Authentically Detroit
Authentically Detroit is the leading podcast in the city for candid conversations, exchanging progressive ideas, and centering resident perspectives on current events.
Hosted by Donna Givens Davidson and Orlando P. Bailey.
Produced by Sarah Johnson and Engineered by Griffin Hutchings.
Check us out on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @AuthenticallyDetroit!
Authentically Detroit
Detroit’s Next Chapter: Organizing Beyond Election Day with Branden Snyder
On this episode Donna and Orlando sat down with community organizer, Branden Snyder, to discuss the Working Families Party and how people can stay involved in the political process beyond election day.
They also unpack the media narratives swirling around the mayoral race, why they matter for young Black leadership in Detroit, and the government shutdown’s impact on EBT and food security across Michigan.
The Working Families Party is regular people coming together across their differences to make a better future for all. They are a multiracial party that fights for workers over bosses and people over the powerful. They want an America which realizes the promise – unrealized in our history – of freedom and equality for all.
Together, they break down the Working Families Party’s “inside-outside” strategy in Michigan: start small, build infrastructure, recruit multiracial working-class candidates, and create a values-based bloc that can negotiate policy, not just win headlines.
To learn more about the Working Families Party and how to get involved, click here.
FOR HOT TAKES:
ETHICS RULES DIDN'T REQUIRE SHEFFIELD TO DISCLOSE PAST RELATIONSHIP WITH DEMOLITION CONTRACTOR
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO ISSUE PARTIAL SNAP PAYMENTS AS SHUTDOWN DRAGS ON
Up next, Authentically Detroit welcomes Brandon Snyder of the Working Families Party to discuss their organizing efforts and how we can stay involved in the political process following election day. But first, this week's hot takes from Bridge Detroit and the Detroit Free Press. Ethics rules didn't require Sheffield to disclose past relationship with demolition contractor and Trump administration to issue partial snap payments as shutdown drags on. Keep it locked. Authentically Detroit starts after these messages. Have you ever dreamed of being on the airwaves? Well, the Authentically Detroit Podcast Network is here to make those dreams come true. Formerly known as the Deep Network and located inside the Stotemeyer, the Authentically Detroit Podcast Network offers studio space and production staff to help get your idea off of the ground. Just visit authentically DET dot com and send a request through the contact page. Hey y'all, it's Orlando. We just want to let you know that the views and opinions expressed during this podcast episode are those of the co-hosts and guests and not their sponsoring institutions. Now, let's start the show. Welcome to another episode of Authentically Detroit broadcasting live from Detroit's East Side at the Stademeyer. Inside of the East Side Community Network headquarters, I'm Orlando Bailey.
Donna Givens Davidson:And I'm Donna Givens Davidson.
Orlando Bailey:Thank you for listening in and supporting our efforts to build a platform of authentic voices for real people in the city of Detroit. We want you to like, rate, and subscribe to our podcast on all platforms. We're back in the studio this week, and today is the eve of the election where Detroiters will select the city's first new mayor since Mike Duggan's 2013 win. And Brandon Snyder of the Working Families Party is here with us to discuss how people can continue organizing for a better Detroit even after the election process ends. Brandon, welcome back to Authentically Detroit.
Branden Snyder:Ah, what up, though, Orlando? What up, though, Donna? Good to be back. I'm glad. I'm glad to be in space. Glad to be in space under a new title.
Orlando Bailey:I haven't been here since uh You were the executive director of Detroit Action.
Branden Snyder:Yeah, and since when uh Donna you know said I had, you know, the wrong fiance for me. So what was this uh mix up?
Donna Givens Davidson:So the last time he was here, he mentioned his fiancee was Naomi. And at that time, I knew that Naomi Cawthorne was doing some work in the community, and I said, Oh, Naomi Cawthorn, and he was like, No, that's not the one. And the good news is since then I met his um fiance Naomi, and turns out she went to U of M with my son at she was in Ross, right? Ross Business?
Branden Snyder:No, she was she was at uh four or four, but she was at four, but they they know each other just from being black at Michigan.
Donna Givens Davidson:Exactly. I mean, you know, it being black in Michigan, she knew my youngest Philip. So I was like, wow, is Philip old enough to have a friend? And I was like, oh, he is 30.
Branden Snyder:The world is so small that everybody knows everybody. I went to a uh a bonfire backyard party, what, a month ago, and and I got invited. Yeah, and then I just walking in and I see Orlando, and I'm just like, oh, hey, everybody's everywhere. So this that's the beauty of Detroit, being the beauty of black Detroit. And so, yeah, to close it, I'm I'm back to be in a space with y'all to talk about organizing and politics.
Donna Givens Davidson:And I'm so glad that you stayed.
Branden Snyder:Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Donna Givens Davidson:You were on the eve of leaving, and you came back and you stayed, and not only did you stay, but you end up ended up doing something that is so impactful. I want to say this. I was invited to an event you convened, and I walked away more hopeful about the future of Michigan politics than I have been, I don't know, in a long time or ever. I saw people who were organizing around justice ideals from different areas, and it was, you know, multi-racial, um, age groups were all over the place. I was not the oldest person in the room, I'm proud to say. Um and I made friends and I connected with people, but what I really saw was people organizing for making a change, and you're leading that. So I want to congratulate you for the work that you're doing. And there's a whole lot of other leaders. I don't want to diminish credit for anybody else who's in the room, but I believe the working families parody is the container in which we're all going to work together to some extent.
Branden Snyder:That's that's great because that's one of my talking points that I want to say is like, yeah, it's a container that we're trying, you know. I went to South Africa about a month ago, and the thing I walked away with really hopeful about the um anti-apartheid struggle was that it wasn't just one organization that like led the entire fight, you know, the just like we have in the United States where people sort of reduce it to reduce it to being, you know, oh, MLK did this, or you know, in South Africa it's like Nelson Mandela did everything. And so, and when you when you start talking to people, you're reminded that like everybody did everything. It was people uh, you know, they built coalitions on top of coalitions and strategies on top of strategies. And so that's the thing that I'm like most excited about being in Detroit, being a part of a movement is like we can build a united democratic front that requires that takes in all comers and it allows us to do multiple strategies for power.
Donna Givens Davidson:So you know, um, I've been struggling for years. I was reminded, I just got back from Oakland, California. Nice, and a gentleman who was there said, you know what, you're the first person I talked to who believed in my leadership since I got released. And I was like, wow, I don't know who you are. And so I needed to know. I so I kept digging, you know, were you part of being me? He says, No, but that's not where I met you. I met you at a church. And I realized that in 2016, I was trying to organize the Detroit community agenda, and I brought a whole lot of people together, but I didn't have the bandwidth to run ECN and actually make anything of it. And so it was this concept that didn't really produce anything in my eyes, but it did. It helped this man understand his leadership and his role. And I was like so flattered. He's now working with the um McDougall Hunt um Community Development Corporation, where we were also involved in helping to build capacity. And I realized that maybe that's a contribution in helping to build capacity and elevate leaders, and that what I do can fit into what a bigger picture, and I don't have to figure it all out. And it made me understand my value and my purpose to the movement because we all need to figure out how we can be part of something.
Orlando Bailey:Did does it feel good uh to be wanted here? We did we didn't want him to go. I mean, like, and I know that sentiment was resounding. How did so you're here?
