in the street. And so, you know, writing a verse just wasn't really it, it wasn't just like right in front of me or accessible as as it as it was. So I think it was after that there was this balance that I built out, was like, okay, this is going to keep happening, but I'm not gonna stop writing. How do both these things exist at the same time without me feeling guilt for not being in the streets? And for me, like, you know, not feeling guilt for not, you know, partaking in like what my soul is calling me to do. And so you build out a balance with it. And then it that's kind of how it happened. Even when when uh Renee Good was murdered, and and as well as Alex Pretty, I was able to still keep writing, but also step out and stick to stick to addressing it at the same time.
SPEAKER_01For me, it's hard for me to do any anything else. That's the way that I process everything. As soon as something happens, whether it's a personal tragedy or a personal victory, something happens in the world, yeah. The best way for me to express it has always been the writing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, for me, man, it's um I find inspiration in cats like y'all, you know what I'm saying? Um I look at uh people who put a message in their music a little differently than I look at people who just make music for the sport of making it. But also I think one thing that people kind of miss out on me and you maybe catch it, uh is that I'm also about the curation and the production of music, not just the message. So how the music sounds, how the music feels, it still has to be very high-quality music for me to give a certain amount of care about it. But uh, I think that we as people who do make a more message-driven music sometimes, we don't get the credit that the guys who are more mainstream get when they choose to be more experimental or when they try to go into a different genre or uh whatever. And so for me, I I feel like I'm a child of the guys before me, and it's my job to compete. It's my you know, Mike Mike went out there and competed, so Kobe got to go out there and play too, you know what I'm saying? Like, I want to continue that legacy in my own type of way.
SPEAKER_01I think it's for us, for musicians, Yassin has a quote if you really love art, you make something. And I think for us, that's where we're at with it. But most people, I think, are not at that level with it. And for them, art is something that's in the background, is not a necessity for them like that. So most people don't have the luxury to be philosophical about the way they approach art. I gotcha.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the way that you said art is a necessity, it's that there there's really no other way but speaking through the art. Like it's going that that is the like the vessel one way or another. And it's not necessarily uh, I'm gonna take a break, you know, for X amount of years and then come back to the craft or whatever it may be. When people take a break, and it and it and it's different for everybody.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And going back to what you said that Yacine said, maybe I'm I'm I'm piggybacking on it or not, but the idea that I'm getting from it from you is that it's part of like breathing or just being in the world. It's like, well, I'm gonna write a verse regardless. We'll see how this works out. It's not something where it's like, ah, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna make uh, you know, commodify this thing or create this project or whatever. It's like the project that the art is speaking through you rather than you taking a break and then reapproaching it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03At least that's how it is for me.
SPEAKER_00I feel like it's very refreshing to hear you say this because I feel like studying you, man, you're one of those people who you can pick that up from what you're doing. Like you you have a very natural uh it doesn't feel like you're forcing anything.
SPEAKER_03Not anymore. I mean, in 2020, it was it was tough because it was like I I felt like an infant in the streets, and I remember uh a mentor of mine, Nakima Levy Armstrong, said, I think it was, it was it was late May, no, it was it was it was early June 2020. And I was like, you know, my I was approaching this, I was like, oh well, is there a schedule for all these marches and actions?
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_03She said, No, there's no schedule. There's no there's no spreadsheet. Like it's just things are going to happen the way they're gonna happen. And she had already known this from actions past, and I had chosen not to go out uh when Jamar Clark was was murdered. And you know, I remember sitting in a friend's apartment and I was like, man, it's so cold out here. I can't believe people are marching. But Nikima was out there marching in, I believe, I well, with Jamar Clark, I believe was 2016 or something like that. Uh yeah, 2016. And she said to me, she said, you in 2020 of June, she said, you're gonna have to embrace the uncertainty, which meant you might trope through these actions, some people will be there, you may not know these people, anything may pop off. Because what they experienced in 2016 was they were protesting outside of uh a police precinct, the fourth precinct in North Minneapolis, a boogaloo boy pulled up and just started shooting and like hit several people. So she's like, anything can happen. There's you you have to be, you know, reset your expectations for all of this. And so I was like, oh, okay, well, I I don't I I I have to learn how to exist in this. So for me, getting to where I'm now, Tef, what you pointed out, like saying this as naturally as or casually as I am right now, that comes from being being involved in it for as long as I have, and just developing, just being like, hey, this is how it's gonna be.
SPEAKER_01Think from what I could see after the whole situation with the PBS situation, yeah. From what I could see, you really were intentional about independent media and you had your YouTube channel, and now you could I could see you on Instagram. I feel like if you're paying attention to what's going on in the streets in Minneapolis, and you're not here, and all you have is online, there's no way that you can miss what you're doing. But I wanted to ask you this. I grew up on PBS, it's a very important part of my household. Me too. Um, I heard you, I've heard you talk about in your in your video, you spoke about this what public broadcasting has meant for us. And particularly, I'm a kid from the 70s. I grew up on Sesame Street.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So it's very is weaved into my upbringing. And recently, with the Trump administration taking funding away from PBS, PBS has been framed, I think rightfully so, as a as a victim of this MAGA campaign. So a lot of people have been celebratory of what PBS represents. And I think in your video, you talked about, you said, I wouldn't be saying this if I didn't care.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you talked about how you're not trying, it's not about being against the idea of PBS or one not wanting to be down with them, but you wanted them to include your blackness and what you're doing. I watched you go from what I think is just a journalist to an activist journalist in real time. Can you talk to us a little bit about that whole experience?
SPEAKER_03Well, the beginning of me being introduced to PBS was a show called Um America from Scratch. So each show started with, you know, if we didn't have state lines, what would we have them if we made America from Scratch? And it was all these things with like, you know, like, would we would would we reset the uh the age limit for voting? It was all these ideas that kind of like lightly push the idea of civic engagement and what it can mean. And somebody in the in the room said, Well, can we do an episode saying if we if we started America from scratch, will we give the land back to the Indigenous folks? And one of the producers was like, I don't know if we can if we can go there. And to my understanding, I mean, like, there's limitations to where things can go. We talked about that earlier a little bit off camera, is that when you have a foundational like business or entity, it only has limitations to where it can go for its own interests. And I experienced that firsthand while at PBS. And the longest story short was when I would go there, it's a very wide space in Twin Cities, I'm sure it's different in other spaces, it's a very wide space. And it didn't really want to frame any of that, any of those questions. And so I was given uh words to say, and then I would say them on camera, and that was it. And so they had a podcast where you know I would lead some stuff and I'd would lead forums and whatnot. But when George Floyd was murdered, and I said, Hey, is anything gonna be said about this? And they were like, Well, we're not a news network, we're not a breaking news network. And I was like, Well, it's been like over a week, like it's not breaking news anymore. And breaking news would mean like, you know, within the first 24 hours. And so at that point, I was like, can I be here? Can I be here for this next segment that was gonna be news from scratch was gonna be how to like interpret news? And when a black-owned distillery came out and said something more palpable and like definitive and detailed about what happened to George Floyd rather than Twin Cities Public Television, that's when I was like, I I gotta back out of this. Because even if a distillery is saying something that has no no uh uh visibly no skin in the game of you know news. Yeah, you you you gotta had to back out and figure out what what what this uncertainty that Nakema alluded to was gonna be. And so that's when we started talking to people on the street. That's when we started talking about, you know, what do what does it feel like to you that that Target has been, you know, that's been looted or what, you know, whatever people want to frame it as. What does that mean to you? And then we started just interviewing people in the street and talking to people. And then that was that's when the activist journalism really started.
SPEAKER_00So I applaud you for doing that because I started out rapper, journalist, activist, but when I got to doing my activism, I was taking it too far. So I couldn't really identify as a journalist no more. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I mean, I mean, and and what in and too far can be can mean different things for different people. Like there was a lot of like learning in the beginning for me in 2020. Everybody's beginning is different, but like some people, like some people start whiling out in the marches, and other people would be like, Whoa, bro, I'm not arrestable. Like, I can't get another. You know, like and like not everybody understood that right off.
SPEAKER_00And I was like, oh we had that conversation yesterday, ironically enough.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I moved from artists into the journalist space when I started doing the podcasting, and it took me a while to embrace that. But after a few interviews, I'm like, no, I'm in the journalist space because I'm doing journalist work. Yeah, but as a fan of journalism and as someone who supports journalism, I don't see how you can be a journalism. I don't see how you can be a journalist without eventually becoming an activist journalist. Because the job is to tell the truth about any given situation. And if that's part of the job, there's no way to tell the truth without siding with marginalized people.
SPEAKER_00But you don't feel that way about like rapping, like I do.
SPEAKER_01That's why I rap the way I rap.
SPEAKER_00Some cats, I thought listening to people like you before I was even thought about as a real rapper. And I'm like, okay, cool. This is what we are supposed to do. This is the baseline standard of what we're gonna be doing. Like anything, it can go further, but this is at least a baseline premise to function for.
SPEAKER_01Or at least it's a necessary component, right? I have conscious rap, some people rap out the girls, some people rap out the money, some people rap out drugs. We can all exist because we're multifaceted people. All these things are necessary, but to just have just one style of rap dominate is always gonna be a problem.
SPEAKER_00And more so, what I even mean is I thought people talking about stuff was a baseline standard, like tell, you know, just having content that was worthy of being heard. Yeah. You know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, not everybody has that. And it it's to the extent of when people start I want to say mitigating, when people start limiting themselves from the truth in their content or even their lyrics, the question then becomes, okay, what are they protecting? Or what what are they being willfully ignorant of? And then when that happens, then it gets to this point of you start that conversation. I don't know how far that can go for some people because it feels like an attack on their identity. So I remember we were doing an action out in Stillwater, which was a was was a sundown town uh for lack of better term, um, not too long ago. And some of the white folks out there, when you know, we were speaking about in 2020, June of 2020, about cops, they felt personally attacked because their identity is tied to this idea and institution of policing that protects them. And and did to tell somebody, actually that's not true, it it shatters their world. It flips it upside down. And so when you see those responses or or people like as lightly as just like, you know, removing the truth a little bit from their from their from their lyrics or their content, it's like, okay, then what are we protecting here?
SPEAKER_01It seems like white people's relationship with the police in America, particularly because of how the police started with the slave patrols and all that, is that they feel like the police are not there for everybody, but the police are there to be their personal bodyguards to protect their level of convenience or their lack of self-understanding or lack of accountability.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. And that's why you see so many of these videos with white people that are like, Well, I'm calling the cops.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I d I I have yet to see, I'm sure there's some Reddit thread or some playlist on YouTube somewhere where there's like, you know, black folks being like, Well, I'm calling the police. And I have yet to see it. But the thing recently, we had some people on a a bridge in, I think it was Richfield that had just had signs that said ice out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And a white woman came on and said, You know, this is so disrespectful. I'm calling the cops. I can't believe you're doing this right now. And she said, My my you know, my father didn't fight in World War II, and my brother didn't almost die in Vietnam for this, when in fact they they did fight for the First Amendment. So, like, this is what people are out here doing.
SPEAKER_01Stolen valor right there as well.
SPEAKER_03100%. It's like like she fought for it, but she what are we talking about right now? Like, what does that mean? So, yeah, people will they white folks do feel that there is their their relationship, has been some entitlement to they protect us. And and maybe the the quiet part that's being said out loud is they're not here to protect everybody. And what you're seeing right now, I saw this sign, I wanted to bring this up before I forget. There's a sign in DC, and it has Alex Predy, and it has Renee Good, you know, they're they're you know murdered by ICE. And then somebody spray painted over it, you know, George Watson, something or other, uh, you know, killed by DC police. And there was this thought piece on it, on like just some writing about it on threads. And the idea was is that somebody didn't want them to forget that this black man in DC had been killed by the cops. And it was this new frame now that ICE law enforcement has killed a white woman and a white man, and a lot of white people see themselves in that.
SPEAKER_01That's right.
SPEAKER_03And because they see themselves in that, what are we seeing now? Tens of thousands of white people in the streets. And it's it and and if anybody feels particularly, you know, targeted by that. I take it back to Dalal Eid. Dalalid, Somali man who was killed by uh the BCA Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in 2021, who turned out a whole bunch of Somali people in the streets. And it's like when people see themselves in the person that has just been publicly executed, you feel a sense of like duty to show up. And so that's what we're seeing right now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, worked at Dick Cheney.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_01Started showing up for gay people when his daughter came out.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, I mean, Dick, goodness gracious.
SPEAKER_04He did.
SPEAKER_03I saw this one thing on Dick Cheney who was like, uh, they're like, nowhere in the Epstein Files did they find Dick Cheney's name. My man's are just out here doing evil purely for the game of it. And I was like, my gosh.