Branden Snyder:Yeah, yeah. Did it feel good to be it feels good, and you know, we were joking right before we uh got on about you know, one day you're the youngest person in the room, next day you're elder. And so for me, I don't know what that feels like. It's coming, ED.
Donna Givens Davidson:Since I've been since Orlando is in big denial, he is in big denial because there are young people who are looking up to you and saying, I want to be him when I get older.
Orlando Bailey:I'm joking.
Branden Snyder:But uh, you know, I used to be so I I got my start. Um I I think I told this y'all this story, you know. So I got my start doing community organizing across the street at the Capuchin Soup Kitchen. You know, so we were doing um Band the Box, you know, ID and birth record stuff. And even, you know, I was 21 and 22 at that time. And every time I would go to like community meetings to talk about here's what we're doing at the soup kitchen, here's what we're doing at the soup kitchen, you know, I'm the youngest person in the room. It's like whatever. And then you know, I got a chance to move around, you know, do some faith-based organizing. I'm, you know, it's always the youngest person in the room. And then now I look up and I'm like, oh, I'm not that young. And I'm not the youngest person in the room. There's actually folks who are 21, who are 22, maybe sometimes even younger than that in space. And so that feels both good. It's scary, but it's also really good that like I feel like you know, I have stuff to contribute. And again, going back to this whole idea of like movement, you know, and like, you know, black movement history is like the whole idea of Sankofa. Like, we got stuff to give back, we got stuff to go, you know, to to bring forward. And so I feel to that question, like extremely excited to be in space and be able to, you know, offer, you know, my myself and my experiences and develop folks, you know, in a different capacity. Yeah, you know, my baby Detroit Action lives on and it lives on in really good hands with staff, with members, with our leaders, and you know, get to build a new baby.
Orlando Bailey:Yeah, you know, it we we took, we we took, I'm sorry, Donna, you wanted to say something to what he just said because I was gonna re-transition.
Donna Givens Davidson:I was gonna say one more thing.
Orlando Bailey:Okay, go for it.
Donna Givens Davidson:As I recall, your plans were to relocate to DC.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Donna Givens Davidson:In retrospect, are you glad you're here and not in DC at this moment? I'm so glad.
Orlando Bailey:So you're welcome.
Branden Snyder:Yeah, very welcome. Thank you. Thank you. So just just this just to say on that more, because some people are like, Y'all, y'all doing too much insider. So, you know, I had stepped down out of Detroit Action and I ended stepping down last year, but originally I made the announcement um on October 23rd of 2023, like a couple days after my mother's birthday. And so the vision that we had was a legend on the east side.
Orlando Bailey:But keep going.
Branden Snyder:My mom is an ECN member. Yes, shout out to Juanette Snyder. So um, you know, I had planned on, you know, my fiance was we had been uh, you know, a long distance for a minute. We had been back and forth, you know, trying to figure stuff out. And she was living in DC, and you know, the the plan was okay, I will quit my job. I, you know, I was wanting to do something else, but then I'll figure something else out there because it was, you know, it's easy. It would have been easier for me to figure something else out versus her. And then right as we're making this, these, this, this, this, these planners, she was like, uh, you know what? I actually, I actually hate my job. I think I'm gonna uh just move back. I think I'm just moved back. So I'm just like, all right, well, here we go. So, you know, it works out, things work out a mysterious way. So I'm I'm very happy, very pleased that I get to continue to build community. I get to uh, you know, I get to be in space, and you know, I get to do this in the city, in the greatest city in the United States.
Orlando Bailey:I think it's the greatest city. We took a little break last week. We were not with you, and so it's been a while. Uh Donna, how is the day finding you?
Donna Givens Davidson:It's um good, you know. I um I love Detroit. I'm super excited, you know. I'm a political science junkie. I'm super excited about um what's happening now. Not just my belief that Mary Sheffield will become mayor, but Denzel McCampbell. I'm excited about Gabrielle Santiago Romero retaining her seat. I'm excited about um Letitia Johnson moving into a more visible justice platform and the possibility that we will not only have a more progressive, and keep in mind this is still capitalism here, so it's not like you're not gonna turn this into democratic socialist city, but a more progressive mayor and a more progressive city council that will be friendly to the interest of people like us. Because so far so for so long I feel like we've been shouting from outside the room for basic things. In Oakland, I'm sitting in a room in a city that Barbara Lee now leads, yeah, and listening to all of the amazing stuff they're doing around housing policy to help address uh, you know, even worse housing crisis, way worse than in Detroit. Now, I mean Oakland is a whole nother thing. Oakland is, I had cognitive dissonance. Everybody was talking about the Black Panthers, and I didn't see any black leaders anywhere. They all rep our language, but not our people, okay? And um, our population in Oakland has you know dropped from about 50% to about 17% of the total population. Well, expense, you know, whatever the issues are, but you're seeing our population not being replaced by white people, but we're being replaced by Asian and Latino people, many of whom are also low income. So our question was what's happening here? There was an Ella Baker Center, it's a beautiful center, and they are doing amazing work. They have a mural outside of that center with no black people on it. And I was like, oh, they're like, these are the people. And so it's like I get it. I truly believe all people and I understand the injustice done to these people, but Ella Baker is ours, and you can't just take the Panther ideology and the Ella Baker name and not understand that black leadership has to be front and center. Now, you know, Barbara Lee is the um is the leader of this initiative. And I looked at those because there's some brown people, but when you look at their dress and you look at their style of dress and everything that went with it, it's not black American. And you're looking at it now.
Orlando Bailey:Oh, uh, you know what I mean.
Donna Givens Davidson:What do you think? You think I'm wrong? No, I'm no, no, keep going. I'm listening. But I so when I'm you know, so I I was so glad to come back to my city, Detroit, where you know, we're still relevant, where we're still here, where our population has dropped a little bit, but we are still here and strong and now feeling more represented. How are you, Brandon Snyder?
Branden Snyder:Yeah, I'm good. Uh, you know, um, so the Working Families Party is a community organization that seeks to be a um an independent political power for uh working class people made up of community and labor organizations. And so, you know, the I think that the thing that we've been working on this entire year is the two uh two of the races that Donna mentioned. And so, you know, I'm exhausted because we we hustling until uh until tomorrow, so uh until election day. But then also I feel really good. I feel really inspired about things, and so all right.
Orlando Bailey:There we have it. It's time for hot takes where we run down some of the week's top headlines in the city of Detroit for hot takes. Ethics rules didn't require Sheffield to disclose past relationship with demolition contractors. This is by Malachi Barrett at Bridge Detroit. City Council president and mayoral front runner Mary Sheffield sought opinions from the city's ethics board before voting on contracts that involved a demolition contractor with whom she had a personal relationship. Bridge Detroit has learned. The ethics board charged with interpreting the rules laid out in the city charter and in council legislation said she had no conflict of interest in the matter. Conrad Mallet, corporation counsel for the city, said an executive order that prohibits employees from having relationships with people involved with the contractors they oversee did not apply to council members. Sheffield's relationship with Brian McKinney, the CEO of the demolition company Gaianga, has become a late campaign issue after a news organization and members of a civic group raise questions about her council votes on the company's work with the city. It will continue to be an issue even if Sheffield wins the mayor's race in Tuesday's election, because another vote involving Gyenga will come up in November before she moves to the mayor's office in January. Sheffield's chief of staff, Brian White, did not answer questions about the nature or duration of her relationship with McKinney, but he did address ethical and legal concerns raised about her voting record. This dates back to over six years ago when Council President Sheffield was already voting to deny all demolition contracts, including those involving Gay Anga, due to concerns about the demolition program at that time, White said in a text message. The quote says, Out of an abundance of caution, she sought ethics guidance, which indicated the situation did not meet the standard for disclosure or recusal. Additionally, she was advised that as a council member, she was obligated to vote, he said. Upon that advice, she continued to perform her duties and voted to deny all demolition contracts, consistent with her opposition to the demolition program at that time. The potential for controversy surrounding government officials and their personal relationships is quite high in Detroit, a city that has seen several council members and a popular former mayor all net federal prison time behind scandals that involve conflicts of interest. Donna, Brandon, what say y'all?