SPEAKER_04Oh.
SPEAKER_03And his track record is infamous. I mean, you look that up. That is that is a whole podcast in of itself.
SPEAKER_01Well, what you were referring to is what we were talking about earlier with the people who have the signs. Like, if y'all had elected Kamala, we would have all been at brunch. And it's like that sign is part of the problem. Yeah. If you was just brunching when we didn't have Trump, you part of the reason why we got Trump.
SPEAKER_03Well, who has money to brunch?
SPEAKER_01That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_03I mean, that's already an economic. Now you say you're keeping it too real, brother.
SPEAKER_01I mean, yeah, we've all been at brunch.
SPEAKER_00You keeping it too real.
SPEAKER_01Some people don't know what brunch is. I mean, what are we talking about?
SPEAKER_00Don't you dare get on this platform and talk about poverty and capitalism and the effects it's having on the modern day social media generation. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01I'm glad you said that because I wanted to jump into what you just said, uh uh poverty and capitalism, and how some people try to, in these spaces, liberal voices, liberal versus leftist voices, some of these more liberal voices try to talk about issues that affect people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Poverty the prison system, yeah, without talking about the racism that's baked into all of it.
SPEAKER_03For sure. Because it might feel like an attack on their identity. That's right.
SPEAKER_01And you had a specific incident with the wife of Tim Waltz, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01When you were speaking at uh can you break that down and unpack that first?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so this was the first. I mean, like, to me, I always describe being at Twin Cities Public Television as like walking into a living Stephen King novel. And that's not not, that's not an indictment. Wait, which is a novel.
SPEAKER_01I've read a couple of them.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, any any one of them, because it's like it's almost like get out in a sense, because you walk in and you're like, something's not right here. I can't put my finger on it, but something's not okay. And all that being said, they had me to to quickly rewind, in 2005, I was hired to do intervention-based theater around the country. Title IX required colleges to talk about racism, sexism, substance abuse, sexual assault, and then later on transphobia. And so we were part of this crew that went around and we would basically, you know, it would we'd do a scene and then a moderator would come out, the actors would stay on stage and stay in character, and then it would turn into Sally Jesse, Raphael, Donnahu, whatever, you know, and it would turn into a whole Springer thing, and people would be talking, but we would have a conversation with the 400, 500 students at the college there as well. So I was versed in that for about 17 years. So they said, hey, you've done moderation of forums, moderate this forum that's about a documentary about inmates getting educations. So it's like I think it was called Education in Prison. And so I said to uh Ms. Walls, I said, What do you think the impact of this documentary is when it shows nearly all the inmates are black and nearly all the educators are white? What do you think that impact is on the viewer without the documentary explicitly addressing it? And she said, Well, I just want to say that this is a money issue, this is a transportation issue, this is an education issue. And then I believe, I don't know who it was, but uh a woman in the audience said, It's a race issue. And then Miss Wall said, Miss Wall said that was implied. And you immediately hear all this booing and hissing, and just people just like, you know, it basically turned into Apollo theater, like for the like the few black people that were there. And I was like, what is happening? Right. Like, even if I was an objective, like PR management person, I would be like, Miss Walls, you you can't do say something. You can't don't do that. Like that's and it and then let it just it turned into a tough conversation because even the people that were the big money there, the millionaires and whatnot, and and later on the uh the commissioner of uh of prisons, she left um and it turned into a mess. And so Miss Walls, after that point, she uh she you know, the thing things happened. I went back to TPT, I said, Hey, can I get the tapes from that? Because I saw you recording everything. And they said, uh, we don't have those tapes. And I said, What happened to him? I need I want them for my real, you know, to like put on my resume. And he's like, Yeah, those aren't those aren't around anymore.
SPEAKER_01So they deleted this video.
SPEAKER_03They deleted, they deleted the whole thing. But the but the but the the issue was is that Minnesota Public Radio picked up on that, did a whole segment about it. They were gonna do it about the the commissioner of uh of of prisons going away, but then it turned into a a story about PBS deleting those that that footage. And so that became a big to-do, and then she had to make a statement. I made a statement, and that was that.
SPEAKER_01Prison is like the last bastion of not the last bastion, but uh a living reminder of shadow slavery. Yeah. So it's like you cannot talk about prison in America without talking about race at all.
SPEAKER_03That's crazy. Yeah, and they wanted to talk about just the good things that were happening in the prison, which I was like So, okay, are we just removing everything else, all the other connotations from prison here, or are we just talking about the good things that some of these white folks are doing for it?
SPEAKER_01It's the pitfalls of polite, complicit society. We're just not gonna talk about that. We don't talk about politics at dinner. Yeah, you know, you don't, that's rude.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it's like some people they pr that's how they preserve their environment. It's by protecting white comfort. And when you have something so out loud and undeniably seen, like the murder of Renee Good and Alex Predy, people are gonna have to be forced to face it. And if they don't say anything about it, well then I know that you're not talking about it willfully, as opposed to, oh I didn't know about that. Who is that? Yeah, you know, we know that you know, so it is what it is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What local mini activists?
SPEAKER_01I mean, mini activists, you just you just made that up on the spot, bro. That was bars just coined.
SPEAKER_00Mini activists. It wanted to come out the ether because that's not you else. There it is. But what local Minneapolis activists? That's a that's a thing to say back to back, though. Tongue twisted air. Um in the historical archives, are you sourcing from?
SPEAKER_03I source from Mel Reeves a lot. He passed away. Even on a spiritual level, too. So on a spiritual level, it's Mel Reeves. Uh it's it's a good friend of my father's, August Nimps. Uh, he's from New Orleans, he's now a professor here for sociology uh at the University of Minnesota. He might be retired now. Um and I I do I do pull a lot from my father as well. He's he was a he's still an activist and he lives in New Orleans, and he saw Malcolm X, the speech before the final speech. Um he was in New York with uh the Black Panthers and wrote for the militant. You know, did he I pull from that and then sometimes I like to think I pull from Toussaint Le Victure, but you know, who knows? Uh I don't know what he would do at this time. I might might probably get him locked up. But uh but the whole point is like Mel Reeves was was a a a bit he was he was a a touchstone like in the Twin Cities, and like he would stand up for bus drivers when they were going on strike, he would stand up for like people in the cafeteria when they were going on strike, and Mel Reeves was just that dude that was always there in the front line at the press conference, and he always had education to dole out. And so I always many times before I go in, I'm like, what is Mel thinking right now? So that that's I many times I pull from from the conversations I've had with Mel Reeves.