Donna Givens Davidson:This story really hit a nerve for me because I know all of the entities involved. And I don't want to say too much about the gentleman, but what I will say is that he is for the community, and you can take that however you choose. This is not a person who I'm shocked she dated, but this is not also somebody who I imagine she was in the kind of serious relationship that would really merit this. And um, she was a single woman, she is a single woman, and single people date. Um and you know, when you are a person who has that level of stature, some people are going to be um you're exposed to a lot of people. And you know, it's also any you talk to any black woman in Detroit, and you know, finding dateable partners is not always the easiest thing.
Orlando Bailey:Just us having this conversation last night. I mean, seriously.
Donna Givens Davidson:And so and then finally, I mean, who among us can condemn somebody for a relationship? We've all had them. And sometimes they don't work out. There's no evidence of her doing anything unethical other than voting with the majority. At first she voted with um council president Brenda Jones, with the minority, two against everybody else 474, and then she joined the majority for unanimous vote. And let's face it, Guyango was the poster child for Mayor Duggan's demolition project in this term. This is a black-owned person. So it's not as though she was bringing in somebody who um did not have the state of credentials to being there. Now, since then, it's unusual.
Orlando Bailey:And the administration handles that contracting and procurement piece.
Donna Givens Davidson:Thank you for thank you for pointing that out. That was an administrative she did not place it, nor did she oversee it. There is a director of demolition, I believe, for the City of Detroit who oversees all demolitions and who is responsible for bringing concerns to City Council. Since then, the Inspector General has debarred Guyanga for at least, I think, uh the through the end of the month. It's under investigation.
Orlando Bailey:They have appealed it for uh there is an accusation that Guyanga used contaminated dirt from a northland site to backfill demolished homes in the city of Detroit.
Donna Givens Davidson:And so they took the unusual measure of debarring both the company and the individual. And that speaks to possible concerns that have not been made public. But I just I actually went to the debarment list to see if that was normal that you debar the leader and the company, and I didn't see a whole lot of that. I saw some of it. And so um I I think it's a non-issue. I think that there has been this tendency to I don't know if it's a non-issue.
Orlando Bailey:Um the go ahead, Brenda.
Branden Snyder:No, I was gonna say I I yeah, I agree. I don't know if it's a non-issue. I think, you know, you know, we part of why we have you know journalists is to uncover to be watchdogs, and I think these are good things. And I think the thing that is sort of where I, you know, I got a side eye is like the campaign side of things where they attempt to use this as a uh uh like a November surprise. Because you know, these are things that you know you all in in journalism, you all in the media have you know have reported and are watching. So I think there's a uh there's the ethics and the duty for you all to like report it, see it to his fullness like Malachi did. And then you know, there's also some dubiousness I have when like the campaigns are like, well, see, look at that.
Donna Givens Davidson:Look at and it's just like Malachi didn't bring Malachi didn't initiate Michigan Joyer is the one.
Orlando Bailey:Well what I will say uh really quickly is that I I would like to commend Malachi Barrett and the team at Bridge Detroit for actually getting the story right, getting the headline right, getting the tagline right without any opining. Because um as as boring as this story seems is in Bridge Detroit, uh the other story in the enjoyer, it's Charlie Lee Duff, y'all. And so it it was incendiary, it was salacious, and we didn't need the opinion. We needed the facts that that have come out. And the reason why this is a story is because Brian White is making it a story, he's releasing uh comments about this story. We know that she went to the ethics board, we know that the ethics board decided that this was a non-issue, it did not merit disclosure, it did not merit a recusal. That's the story, and that's how Malachi let let it. Um, the November surprise thing, you know, all of this timing is interesting, but there there is also a part of me, and if I ever get um Mary Sheffield's audience for an interview, was there any part of you that just said, hold up, wait a yeah, you know what I'm saying? Because just because of where we were and are situated as a city politically, and the the the the the uh the uh the perception that this could give, right? Because for a lot of people, perception is reality, and this is a city that is traumatized with bribes and you know all of those things. But uh Malachi got the story right. She went to the ethics board. The long and short of it, she went to the ethics board because this was a concern of hers. She was cleared by the ethics board, she was also cleared by the corporation council. And to that, I say it's a non-issue, but it will still be, I think it still will be a story.
Donna Givens Davidson:It will be a story for people who care.
Orlando Bailey:Yeah.
Donna Givens Davidson:I personally believe that it will be a story for people who want to believe bad things about her. And there's a whole lot of things that they they will make stories. When I say it's not an issue, I don't mean that it Bridge Detroit should not have covered it. I mean that it does not play a role in my decision-making process. It does not play a role in my determination of whether or not she's an ethical person. There are many more important things. Like I said, I'm not, I and I think she made a bad decision dating him. I know him, but I've all we've all made bad decisions with people who we've dated. And, you know, anybody who has been love-bombed, anybody who has been in a situation where, you know, maybe somebody is pretending to be something great, and sometimes we take risks that we shouldn't. And I say this as somebody who's been twice divorced, okay? Got it right the third time. I have compassion for people who are trying to figure out how to find somebody to love. Oh, yeah. And I'm not speaking on her relationship. But right, but what I'm saying is that if she felt duty bound to vote, which she says, and the ethics board says, I feel duty bound to vote, and you have told me I'm not violating any ethics rules with my vote. And if she's not trying to influence other people to vote for him or cover for him, or do other things that would seem to be unseemly, then I have an issue. But it doesn't seem like she's done anything but vote with the majority. If she had voted against him, he would have had that contract. She voted with him and he had that contract, unless, and maybe there's a smoking gun somewhere, that she was telling other people to vote when they didn't want to.
Orlando Bailey:You know, um the point that you make, Brandon, about uh the Kenlock campaign, just sort of harping on this, um has is interesting.
Branden Snyder:Yeah.
Orlando Bailey:Yeah.
Branden Snyder:So I mean, and I think I think the other piece to that as as Donna was talking is like, you know, the narrative behind this is about can we trust you know Mary's leadership? But then the bigger meta-narrative that I've been seeing and hearing, you know, this entire summer is can we trust young black leadership? You know, all of the sort of like um references to like this is the Kilpatrick administration, this is what we don't want to do. And you know, I think that's very dangerous as we're talking about like trying to be a city that's inclusive. We're talking about trying to be a city that is encompassing and and bringing in young black leadership. And so I think that that, you know, is just playing with fire, and it is, you know, it's not a thing that I would want to um to elevate. And I think it's also a thing that, you know, is you know, just reminds us that this is a non-story, this is people grasping at straws to create something and using the worst narratives that are out there to be able to, you know, build their case.