SPEAKER_01Your videos on YouTube, on Instagram are very engaging, and it's because you're not just telling the truth and you're not just being a journalist, but you're having fun, you're doing voices, you're doing, you're adding in clips, and even in your telling of the story, you did some impressions of the lady in the audience. Yeah. This comes from your training as an actor.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, degree, it doesn't, it's not that's never gonna leave me either. So that's that's gonna keep happening. But I work in film and that's just that's part of it. And when I come from an improv background, and some and the idea is that there was like this thing happening in 2020, and and again, everybody has a different starting point. When I had this calcified rage, like I couldn't have like if anybody laughed around me, I'd be like, what was that all about? You know, like it was just I was it was it was in that moment. It was not, it was a very, it feels like a righteous place at the time. And I have no judgment for anybody that's in that place or when I was in that place, but once I got out of it, I was like, we got to do a satirical show. So we started the show Good Morning Minneapolis, which was like the daily show, except we actually talked about Palestine. Um, and we, you know, we approached like all these topics, and like we were like, we did a deep dive into Kim Potter, who who shot and killed Dante Wright. And we were like one of the first media outlets who were able to draw the line between her and her husband, who are both taser uh expert trainers. And like every and it's like how the fact that she said I I I I pulled from my taser and not from my gun was like, well, let's let's talk about that. And so making making like not satire out of it, but like being like flabbergasted as much as you could on camera as opposed to being as serious as you could, it helped people navigate that. And so it's not like making humor or fun of anything, but it's like, how can you add theatricality to some of this that is so absurd that sometimes you gotta laugh before you cry?
SPEAKER_01I come from that background as well. People don't know that. I went to uh Tish, I went to study experimental theater and improv at Tisch, and I quit college to be a musician, but that's kind of where I was going. I was gonna be an actor and try to work in films.
SPEAKER_03I've done theater as well. Okay, okay, we do got like a Taffo Talib, like, you know, like series, film web series coming up. Like, what's you never know what else?
SPEAKER_01We should maybe put together a play. I was listening to some of your music, and you were talking about uh I was reading an uh interview that you did. You were talking about how you were influenced by people like uh Prince Paul, who had done Prince of Thieves, Prince Among Thieves, and and uh what's the other album he did? Handsome boy modeling school. But these albums felt like plays or operas.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they yeah. Those were those were entire like projects. Like they were, it's like uh like they almost created a city, you know, in the in that way. It was also like Vince Staples. I mean, he came out with like his own show. Yeah, yeah, like what's what's what's stopping y'all? We we need to see it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that maybe this could evolve into something like that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I but you got the cameras and the lights right now. There's no no reason why you couldn't do it.
SPEAKER_00Like I started smiling when you brought up Prince Paul because shout out my friend, longtime partner, business partner, Jay Stretch. When he first, I was a guy in the streets trying to rap, and he came to me and he uh like, man, you got some talent. Uh we could do an album on you, but I can't do nothing with all this loose conceptual shit you be doing. Go listen to some Prince Paul. He made me go study that album.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for people who don't know, Prince Paul is the youngest member of Stetsasonic. He was a producer at the time, and he didn't really get his shit off in Stetsasonic. It was too many dudes in that group. Yeah, he's he brought his talents and sounds to De La Sole, and he helped De La Sole craft their first, the three feet high rise, and he's all over that album. He's all over that second De La Sole album. And then from there, he went even more experimental into like doing albums that felt like movies or films or plays that would go along with it. He was one of the first interactive, and he's an OG, and that's that's my dude. Shout out to Prince Paul. Absolutely. But your videos are highly entertaining. Like I could go to your page and I could watch over and over again. I want to talk about this video that you did about this Lady Ray bands out here in Minneapolis. Y'all got like a specific ice agent that be wowing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Tell us about what she be doing. Because I I couldn't believe, I didn't believe it uh when Tana and Rod was telling us about this lady last night. And I was like, wait, is she doing what now? That sounded crazy. And then I went to your page, I seen video of it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So break that down. So Ed Higgins, uh, an activist in in the Twin Cities, had been clocking this this ice agent that he'd been seeing repeatedly. Now, for me to give you an understanding of where I'm at, I I have been in a room just making videos, reading content. I have not been out in the streets unless called to do like a press conference or called to be part of a march. And so he kept framing, he said, first off, he called her Captain Ray-Bans. And I was like, I was like, Who is this? And I was like, and then I was I was spinning the block at my at uh around my residence, and I could have sworn I saw Captain Ray-Bands inside of a big, you know, white suburban. I was like, no way. And it was just, she she was just sitting there, and I called a friend of mine who's a lawyer, he's like, Yeah, you gotta get out of there. And I was like, all right. So I I went somewhere else. But this this myth of Captain Ray-Bans had gone around, and then Ed had, you know, produced more pictures of her, and it everybody started putting it together. And there's video of her, you know, saying, you know, welcome to Minneapolis, Ed is finest, you know, like she's in Fridley, she's not in Minneapolis, and she's just out here, and and then it really hit uh a fever pitch when she was on the side of a road asking people for help. So she was she was just baiting people in. But the the point of that video was you have to understand that there's no virtue or or or compassionate part of you that they will not prey upon. Any, they they will put they will lay a puppy on the side of the road, and if you pull up to it, that they're gonna get you. That is what their the protocol is. And so Nazi Barbie, aka Captain Ray Bans, she she had been around and she's been in all these actions. And somebody even commented, somebody even commented, you know, because there's this big the deadly exchange documentary uh or the project that talks about you know the IDF exchanging intel with Minneapolis, with American uh, I should say United States law enforcement going back and forth. Somebody said, you know, her her she sounds like she has an accent on one of the videos and said it sounds like she she she could be from, you know, like IDF, you know, or something like that.
SPEAKER_01We see that in New York, we saw that in Ferguson.
SPEAKER_03Oh no, longest story short, that was that that was the end of the video. It was that she is a that that's a real agent, and that they are detaining people by trying to prey upon people that are willing to offer help. And so they and she's changed her hair color several different times. It was dark in the beginning, then it was pink at one time, and now it's blonde. But that that is a real ice agent that's been around town, and that is that is causing havoc and and chaos in the city by presenting as they they use her as bait and then detain people from there. But yeah, it's crazy.