Donna Givens Davidson:What I see is a young black woman. We've never had a woman mayor. I've seen people from that campaign criticize her for liking to go to concerts and the club. I've seen them criticize her for accepting concert tickets to see Jeezy and imply that somehow she was being unethical, even though that she verified, it seems to me as though she does a lot of work verifying that she's acting within the ethics. Not that many people do that. A lot of people say, you know, I thought it was okay, but this is a person who'll find out later pains to verify that and get clearance before she even accepted concert tickets. But it's a young black woman, and I'm gonna tell you, a lot of black women I know, I was talking to some seniors on Friday who were intending to vote for Kenlock and said, I don't like all of this stuff, it's getting messy because we know what we're feeling and we understand when you see a bunch of men criticizing women for liking to go to the club, it's like, did it you know what I'm saying? And then the other thing I hear people criticize her for is whatever feelings they have about her father, they're holding her accountable for her father. And I just want to say that she has the right to seek and hold public office and be held accountable for everything she does. She is not accountable for her family members. But if she's accountable for her father, is Solomon accountable for Jonathan? Because I got some things to say about him as well. I mean, you know, the reality is that families are messy and people are all kinds of things. Sometimes people like don't necessarily like what I'm saying in my family because it may impact them, but they should be judged on their own merits. And so I feel like you have a single black woman who has demonstrated her intelligence. Remember when people were saying she wasn't smart?
unknown:Yeah.
Donna Givens Davidson:They I when I didn't know in the beginning, they said she was not intelligent enough. And I'm hearing this from people, and it hurts me because I think we need young black women in leadership in our city and young black men.
Branden Snyder:And I think the thing that I I'm I'm I'm I'm picking, I'm trying to put down from that conversation is that this discourages young people from wanting to run for off. Well, some people, you know, there are some people who are just like, you know, I have a personality, whatever. But for a lot of people that we want to run, if we're saying, like, hey, you can't go out to the club, you can't like Jeezy, you can't uh you can't date folks, then you're not going to get the type of caliber of people that you want to run and usher in this next wave of of um leadership in a city. And I think that's the thing that I most worry about when I hear and see things like this is like, all right, if I can't be off my authentic self that is, you know, wearing Timberlands and Cartiers and you know going to a going to the concerts and going to clubs, then maybe I shouldn't be in this.
Orlando Bailey:This feels like the this this narrative uh on part of the, it feels like, it feels like and it looks like an attempt from an imploding campaign trying, grasping at straws to try to save an election. If you look at the uh the polls, Mary Sheffield is leading uh by double digits. And I think the long and short of this story is that this is the most consequential election uh that Detroit has seen in over a decade, and it has the potential to be a historic one. Uh we would not own, you know, and we we we will see a changeover um in city council, just period. Mary Sheffield is leaving the council, Fred or Hall is leaving the council, and we would see a new executive, um, a black executive in the city of Detroit. And I think uh with that, uh regardless of who takes that seat, we will be fielding all kinds of incendiary criticisms, um, stories that are non-stories, uh, worries that are being brought up that we did not see brought up under the leadership of Mayor Duggan. And I think that's par for the course for whomever is taking this position. It is unfortunate, I think, that we as journalists have to do our job, continue to do our job, watchdogging, but continue to do the job of calling this out. What Leduff wrote was incendiary and salacious and opinion mixed with fact.
Donna Givens Davidson:And it was as bad as his campaign. Or I mean his debate. Remember his debate?
Orlando Bailey:Yeah.
Donna Givens Davidson:With also sponsored by Michigan Enjoyer.
Orlando Bailey:Yeah. And so um, and we're gonna go to the next uh hot take, and that is this. Whew! Because it's November, what is it? November the third. Trump administration to issue partial SNAP benefits or SNAP payments as shutdown drags on. This is by Nusrat, Rahman, and Todd Spangler at the Detroit Free Press and Bridge, Detroit. The Trump administration says. It would make partial benefit payments to food assistance recipients in November as the federal shutdown continues, though it was far from clear when those payments would begin reaching families. Responding to a judge's order in the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island on Monday, November 3rd, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would make partial benefit payments rather than full ones and use a contingency fund in order to cover those payments. But even as Michiganers began lining up at Food Pantries Word about how to feed themselves and their children and the state legislature, weighed shoring up benefits ahead of the federal suspension. The Trump administration warned that it could be days, weeks, or longer before a rejiggered system of payment was put in place. Aaron Stover, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, said it was still waiting for additional information from the federal government on how the process would work, with benefit payments typically staggered over the course of a month. Some people get it at the first of the month, some people get it at the 15th of the month. The USDA said on October 24th it would suspend beginning in November all food assistance payments under the Supplemental Nutritus Assistance Program or SNAP through the states to some 42 million Americans and 1.4 million Michiganers because of the shutdown, which began as federal appropriations lapsed at midnight on October 1st. And for people who are listening who don't know what SNAP is, your bridge card. Your bridge card, because you know, uh I think our colleague Jair at Daily Detroit levied this criticism, and I think it was a valid one. Detraiters don't talk like that. Most Michiganders don't talk like that. We say bridge card or EBT or food stamps. But the U.S. District Court Chief Judge John McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island ruled on Friday, October 31st, that SNAP benefits, which had never been cut off in any previous government shutdown, are an entitlement under the law that must be paid. He asked that other federal judges in a case in Massachusetts brought by Michigan and other states, gave the USDA until November 3rd to decide if it would pay partial benefits for a time by using a contingency fund of some $5 billion to supplement with other funds to pay full benefits. In a response to McConnell, the USDA opted for partial benefits, saying that after other expenses were paid, less than the $5 billion was available. The quote says the above will leave a total of $4.65 billion in the contingency fund for November SNAP benefits that will be obligated to cover up 50% of eligible households. Current allotments, the response said. Donna Brandon, what say y'all?
Donna Givens Davidson:Um I think it's horrible. Yeah. I'm scared for families because I don't think that people understand the sheer scale of loss in funding. You're talking about, I think the governor said that appropriated $4.5 million from or for was it $4.5 million from the state um fund state budget. And I read that that would provide food equivalent to SNAP benefits for 800,000 Michiganders for one day. So if we wanted to cover 1.4 uh million Michiganders, we'd have to spend probably somewhere closer to 6 million. I don't, you know, I'm not doing the math in my head. But when you look at the sheer scale of it and you start, you know, um and the thing is we've already had a hunger problem. Since the Trump administration has come in, they have cut funds to food banks and to other supplemental food providers. And so you already have those providers struggling to make ends meet. We have people who are out of work because of layoffs. We have a growing recession in our state. And now we're talking about depriving people of food. We have not seen in our nation hunger at the level that they are wanting to inflict on us. And then there's this picture of, you know, Trump and his horrendous Gatsby party. And and I think two things. I think it's horrible. You know, when I was a senior in high school, uh, my high school, we had to do lead um uh we had a class called literary research paper, and we had to get a book, read it, and I probably read this book like 20 times, study it, and then write a paper.
Speaker 3:No, okay.
Donna Givens Davidson:The grapes of wrath. And in the grapes of wrath, they depicted farmers starving to death, people having to leave and go home, and the sheer scale of uh misery. And so on the one hand it's horrible. And on the other hand, the grapes of wrath brought us to the New Deal. On the other hand, you cannot starve people and politically manipulate them at the same time. So I'm not sure that this kind of standoff will hold for very long because if I'm running for office and I know I've got to be elected to office next year, and this family didn't eat. Me blaming Democrats won't fix it when a federal judge said pay for this food, and the administration said no.
Orlando Bailey:We're gonna take a quick break. We're gonna be right back uh with Brandon's uh take on this. Support the only independent reporter covering the 2025 Detroit mayoral race through the lens of young people. Good journalism costs. Visit Detroit1 Million.com to support black independent reporting. Welcome back to Authentically Detroit. We are here with Brandon Snyder of the Working Families Party. Brandon, what say you on this freeze and snap benefits?
Branden Snyder:Yeah, Donna mentioned before the break, you know, it's horrible. It's um, you know, it's politically motivated. And I think the other thing that we want to keep in mind is that, so you know, Donna ended with like, you know, there's a time, there's a reckoning, you know, come and do when people are gonna, you know, have to vote and have to like call the question. I think that it's it's incumbent upon us to actually make this argument and actually elevate the story again that the people who are benefiting from EBT from slab defense aren't just black folks, it's across this entire state.
Orlando Bailey:Can I can we put can we can we pause right there? Because I think you're making a point, and this was part of the point that I wanted to make too. And my apologies for interrupting you, but I just I have to say it because um I was watching CBS this morning as I as I do, and the they're running a story on the snap benefits piece, and um the source that they use or the family that they use was this single black mother with a child, and it infuriated me. It infuriated me, and I literally said WTF, like really CBS, because what I want my colleagues in the news ecosystem to do is to put up a real reflection of who is benefiting the most from this kind of subsidy and program, right? And it ain't single black mothers with children, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, and so that that who gets to personify, like who gets to be the face of this needs to be the majority population who is the majority beneficiary of this kind, because if America, if the American media decides to show white people starving, we have to change the subject.
Donna Givens Davidson:You know, but I I here's the thing I think. I think people know when they're not eating. Yeah, I think people know when they're hungry, for sure. I think people know when they're homeless. I think just like Detroiters don't necessarily understand what a SNAP benefit is. Remember when people didn't like Obamacare, but they like the Affordable Health Care Act, they're they're not really understanding how this is gonna hit them, right? But when it does, that's why I get so excited. I'm gonna bring this back to the Working Families Party because it's not our responsibility just we're gonna, I don't know that we can fix racist media. We can certainly put alternatives out there, but I think it's our responsibility to organize at the ground level with people. I've been in rural Michigan where all they can stop in is a Dollar Tree. I've been in places where no farm stands exist anymore, and I've seen the positive resources impacting people. It's gonna hit Detroit hard. But guess what? There's many communities in this state where there are no food banks, and those people are going to suffer.
Branden Snyder:And the thing I think that's important about that is that one, you know, yeah, it's gonna, it's gonna it's gonna impact lots of places, not just Detroit. It's gonna impact our folks, but it's definitely gonna impact, you know, you know, folks who don't look like you and I. But the other thing is on the supply side, this impacts farmers. You know, that's the thing that I'm just like, where are you what are you doing? So it requires the organizing to actually bring in these people to sell it.
Orlando Bailey:But helping people that's already strained because of these tariffs, like this, the domino effect on the food economy and farmers and it just requires people to actually, like to your point now that bringing people, yeah, bringing up the problem.
Donna Givens Davidson:Reach out to them, reach out to them, show compassion for them. We're so mad that farmers voted for Trump that all we can do is point our fingers, even as all of these tariffs have really destroyed their way of life. I think we reach out to them. I think that um, you know, there are no permanent enemies, there are no permanent friends in politics, and we've got to figure that people made decisions based on what they believed, and some of it was racism, and some of it was misinformation. The Detroiters get everything and we have nothing, we're in this situation, and their children are going to college free. There's a lot of misinformation out there. And I think that um I was listening to a speaker also when I was in Oakland, and she said it's really hard to hate people face to face. It's easier to hate people um when you're on social media, when you are, you know, arm's length away from everybody impacted. So I think that we have got to dedicate ourselves to getting face to face. So true. And really, you know, I think that, you know, hate to be.
Orlando Bailey:I get to sit across from you. We are not as polarizing as we think. You know what I'm saying? Like, keep going. But it's so good what you said.
Donna Givens Davidson:Love is, I really think love is resistance. And I think love your neighbor, you know, people call themselves Christian, right? The most radical thing that Jesus ever was quoted as saying is love your enemy.
Orlando Bailey:And love your neighbor as yourself.
Donna Givens Davidson:Love your neighbor as yourself, but loving your enemy is the opposite of human nature. You don't love your enemy unless somehow you have some type of spirituality or faith that tells you that when you love your enemy, your enemy and you will do better. And I think this is a time, and I'm not saying we should have enemies. I've been talking about unity. We're having the East Side Extravaganza on Saturday, and the title is Strength and Unity. Thank you, Sharita Pierce, for lending us your name. But we've got to, if if we don't want this to succeed, then we've got to lead with love. Jesse Jackson came into Michigan and won Michigan, was it in 1988? I don't get the years right, but sometime in the 88 or 90. He came to Michigan and won the state of Michigan because he was able to speak the language with this rainbow coalition of people all over the state. Let's do it again.
Branden Snyder:Yeah, and I I think that's like there's an article by um Jamel Bowie in Slate. He wrote it in 2016 after Trump uh won the first time. But it talks about that rainbow coalition and like the idea that, you know, literally, as you said, like we actually got to lead with love. We got to lead with like seeing these ourselves and like neighbors, you know, cross race, cross class, across region. And like I think one of the things that I'm thinking a lot about as we're talking about um, you know, the organizing and the political education in this moment is the business as usual of just getting up there and doing the schoolhouse rock of like how a bill becomes a law, here's what the agriculture department does, ain't gonna work. But what we what will work and what is the thing that requires us to in this moment to do is like, can we just do a uh uh you know a canon food drive? Can we bring people to the table and have people say, like, hey, I know you you don't usually show up for these things, but but it looks like you need food. Here is here is a box of produce. Let's let's come and talk about like what we need to do to get out of this situation. And it's not just you as the individual that's experiencing this. So as we're thinking about like this this particular political moment, this put this particular political time, like we gotta, you know, one look back to the olden days and like into like our you know our elders around like what people were doing to build that uh multiracial coalition, that uh rainbow coalition. And we gotta be creative about like, yeah, how are we gonna get out of this by by bringing other people into this to understand that this thing that you are experiencing ain't just you, or it ain't just the thing that you're seeing on TV, ain't just black folks. This is going to impact all of us in many ways.
Orlando Bailey:Yeah. We'll be right back. Interested in renting space for corporate events, meetings, conferences, social events, or resource fairs? The MASH Detroit Small Business Hub is a 6,000 square feet space available for members, residents, and businesses and organizations. To learn more about rental options at MASH Detroit, contact Nicole Perry at nperry at ecnetroit.org or 313-331-3485. All right, welcome back to Authentically Detroit Everybody. We got Brandon Snyder here from the Working Families Party. Uh, Donna, you wanted to make a comment.