SPEAKER_00So a few years ago, a car runs into my house on Valentine's Day. Whoa. I'm the only person in the house. Okay. All the shit that I'm into, I'm like, oh shit, they trying to kill me. You know what I'm saying? I instantly go, they trying to kill me. Fuck. So I I run to I I was in my kitchen and then I heard something go off, it sounded like a bomb. Whoa. I'm like, what the hell was that? So I look out the window and the car is like basically halfway into my living room. Only thing stopped it was like a brick that pushed it back. Long story not so short, when the cops arrive, and my friends all argue me down about this. They like, man, you tripping. The cop had a straight up like foreign accent. And I'm like, all right, you got me, guys. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm not supposed to be believing that y'all sent this car into my crib, but I ain't never seen like no Australian, Israeli weird accent cop in North St. Louis. You know what I mean? Like, where the hell did you come from, bro? And I always, you know, have have wondered about that, but it's a little run-on joke in my friend's circle that they sent the damn agent to my house.
SPEAKER_03You never know. You never know. I mean, it's it's an exchange. I mean, they do like, it's like internship programs. They like go, you know, over there and then over here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and we do the same thing. That's why Tef went to Palestine.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but I mean, I'm chilling, man. I'm here in Minnesota talking to YouTube gentlemen on with no smoke, man. I want no smoke.
SPEAKER_01We just uh taped a whole episode of Palestine. Okay, and uh, we're about to edit it up, and just for an hour we talked about how we felt about Palestine, and then I go on Substack and I see a creator that I follow talking about his YouTube channel just got taken down because he did a video on Palestine. I was like, let me figure out how to edit this properly. The whole channel got taken down or his whole channel got taken down. Wow. Now he was able to get it back, and YouTube reversed their decision, but he was able to galvanize people. But the fact that they were even able to do that, what if he wasn't in a position to galvanize people? He would have just lost his channel.
SPEAKER_00Somebody told me that a while ago. They was they were like, you know, they can take all your social media accounts when they read it.
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. Yeah. There's what do y'all think about, because you deal with independent media now, the this push now of people being like, fuck social media and getting off of social media and starting to go back to when the internet first started coming to people's lives and having their own websites so that they can have their own stuff where it needs to be, so that if any of these things go down or people could still find you.
SPEAKER_03That that has always been something in the back of my mind, and I think a lot of I think a lot of content creators think about that, that you know, as Teph as you said, feel that we go too far sometimes. And so for me, in my mind, like just immediately where I go, I think, okay, off social media, everything from Instagram and TikTok filters into Substack and YouTube, filters into Dropbox and Google Drives, filters into I don't know what after that, probably like just like whatever you got on a hard drive, and that's it. So the the question then becomes, and you saw the Substack CEO say, so brown man in an interview in 2023, uh, who said he did the the the brown dude said, so you're okay with people with Nazis on Substack, uh XYZ, and and the guy, and again, this is where we come to this Miss Walls uh thing, like they don't have a response. It's like, bro, if you're gonna if you're gonna hold this policy, 10 toes down, have an answer. Like, have it. But the whole point being is like Substack is like, it's all speech, we we protect all speech, and it's like, all speech? And then for YouTube, when they when they started getting to the content creating game, they were like, we're here for texture, we're not here for polish. But so for them to take down a homeboy's thing is pretty crazy. But Substack would seem like the last bastion if they're willing to like house anybody.
SPEAKER_01I'm glad you brought that up. I haven't had this conversation publicly. I started a Substack a couple of months ago. I wasn't really active on it until recently, and I was very conflicted because of that video you're talking about.
SPEAKER_02100%. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Before I got on Substack, you know, famously, I've been kicked off of Twitter, I've been kicked off of Instagram.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01People can debate for why they think that I've been kicked off, but I have my own perspective on it. But the fact is, I was kicked off. And on Blue Sky, my account is labeled as rude, which I feel like that's the most like liberal podcast. For me to get labeled rude at Blue Sky really means that I'm persona non grata on social media.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Right?
SPEAKER_01So it's like with Substack, I'm like, okay, I'm seeing creators, including Tef and other people that I know, people that I respect, not just creators, but activists and artists that I respect, utilize a Substack in a real way. But I went down that rabbit hole because I saw that video and I did not like his answer. I was like, that was a layup, bro.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you you flubbed that one. And so I was like, why would I go to a place that's perfectly cool with having Nazis there? I have been trolled by Nazis online because I once kept in one year canceled a bunch of concerts at venues that just had Nazis there. Wow. And that's a step a lot of artists ain't willing to take. What happened at that time was they were like, okay, well, if you're gonna do that, then we call in every venue that you're performing at. And people were sending me like clips of these venues having Nazis performed. You're gonna cancel here, you're gonna cancel there. So it's like once you start making those type of choices. So I was conflicted about Substack for a long time. And I talked about it on Blue Sky with people on Blue Sky, but then Blue Sky censored my voice and labeled me as rude. And so I was like, well, fuck it. I'm gonna go over to Substack. Because if I can't even talk at Blue Sky, and I I'm on Substack, I'm using it, but I still disagree with what that CEO said. 100%. But the reason why I was able to still go on Substack because I was like, I disagree with it, but I do respect the fact that the marketplace of free ideas. I do believe that if you place the lie next to the truth, the truth will always win.
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_01So you can have these Nazi accounts on Substack, but I need to be there too. And my truth is gonna outweigh that lie in the free marketplace.
SPEAKER_03And you would you would hope that that people would gravitate to that as well, like if they were shown, you know, like throughout history, like Klansmen, Nazis, like all these things, like what is the truth throughout all of it? You know, like in and if they were standing right next to each other, even if it was on Substack, would somebody be able to delineate? I would hope so.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And then another thing I was thinking about is like, okay, well, where is my line? It's like, if I'm gonna boycott Israel, did that that mean I boycott every soda company that does business with every Israel, every airline, every clothing company? It's it kind of becomes it's it's it's it's what so I'm I'm relating that to social media. Well, if I'm not gonna be a Substack, then I don't need to be on TikTok, I don't need to be on Facebook, I don't need to be on Instagram. All of them, all of them create safe spaces for white supremacist, white supremacist ideals.
SPEAKER_03And there were safe spaces for white supremacists before all these social media accounts. So the idea is what does it mean for you? And I think everybody has to have this this this question or this this whatever moment it is. Where do you feel your voice can help others or support others? If if I'm standing on top of a burning building and it's the last thing I say, then so be it. You know, but the whole point is there there will never be not an abundance of white spaces and and spaces that protect white comfort. That's just the reality of it. Even like that bridge that that woman was on saying to get those signs out. It's like, yeah, that bridge was probably built by somebody that that didn't appreciate signs like that, but we gotta we gotta take it with the signs. You know, the road was probably built by somebody who didn't who never knew George Floyd, but we gotta fill it and start demanding you know justice for his name. That's right. But the the question then becomes you as an artist or a human, where do you think your voice can be of support, even if it may be in a in a space that's compromised?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about these ICE agents that got caught lying under oath. And then Christy Nolan repeated their lies.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh they said that these Venezuelian immigrants was beating them up with shovels.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That was that was what it was, right? And they shot one of them in the leg. Yeah. Um that happened here. Can uh you give us your perspective on that?
SPEAKER_03So it's it's the perspective like uh the way I think of it is in uh February 2nd of 2022, six in the morning, Minneapolis police officers uh invaded uh an apartment with a no-knock warrant, and they they shot a young man named Amir Locke, who had just woken up and he s was sleeping next to his gun that he was licensed and permit uh to carry and own. And the police then told, you know, press, they were like, hey, everybody in here was a suspect, or this person was a suspect. And so then press ran and said, was a suspect.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And then reality, Amir was not a suspect of anything. He was just sleeping next to his gun, like most go gun owners do, like many gun owners do. Um and but they can't undo the narrative that they just told. That's right. So the problem is that whenever you hear copaganda, it's always going to exonerate the people that pulled the trigger or the people that were there with you know, lesser-known uniforms and badges, or better known uniforms and badges, to bring out violence. And so, of course, they're going to tell their copaganda side of the story. I've never, ever in my life read a story where a cop said, Yeah, we were kind of in the wrong. We kind of fucked up.
SPEAKER_01Ever. And if a cop was to do that, they're getting him the fuck up out of there. Like he's gonna be harassed and abused by other police.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. Well, you look up Schoolcraft in in in New York City, I believe, or is in New Jersey, but that cop went on an absolute tear to expose the whole thing, but that's again podcasting another time. But of course, they did the same thing as the cops did with Amir Locke. And this is again to show you that there's no delineation between cops and ICE and sheriff's department, whatever. And ICE has to, it sounds like they have to in it insert more hyperbole because what they're doing is even more out in the open and more wild, and everybody's filming it, and everybody understands what it is, so they have to create a crazier narrative for you to believe or to sell, and then Christy Noam turns around and says it, and then we all have to kind of go along with it. Question mark?
SPEAKER_01So Yeah, it's fascism that we're seeing, and how if the state can just tell you, well, he was a terrorist or he was trying to kill police, the things that they've said about Alex Preddy, the things that they said about Heather Heyer back in the Charlottesville days, just the things that they say about black people just because of the skin that we walk around in, yeah, it's it's dastardly.
SPEAKER_03It's to it's to a more public degree because the idea is that when you look at Emmett Till, I mean, there was the idea of like he looked at a a white woman, if even. So it's it's not just policing people, it's manipulating and putting solitary confinement, uh black bodies in solitary confinement, black and brown bodies in solitary confinement, even when they're out in the open. That's it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So there's there's this idea to manipulate our actions and and and all of these things. And if somebody was just going home and just plain clothes, whoever's pull up on them on the north side at night, what are we talking about? What are you what are you saying? Yeah. North side at night, of course, somebody's gonna every everybody has has a firearm in the north side. What do you what are you talking about? I'm I'm just surprised that one person got shot. Like that, that's that's wild. So for them to do that, and it goes to the degree that you were talking about, Sally, where it's like it goes outside of ice. It goes to the point where it's like sometimes as like as a black person in the room, like I'm like, should I be looking people in the eye? Or like, how do I how do I carry myself here so they feel comfortable? Whoop-de-boop. But with that happening, the story got spun so poorly that ice went in and then threw tear gas underneath the car and flashbangs where kids were in the car, uh, they terrorized the neighborhood, and and and and everybody in the north side knew what it was, and but that they attacked children, then they they they they shot a man in the leg.
SPEAKER_00What motivates you to stay here in the Midwest? Great question. With the energy that you have, the platform that you have, and being a Midwest dude, I know the struggles of living in the Midwest. Yeah. Then you add being an artist to that, then you add being a revolutionary to that. You're making it hot for yourself, right?
SPEAKER_03Well, I don't know if I'd add that last term in there. I mean, that's that if if if if yeah, but that's a great question because the idea was when I was in high school, the the the plan was, oh man, gonna go somewhere where there's no none of this winter shit. Fuck this. You know, we're gonna go to LA or somewhere, you know, whatever. And then the acting started to pop off here for me, and I was like, oh, I'll stick around a little longer. And then I started touring, and I was like, you know what, definitely gonna go to LA, start touring there, get it, get signed. Yeah. And then like things started to pop off here for like music and whatnot. And I was like, that's not bad. And film, film went well as well. The the thing about the Midwest and being black in the Midwest, at least in Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota has the highest racial disparity in education, employment, law enforcement, home ownership. So it's a great question to ask somebody, why would you stay here? And the reason why I stayed here, I didn't understand it until recently. And it's because, and this was through my work as a paraprofessional in resource rooms and special ed rooms, it's because if if I were to go, then I don't know how I would be able to honor all the mentors before me that stuck around here, all the black and brown folks that that that coached me and and and mentored me coming up. But the other thing is that there's such I love the community here. And I used to always be in this very zero-sum game about music, like, oh man, you know what? Rappers just gonna look out for themselves in Minneapolis. And that that's kind of like, you know, anywhere you want to go, people do that. And some people pull lift each other up, some people don't. It is what it is. But I used to use being in the Midwest as an excuse for the things that I felt I I didn't have or deserved. And so once I let that go, then it was like, oh, well, you Minnesota for me, you go to Duluth, the most recent lynching in Minnesota history. Yeah, it's a problem. But I will walk around proudly and I will engage with people because I want to. I want, I want to live in the world that that I see for this whole place that it can be. And I know that Minnesota can do better and be better, but it's gonna take somebody being here calling it out and and and saying something about it as opposed to, you know, I I could leave and I wouldn't judge that either. And people have left as well. I haven't judged them either. But the thing is that the thing about being here is that I get to be part of making it a better place.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I want to say rest in peace to Melissa Hortman and Mark Hortman. Oh my goodness. Um, for people that don't know, Melissa and Mark Hortman were shot and killed and their dog, yeah, murdered by uh a Christian missionary MAGA nut, white nationalist, Trump supporter. This dude was at January 6th and the whole shebang.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Vance Balter.