Donna Givens Davidson:Just one one little thing, you know. Um the other thing we've been talking about, a lot of people have talked about Fred Hampton lately. And December 4th was his birthday. And I had an opportunity to talk to Baba Blair over the weekend, and he's trying to do something that would bring people together. And um that was what the Panthers were doing, right? The Black Panthers under Fred Hampton were saying, look, let's be um intersectional. We don't just have to deal with our issues, and that was his threat. If he was just working with black people, he'd be less threatening. That's one thing. Number two, the Panthers were very um effective at community organizing, incredibly young, right? Incredibly young.
Orlando Bailey:But in addition to the December 4th was the anniversary of his death.
Donna Givens Davidson:Okay, thank you. I knew December 4th was a date. Thank you for that correction. But the they were not just effective at political organizing, they fed people, they had a free breakfast program. They had schools in Oakland, California, and those students in Oakland, California were outperforming students all over the nation. So when we understand that service is part of leadership and organizing, and you can't build on without one without the other, I think that we are going to mature a little bit. So I think the canned food drives, I think um solidarity and um showing compassion for other people and really listening and understanding what they are facing because everybody's struggling with something.
Orlando Bailey:Let's talk to Brandon. Uh let me read this really quick before we talk to you. The Working Families Party is regular people coming together across their differences to make a better future for us all. They are a multiracial party that fights for workers over bosses and people over the powerful. They want an America which realizes the promise, unrealized in our history of freedom and equality for all. The American political system is rigged to favor the two major parties, but the working families party is building their own party on top of the two-party system in the United States, and it's working. They organize outside the two parties and then recruit and train people-powered candidates up and down the ballot and run them to win. The Working Families Party believes that together they can make the future and build a country where everyone can thrive. This is not just an idea, it's reality. For more than two decades, they have been recruiting, training, and electing transformational leaders across the country. Then they organize with them to win major victories for working families, like higher wages, a fairer criminal justice system, and getting money out of politics. Brandon Snyder, excited to talk to you about this. What didn't this blurb say about the Working Families Party?
Branden Snyder:This is also on me because reading the pr the prompts before you get here, because I wouldn't have I would have I would have saved some of my uh points earlier for this moment, so that's my fault. But I think that uh repetition is good. Repetition is good. Okay, great, great, great. So I joined this organization to be the state director because so many times that I have seen in my in my time as a community organizer and as a um as a person who's in this movement that progressives, people who share these, you know, community-centered values, we just get our butts kicked in elections. Like think about any election that you've seen where it's like, okay, I like this candidate. They are they are community oriented, they are they are they are they're out here doing it. I I like what they're saying, and they just get beat down, you know, in when it comes to the primary, when it comes to general. And then you're wondering, like, well, how did this happen? And so one of the things that I had really thought about was like, what are the infrastructure needs that we have as um as the political left, as the progressives, whatever you want to title us? And then also like to the thing I think we've we've brought up a couple of times is like, what's our pipeline? How are we bringing in new and diverse people to actually say that they want, you know, they want leadership? Like, I actually do want my leaders to be folks who have, you know, experience, diverse experiences, people who have had you know, diversity experiences of being, you know, parents, people who've been formally carcerated, people who, you know, who who who aren't college educated, etc. As long as you have a set of values and as you have you're a set of you're a leader. So that's that that was one of the things that got me to the space. Um, the WFP um is an organization that was founded in '98 in New York, and it was led by community organizations and labor unions. So these organizations got together to say, hey, we want to be able to build something different. We want to be able to lead on campaigns and lead on uh politics and not just be called out to just do get out the vote and you know knocking doors. We actually want to have our people, our members, be the folks who are getting elected to office. And since then it's grown, so it's not just in New York, it's around the country. Uh and they've they've they've uh innovated on a couple of like key tactics. One of them is fusion voting, which is this idea that you can, you know, vote for a candidate and contest for the candidate on the uh for the WFP endorsement as a ballot line, and then you can and that candidate can actually run as a WFP candidate, but also as a Democrat. You know, so having two party lines, having a line where candidate can vote. Yeah, so giving space to like minority parties, being able to challenge this two-party system. Where you see that actually showing up, you know, the most actively right now, speaking of, is in New York right now for the New York for Mondani. You know, he was a WFP candidate, endorsed, supported by community organizations. Yeah, that's gonna be super interesting.
Orlando Bailey:Donald Trump endorse Andrew Como. I think that's very interesting. I'm saying that the uh Working Families Party in Michigan has two candidates on the slate. Why only two? And they are Gabriela Santiago Romero for Detroit City Council District 6 and Denzel McCampbell for District 7. Why only two candidates?
Branden Snyder:Yeah, we wanted to start small and build from uh from this year, using it as a litmus test, using it as an opportunity to bring others in to test things out. So, so you know, with the Mandani race, the thing that that they that New York has that we don't is 25 years of experience of running elections together. Okay.
Orlando Bailey:And like we How long have you been up and running in Michigan?
Branden Snyder:Uh since March. Oh, okay. Okay, good. So so part of it is like, how do we test out this experience of building an organizing committee, building a state chapter, getting tactics and strategies and things together where we actually have people working together and thinking about a forward future? So this year we started out with two candidates. We actually endorsed um Letitia uh Johnson as you know as our third candidate, but uh she doesn't have an opponent. So, you know, it's you know, so she's been able to, you know, offer a lot of support and and guidance as a leader. And I think what we want to be able to build this year is a ground, uh, a flag. We want to plant a flag, a flag in the ground to say this is what it looks like to be a progressive candidate. This is what it looks like to be able to recruit black and brown leadership, multiracial working class leadership, and then be able to test out and explore that in uh in the state races next year. So, you know, the next opportunity that we have as a state race is in Saginaw with the special elections that happen in February. And then we have, you know, races that uh that'll happen in our usual time in uh in August. And so our hope is that when we look 10 years down the line from where we are today, you know, in 20 um, 2035, 2036, you know, we actually want to be able to contest for governing power. This idea that uh it's community organizations, it's labor unions, it's this coalition that's able to contest and able to be negotiating partners across the table from our statewide candidates, you know, from our Senate candidates, whomever, and say, like, this is what we want if we elect you, instead of being the also rans, the people who come in at the end. I can't. Can you I'm sorry, Donna?
Orlando Bailey:I want to ask this quick follow-up. Can you sort of demystify for us this blurred line between the working families party and you can still be a democrat, or this blurred, you know, uh I I hear Gabriela and I hear Denzel identify themselves as democratic socialists and what that means and how, you know.