SPEAKER_01He also, yeah, Vance Balter. He also shot John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then Trump never gave condolences. That story just went away. That wasn't the only there was somebody, I think, in Virginia or something around the same time. Yeah. Democratic politician whose house was broken in, yeah. Uh Nancy Pelosi's husband. What do you think it says about us as a nation that this level of political violence, we're having political assassinations? And a lot of people don't understand that the vast majority of political violence in this country comes from the right wing. It's not even close with any other group. But what do you think it says for us as a country that we just sweep these things under the rug and no one's even talking about that?
SPEAKER_03It's selective outrage, but it's also it what it says about our country is that there are people that are willing to turn a blind eye to murder just so it can support their individual stance or their world and their comfort. And it comes back to the conversation that we had a little earlier about preserving comfort and then also wanting to manipulate the actions of others so they then feel okay in their worldview. When the the prime example of all this is like, or at least the the the thing that I saw that was most emblematic of what you just said was there's a news reporter from Carolin named Julie Nelson. And uh Vance Boulder had just well, he hadn't been caught yet, but Melissa Hortman and her husband had just been murdered. And Julie Nelson kept saying, you know, during the breaking news report, you know, they got live news, they're like, you know, going hours at a time here. And she's talking to her, you know, coworker, and she's like, Well, well, AJ, was he a Democrat or not? But can you just can you confirm with us, was he a Democrat or not? And I'm looking at this and I'm like, what the fuck is going on?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03What do you who gives a fuck if he's a Democrat or not? No, somebody just murdered people in their homes posing as a white police uh police officer. Yeah. Can we talk about that first? Secondly, why are you continuing to press this question? And then later later on, Julie Nelson, after the the man was shot in the leg, she said, you know, we have to cut, we have to cut away from the live coverage on the street here. We're we're hearing people say some pretty heavy foul language right now. And it is this it is this disconnection from reality. And I think of Jody Foster and Elysium, you know, when like all the the poor folk on the earth cut right there. Yeah, all the poor folk on earth are trying to make it to Elysium.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if y'all seen Elysium. That's a good one.
unknownKeep going.
SPEAKER_03I've seen Elysium. Well, the whole thing is like Julie Nelson, like and a lot of other people watching are like in in Elysium, and they're like, oh my goodness, look at those poors. You know, like I think of Wolf Blitzer when he was uh framing uh New Orleans, he's like, look at these people looting this this this corner market, so poor, so black. And it's like, that's not a that's not a whoopsies, like that's a real thing. So to come back to what you're saying, the framing of it is Pete there are the the disconnection has gone so far that some people, if if a if a gunshot rings out and it hits somebody that's not them or in their family, they're willing to just keep going business as usual. That then provides the question that I can't answer right now. What does it take for that person to pay attention? I don't know what it is. Because if your neighbor getting shot by a dude dressed up as a cop and you're just like, oh, I gotta take the kids to Foss swimming tomorrow. I hope that, gosh, I hope they clean up that blood pretty quickly. What? What do you mean? Like, that is a level of disconnection and dissociation, I would say that I don't know where where where those people clock back in.
SPEAKER_00Man, that makes me think of something I did want to ask you. Last night when we were at uh a Chappelle show, me and our good friend Chino ended up outside talking to this dude who was like drunk and really telling us how he felt about the moment.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And contrary to what I thought I was gonna hear at a Chappelle show, this dude was like kind of like liberal, but kind of like Republican. Okay. And he was just basically like, I didn't come here for this, man. I could have this conversation with my friends, man. He's the GOAT, but I mean, come on, man. I mean, I mean, true, nobody voted for this, but like, I mean, get the criminals out, but like, you know, and it was like basically like this white bullshit where he was trying to like salvage his own consciousness about basically voting for Trump or being in support of ICE, but also liking Chappelle and liking hip hop. And to keep it real, I feel like I'm encountering a lot of that out here with white folks.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, it's like cognitive dissonance. And the idea, I mean, somebody brought this up when the the country uh singer was rapping on stage during the turning point halftime show.
SPEAKER_01I like that you called him the country singer, the country singer, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, somebody came out and they said, Country musicians rapping is rap for people that don't like black people. That's right. And I started thinking about it, and I was like, and I was like, damn, that's right. And it's usurping, it's usurping a tool and you know, uh, uh, a genre of music that developed in one place, but is totally has has disdain and and nothing but uh malevolence for and then usurped into a different different culture. But coming back to what you said, you're seeing this a lot because yeah, they didn't vote for this, but they did. They don't want to take accountability for it. And nobody wants to cop to it and say, yeah, I I voted for this. This is what I voted for, and I I I want to, I don't want this anymore. And it's okay. And I think people don't. I have another channel called called Big Feelings, and it talks about being a highly sensitive person on YouTube, but and it it it deviates from like a lot of you know branding and and and zero sum game. But the idea is what would it look like for that person that you were talking to outside of the venue to give themselves give themselves enough grace to say, I fucked up. I really did. It's hard for people to, yeah. Yeah, well, they got someone to protect and to leave. How far do they go to protect it? Yeah, it's far enough to get drunk and then start talking to a black dude outside, being like, Well, you know what? I I didn't I appreciate this, but you know, like I like them, but I don't like them. You know, like they get into this whole like it's like, bro, what are you saying? You you this close from saying, like, you know, I like black folk, but I don't like the, you know, like yeah, they watch it too much, Joe Rogan.