Branden Snyder:Yeah, DSA is uh uh both a political organization and it and its own right of party. And what they're trying to build is um similarly but distinct, is that they're trying to build a pipeline and a platform and a narrative around democratic socialism, the idea that you know we can invest in public goods and you know uh in democratic uh distribution of power in our both in our political system and our economy. WFP, you know, has a lot of those shared um values. And I think the biggest distinction is that we see ourselves as, you know, and I use this phrase non-delusional political party, is that we don't want to play spoiler. What we want to be able to do is build uh what they call in political science, a proto-party. So we want to build the infrastructure of the WFP inside of the Democratic Party. We want to be able to move it to the left in some respects, and then sometimes we actually want to be allies and be able to do the uh the work of electing Democrats and where we are where we have common interests. So one place in particular, this, and this is where uh uh the the party at the national level catches some flak, is that they early on endorsed Kamala Harris for president last year. And why they did that was that one, we need to block and build the Trump, uh block, block the Trump authoritarian takeover and build something different, is the argument that we can actually build a cohesive coalition that um that includes you know the vast parts of the left to be able to go after and challenge the the Trump um takeover. And so there was a lot of work that our national director Maurice uh Mitchell was doing to be able to engage the folks in the uncommitted movement. There was a lot of work that he was that uh Maurice was doing to be able to engage some of your traditional capital D Democrats, all under a banner of like, yo, if we win, this is what we want to be able to like get, you know, for this. And so I think that the distinction that I try to make is that all of us want, regardless of what type of flavor Democrat you are, want to be able to say that you are investing in community and that you are trying to build, um, you know, build a Michigan that works. What we want to be able to say is that as a WFP is that it's not just enough to say we want a Michigan that works, we want a Michigan that works for all, and we want to make sure that the leadership of what that party and what this Michigan looks like is reflective of the of our of our community, is that it's reflective of black and brown, you know, working class, you know, across the board um leaders, in in not just as the foot soldiers, but also as the actual faces of our party.
Donna Givens Davidson:You know, two things. One, um when uh President Obama got elected the first time, on the right, they formed the Tea Party. It was not a political party, but it was a movement that moved the Republican Party to the right. It organized grassroots people and created a lot of energy. And I remember people saying, We need a new party, and I thought we need a tea party, not a tea party, but we need a party within the party, at least first. So I loved that vision of creating something that would really help to build because you know, people will we need to change the Democratic Party. This is a way to do it, right? The second thing I want to say that's really exciting to me is that we will have at least three city council people and others may join, sitting as a voting block in the city of Detroit. I hope come Wednesday. Um that's the hope, that's the dream. I'm as excited about those city council races as I am about the mayor's race because I think if we can get that, then we can make change. One of the things I want you to explore on is to expound on is the kind is the impact of even minority leadership within these parties. If you only have three of nine, one third, what could that do at the city level?
Branden Snyder:Yeah, thank you for saying that. So one way that I think about this is proportional representation, right? So in other countries, you know, it isn't just a two-party system, it's multi-parties. And, you know, there's a quote, just to take a step back, there's a quote from Alexandria Casier-Cortez, you know, making this argument. And she says, nowhere else in the world would her and Joe Biden be in the same uh political party. And, you know, to be honest, she's right. You know, there will be in lots of places a diversity of opinion and a diversity of party to be able to represent the left and and in some cases the right. And so for us, you know, we think about our ability to build a party again, quote unquote, as a coalition. So there is going to be need to be able to engage and organize the folks outside of that three, as well as be able to, you know, in order to build a five. But when you think about this at the state house level or the state senate level, is that, you know, we want to be able to build governing power for folks that um share our values. It's not just enough that Tanya Phillips Myers is, you know, um, you know, Meyer Phillips is, you know, is is there by herself as a as a housing activist. We actually need more people around her to be able to uh negotiate and to be able to pull others towards the vision around how do we um, you know, pass policy that protects, you know, homeowners and tenants and you know, homeless folks and et cetera. So the idea of proportional representation is really influential in like what we're trying to build. And it's also really um evident in this idea that you're speaking to, Donna, about like coalition is that we actually want to try to create a coalition where we're not, again, creating creating a spoiler, but that we're actually creating something, uh, a North Star or a bat signal or whatever vision that you want to think, where people feel like, yo, I want to be a part of this because you're speaking my values. I don't feel like I'm being heard in the major two parties.
Donna Givens Davidson:You're running on vision.
Branden Snyder:Yeah.
Donna Givens Davidson:And unfortunately a lot of Democrats are. And on policy, and on policy. Exactly, vision and policy. A lot of Democrats are criticized for running on um being less worse than the other side, right? Um we have few people running on actual justice issues and promoting justice. I like to say that voting is not power unless justice is on the ballot. And um and we haven't put justice there. What you're doing is you're creating a framework to put justice on the ballot, working with justice organizations, not just one, but uh, you know, multi a lot of organizations with very specific needs and issues coming together under one banner. Um, I don't want to be in the same party as Joe Biden, no offense, right? I think that the and I don't or or Kristen Sinova or Joe Manchin or any of these folks, or was the guy in um in Pennsylvania?
Branden Snyder:Oh uh Shapiro Shapiro.
Donna Givens Davidson:Not Shapiro, the um the senator, who we all worried about. He had the brain, yeah, and he's like the worst of the worst, is like, wow. Anyway, I remember the victory when he finally won. But I don't necessarily want to be in a party with people who don't center justice as their values. I want to transform the party so that if you don't center justice, you decide you don't belong here. And that, you know, big tent and all. But I think that at the very least, making them a sizable minority so that voters can understand the distinction between what it is to vote for a Democrat, Fetterman, thank you, what it is to vote for a Democrat and what it is to vote for a Republican. Um, I'm not saying that's what you're trying to do. I'm just telling you my personal thing.
Branden Snyder:Yeah. Is there role for Republicans in the Working Family Party? I mean, we were talking just a moment ago about uh Snap and all of the people that it impacts. And I think that the the thing that the MAGA movement, if you think about this proportional representation visual, that it's its own political party inside of the Republican Party that has gobbled up the majority of that uh of that coalition, right? And so there are a lot of people who are You know, conflicted cross-pressured voters who are like, yo, I am a farmer, yo, I am a working class union member. I'm voting for MAGA because he's giving me a solution to the economic problems that I'm facing. And so those people, we want to pull them out of the jaws of MAGA, and we want to bring them into a party that is going to offer them a better solution, but also a actual reality.
Orlando Bailey:A better solution, even if the party isn't the party in power.
Branden Snyder:We want to build, well, let me let me just say first, we want to build power. Right. No, like no if, ins, or buts. So like the part of the non-delusionalness is that like we aren't playing for just like um moral victories. We actually want to win. We actually want to build um, you know, uh governing power. You know, when we think about the people that the National Working Families Party, you know, has has supported, you know, that's folks like Jasmine Crockett, that's like Letitia James in New York. Those are people who have run under the WFP banner. And like because of those folks being in office, things have moved, right? Letitia James being the um the uh the uh attorney general of New York, you know, tried Trump. And so we want to we want to contest for power at every level. So that means, yes, like right now, while we're not in power, being able to build the muscle, being able to build the seats to be able to gain power, and that means when we're in power, being able to have the coalition and the constituency to be able to give power.
Donna Givens Davidson:I want to I want to fix what I said earlier because I want to clarify. I don't mind if Joe Biden or Kristen Semena or Joe Manchin or Fetterman is in the Democratic Party with me as long as they're acting on issues and values that matter to me. If you're a Republican and you want to, you know, change your mind or you want to somehow grow into a justice advocate, by all means, welcome. But I think what we don't want is the corporatization of our politics sitting side by side with justice, because corporatization always wins. Um either you're going to be for the people or you're gonna be for a financialized neoliberal economy that will always work against us.
Orlando Bailey:That that only thrives off the subjugation of a population of people. I want to ask you this question. This is a really interesting conversation, and we are over time, but um my question is around judicial strategy because a lot of the political fights, a lot of the fights for the left, a lot of the fights for the right, happen outside of the ballot box in the courts. How does uh the working families party organize around judicial appointments? Um or is there a strategy?
Branden Snyder:So building that, I think that's one of the things that people are seeing when we talk about structural reform and like what does it mean to get relief, you know? Our so our system of getting relief is mostly political and legislative, right? Either elect somebody or they pass a law. And there are other countries that are like, yo, we take ever we take all our fights to the judicial. You know, we've as the left have sort of like abandoned that as a strategy.
Orlando Bailey:And the right is using it and winning.
Branden Snyder:Yeah. And so for us, that requires us really thinking about like not only how are we electing folks, you know, at you know, at the at the local levels, like the 36th district, the judges, your your appellate courts, et cetera, but then also really thinking and and centering our state supreme court conversation. So next year, you know, in Michigan, we'll have another state supreme court election that'll also be the balance of power, you know, really thinking about that. And then at the federal level, you know, I think one of the things that we're trying to um offer up language for and offer up like you know political vision for is like, yeah, how do we talk about that to folks when it comes time for your presidential races, when it comes time for U.S. Senate races? That these aren't just you know personalities, but this is like this is what they're they're most responsible for is these judicial appointments. Like there are folks who are um uh federal appeals court uh judges that Trump has appointed that have never tried a case, that have never, you know, have have little to no experience. And they they have a lifetime appointment, like a lifetime appointment. And some of them are in their 30s, so they've got another 40 years of being in power. And so being able to talk about that and talk about the real stakes when it comes to and not just talk, do and do and do.
Orlando Bailey:And so, Brandon, we can talk to you forever. Uh we've got to have you back. I love having you on all the time. Uh, Brandon Snyder from the Working Families Party. Um, if you have topics that you want discussed on Authentically Detroit, you can hit us up on our socials at Authentically Detroit on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, or you can email us at authenticallydetroit at gmail.com. All right. It is time for shout outs. Let's start with you, Donna. I know you got shout-outs and commercials, a lot of stuff going on this week.
Donna Givens Davidson:Well, we do have the East Side Extravaganza on Saturday. It's going to be um at the Icon building, which is on the riverfront, the old UAW building. It's the Atrium 200 Walker. It's absolutely beautiful. We're going to be honoring some amazing people, including uh we honored Dream Hampton as the Eastside legend because she did grow up on the East Side, and she still reps the East Side, regardless of where she is. Um so I'm really honored, but I'm really excited by that, but we're also honoring somebody else that we all know and love as somebody who speaks truth to power in so many ways. I am so proud to honor Orlando Bailey as the Maggie DeSantis truth to power honoree. Um, you know, it's one of those.
Branden Snyder:I'll be there for that.
Donna Givens Davidson:Thank you. Yes, yes, come. Orlando does so much for our community, and he is always listening, he he is moderating more things. Every time I look up, he's busy. I can't keep up with Orlando. I'm like, wow, you're busy. And he doesn't get enough recognition for the greatness he brings to the role. He takes his role at work as a journalist seriously, and I've seen it challenge this year. He's serious, but he's also intentional about how he uses his voice to speak truth to power without violating journalistic rules. And that's such a, you know, I'll say all kinds of things. But Orlando always stays on his side of the street, and I love it, you know. And I also love that when he was doing the um, you know, the primary debate coverage, and he was on um WDIV, you know, he showed up and out. He was knowledgeable about the issues and speaking. And finally, I was like, finally, somebody speaks for me. And so I, Orlando, I'm so proud of you, love you, and I'm so happy that you are going to be honored by us. Um, the only thing that I regret is that it took me this long to figure out that wait a minute, you have to honor Orlando this year. Um, there's gonna be other great things, but I do want to just really say thank you for all you do. Um, the second thing that I want to honor is I want to honor Brandon Snyder and Jamon Jordan for showing up last Wednesday to um teach a class on the Black Detroit Democracy Podcast. People absolutely loved it. I was walking in here, and the security guard was like, wow, that was really great last week. Um, you guys showed up and showed out. Thank you. Downloaded my wagon, it's gonna be a tough act to follow up. Well, Orlando, you know you're amazing. He's got such an amazing presentation on building narrative. I was trying to think through who are the most amazing people I know talking to our community and getting them excited about democracy and justice. In my absence, I'm supposed to be in San Francisco next week. Now, I'm not certain what's gonna happen, but there's a trip to San Francisco, and in my absence, Orlando agreed to step in. If I'm here, then I'll be happy to join you. Um, thank you.
Orlando Bailey:Thank you, Donna. Thank you for seeing me. It means it means the world to me. And um Donna knows this and Maggie knows this, but you know, to be honored by two of my greatest teachers. Um and to be honored at home, like ECN is home. Um there's a scripture that says uh he came into his own and they received him not. But to be received by your own, uh, this feels greater than the Emmy. This feels greater than any fellowship award, this feels greater than um any any recognition that I've received thus far. And so I'm I am elated. So thank you. Thank you for seeing me. I hope y'all come to the extravaganza. Oh, mama will be.
Branden Snyder:My mama will definitely be here. You gotta come there. I will be there. I will I will pull up with her. You know, my mama is a ECN member. Yes, active so.
Orlando Bailey:Yeah, Brandon, do you have shout-ups?
Branden Snyder:You know, uh, yeah, shout out to Juanette Snyder, my mother, who again is ECN. The legend! Yeah, you know, very excited, very, you know, over there on Longview, you know, holding down the uh holding it down.
Orlando Bailey:Yeah, holding it down, holding it down for a long time.
Branden Snyder:Yeah, and then, you know, again, shout out to uh Naomi, my uh my fiance, and you know, the the the the real Naomi, yes.
Orlando Bailey:And yeah, uh, you know, I'm Naomi's soon to be Snyder. Yeah, that's that's not we can't.
Branden Snyder:When's the wedding? Uh May 23rd next year. Okay, am I inviting it? We will make sure on the spot. On the spot. On the spot.
Donna Givens Davidson:I shouldn't say because I was I was gonna crash anyway. No, I'm I'm really happy. If there's not enough room, let me know, but you know, congratulations.
Branden Snyder:You know, I'll do I'll I'll carry one more of those. Uh uh the uh shout outs is uh Jamon. So like that was I've been uh just I'm just in awe of him being able to offer like free Detroit history. Walking such a yeah, it was so good and so detailed and so thorough and captivating.
Orlando Bailey:Like he couldn't need a documentarian slash writer following him around. I really commit because he won't write, and he needs to, or we need to have somebody follow him. That's my that's my dream. Can we get it funded for somebody?
Donna Givens Davidson:Yeah, let's let's let's work on that because I was so excited because you told me you never met him, that you would get to listen to him. And I said, when you listen to him, you will understand what I mean. You see it now, right?
Branden Snyder:We have we we have never met in person, and you know, I've recommended his tour to like people who come in from out of town. We had a um we had a convention that went at Detroit Action, our national came in, and I had all of those people take his tour, and I wasn't around. And I've never we follow each other on Facebook and I've never met him, and I was like super excited to be in space and see it. So that was so good. Good.
Orlando Bailey:All right. Well, listen, everybody, we thank you so much for listening and for rocking. It's just so it's so crazy that you never met. It is, but you know, I'm glad you two met. Thank y'all for listening, and I'll say it again as I say it always love on your neighbor. It's radical.
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