SPEAKER_01That's what it is. No, but Andrew Schultz. That's what they watch it too much. Yeah, I seen both of those guys be like, hey man, I ain't vote for this. I see what I'm saying. Yeah, he did. And he don't think if you vote for it, you campaigned for it. You ushered it in for clicks and views. Yes. Let it up, flat up. Yeah, man. It's funny that what you said about that guy because Chappelle, he said that when he put up for people who weren't in Minneapolis for the Chappelle pull-up, he had billboards all over the city that said pulling up. And he was like, the reason I put those billboards up is because there were going to be people who support ICE, who are Republicans, who support Trump, who are also my fans, and they're gonna want to see the show. They're gonna want to come and see the show, and they're gonna have to hear me say that these protesters are right. And this man said this to me a week before the show, and now you hear telling me this story in real time. And that's exactly how it went down.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's it's what to what length is somebody willing to to go to protect it to protect themselves from saying that they were wrong.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Thank you for being here. I have a I have another question before you get out of here. We're gonna end on this. The Department of Homeland Security, due in large part to the actions of organizers and activists on the ground in Minneapolis, made a glorified public statement that we are going to move out of ice out of Minneapolis. I've seen you speak on this, and I think most activists understand that just because they made the statement doesn't mean that that's going to change the reality for people on the ground dealing with ice. I think that's apparent to anyone who would take in the time to watch at least this much of this show, right? Yeah. But what I wanted to ask is I I saw you say something very important and state the fact that as much as we want to celebrate the mayor getting on TV and cussing and seeming like he's down with the people, and Governor Waltz is such a lovable, fluffy guy that you want to have a beer with, and you know, he did such a good job running with Kamala, and everybody wants to like these people. And politics is about, like our brother Rod Adams said to us last night, who do you want to fight? Do you want to fight someone who you have more of an overlap with? So I understand my values and my politics overlap. I don't know the mayor's name of Jake Fryer. Yeah, I I'm sure that my values overlap with some of his values and with Governor Walsh and with a Gavin Newsom or people like this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? But all of these people represent the democratic establishment. All of them are liberals who will support the police, who have supported ICE. They're not talking about abolishing ICE. Yeah. They're going to support the police and support ICE every single time. And I like the fact that you have made the distinction to say, look, it looks good on paper how the things they're saying, but these Democrats are actually just as complicit in supporting ICE as supporting the white supremacist power structure as these MAGA people.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think that the first tell on that is even though they may be upset or express that they're upset, it's happening, the question is what are they doing about it? And if they're not doing anything about it, then you have to take them at their actions, not at their word, because their word has meant little to nothing. So when the mayor and the governor cannot say, do not say abolish ice, they can say abolish ice, they just don't say it, uh, that means something. When they don't do an eviction moratorium, that means something. That means a very, very big thing. If you were to support all these things, you would, you would, you would put an eviction moratorium into place for a lot of people that are that are sheltering in place, that are not going outside at all. And then the last thing is they're trying to make this delineation between, you know, oh, we don't have enough cops to fight ICE. Well, even if you did, you still wouldn't.
SPEAKER_01That's right.
SPEAKER_03The only time any ICE officer has been held mildly accountable, well, there's several, was two. One is in St. Peter, was a woman that was being pulled over by ICE, and her husband is friends with the cops there, and that's a small town of Minnesota. And there was another one where ICE agent drank himself into a stupor, vomited on himself, and was parked in a parking lot in St. Paul, and they arrested him. Because they were saying you can't be behind the wheel and be drunk, drunk as fuck as well. And so, all that being said, they've done nothing. Like there's been nothing done. And the only thing that has been done, and this is the this is the uh maybe the silver lining to this, is the people. Like there's a there's a there's several coffee shops, like just less than half a mile away from where we are at right now, that probably raised over like a quarter million in in mutual aid for people. And that's just by them being there and saying, hey, we stand with the people and we don't we don't fuck with ice. That that to that unto itself should tell you enough about the inaction of elected officials and how they're they're going to support law enforcement and not even put you know, reform for some people that doesn't even, you know, uh doesn't even check into their their lexicon as reform is even an option because that doesn't mean anything to some folks. But all that being said, it's sad. It was sad because Zoran Mamdani came out and said, Yeah, Bolish Ice, she got murdered.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I that was that was all he had to say in the interview. And I was like, oh, that's it. Whereas Jake Fry is like, you know, it's a tragedy, what happened. Um, and I just my heart um and it's just like all this like you know, tap dancing, and it's like, stop, man. Just just just say that you support ice and you in some forms, you you're really upset this happened, and now you're happy for the had to have the opportunity on the daily show. I mean, that that's really what uh what's been happening for a lot of folks. Right.
SPEAKER_01The glow up, like you said. The glow up, the uprising glow up. The uprising.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, pay attention to their track records. What happened to Ferguson is happening here. A lot of elected officials moved out. The the whole thing's like, oh, we don't have a lot of cops. It's because you did it to yourself. When you murder a man, it becomes unpopular to be a part of that department. People then leave and cash out and they go, you know, start banana stands and frozen banana stands in Arizona, which is what one Minneapolis cop did. They leave and then they just say, hey, arrested development for real. Yeah, no, for real. And then and then they they they cash out the pension, and then you have half the staff you had before because you murdered somebody and everybody saw it, not because you got not because you did it, but because you got caught. And you did this to yourself. Yeah. So if you're gonna stop ice, you would you probably shouldn't have been uh a a crap like cop shop in the first place.
SPEAKER_01And to end on a hopeful note, I'm glad that you brought up Mam Dani uh because I don't think you're saying that we should not participate in voting. Uh is that I don't know I'm not, I don't want to speak for you. But when you bring up Mam Dani, you brought up an example of here's a politician who won an election, doing it by paying attention to what the people say, and he's brave enough to say about. So, like you said, it's not that they can't do it, it's that they won't do it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And I and I'll I'll end on this. August Nims told me a long time ago, he said, a lot of people will say that voting is the ultimate act of civic engagement, to which I then say, which he says while I will say these people is how do you think black people got the vote? How do you think women got the vote? How do you think people without homes got the vote? You had to go to the streets. And that is the ultimate act of civic engagement. And for them to tell you that voting is the here all end all, it's not it, obviously. You've got to take to the streets.
SPEAKER_01That's right. Ladies and gentlemen, it's been, let me ask you this. Another phenomenal Minnesota episode.
SPEAKER_00That's right, with our esteemed guests Toussaint Morrison. Two for two out here in Minnesota, man. Thanks for having me up.
SPEAKER_01Y'all bringing it in Minnesota, St. Paul, the Twin Cities, as ground zero for the movement right now, and really put up for the past few years. Y'all are really bringing it up. Bringing it.
SPEAKER_00The political analysis is sharp out here. Sharp.
SPEAKER_03Well, we we've had a long time. We've had about six years of it. So, I mean, at least for me. So, other folks have had it longer.
SPEAKER_01So, thanks for having me on. Thank you for coming.
SPEAKER_03Appreciate y'all. Yes.
SPEAKER_00We don't vote for no devils. Put his head on that sap. We don't vote for no devils. Put our head on that sap. We don't vote for no doubt.