Nadine Smith on Civil Rights, Power, and the Fight for Equality in America

In this conversation, Nadine Smith traces her journey from investigative journalism to becoming one of the country’s leading civil rights advocates. Drawing from decades of experience, she explains how organizations like Color of Change work to shift systems of power, amplify marginalized voices, and respond to real-time political threats.

The discussion explores how modern civil rights battles extend beyond race to include LGBTQ rights, immigration, and broader questions of access, dignity, and government authority. Nadine outlines how legislation, messaging, and grassroots organizing interact—and why fear-based narratives are often used to divide communities and maintain control.

She also breaks down how advocacy efforts successfully stopped dozens of anti-LGBTQ bills in Florida, emphasizing the role of real people showing up in public spaces and engaging directly with decision-makers. The conversation moves into deeper territory, examining how narratives around identity, religion, and “cultural decline” are constructed and weaponized in politics.

Throughout the episode, Nadine returns to a core idea: that civil rights work is ultimately about community, accountability, and whether people are willing to act when others are being harmed. The discussion closes with a reflection on what it means to stand up for others in a system that often rewards silence.

Color of Change: https://colorofchange.org
Equality Florida: https://www.eqfl.org

Guest Bio:
Nadine Smith is a longtime civil rights leader and the incoming President and CEO of Color of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization. She previously co-founded and led Equality Florida, building it into a nationally recognized model for grassroots advocacy focused on LGBTQ rights, voting access, and racial justice.

Smith has been a key figure in major civil rights efforts for decades, including co-chairing the 1993 March on Washington. Her work has influenced public policy, challenged discriminatory legislation, and mobilized communities at scale. With a background in journalism and organizing, she brings a systems-level perspective to how power operates in American society and how it can be challenged.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I mean, you know, there's a playbook by would-be tyrants, and it's the playbook that has been used time and time again. You find a scapegoat. Usually you pick a scapegoat that is politically the weakest. And you sharpen, you know, the bloodlust by going after, say, the trans community, going after the LGBTQ community. And you and they do it to sort of triangulate. So somebody who is part of a community that they intend to go after next has helped them sharpen their sword against a community that they're not part of, that they're indifferent to, or even have animosity towards. And then they're surprised when that same sword is pressed against their neck. But that's how it's how they build power. That's how they create fear.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Hey, welcome back, faithful politics listeners and watchers. I'm your political host, Will Wright. And today we have with us Nadine Smith. She is a longtime civil rights leader and incoming president and CEO of Color of Change, one of the nation's largest online racial justice organizations. Nadine has spent decades building Equality Florida into a national model for grassroots advocacy, leading campaigns on voting rights, LGBT protections, and racial justice. From co-chairing the 1993 March on Washington to help shape some national conversations around laws like Don't Say Gay. She is a very, very vocal advocate for the less fortunate of us in America. And we're just so glad to have her with us. Welcome to the show, Nadine.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Thanks. Thanks for inviting me.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah. And oh, and I forgot to mention you're also going to be speaking at the Summit for Religious Freedom as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Which we am. I'm looking forward to that.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yeah, we're really, really, really stoked about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

We we just had um you can practice here with us because we're gonna be there. So you can practice and then we'll give you like feedback and then all right, that's perfect.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

A warm-up for the Olympics.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So so Nan Nadine, and just to kind of start us off, like you you've been doing this work for decades. And one of the things I always like doing on the show is just try to get people's like origin stories. It you know, being sort of in this space as a civil rights leader, you know. I is this something that you dreamed you would be doing at this stage in your life? Like what it what it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah, my origin story. I like that you frame it that way. It feels very, you know, Marvel universe.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you a Marvel fan?

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Oh yeah. Oh I love your DC?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Okay, yeah. That it on this pod, there's they're like gang level rivalries about DC and Marvel. I'm I'm from the streets of Marvel. So you're from the streets of Marvel.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

DC, DC had a few, but Marvel, and and I mean old school. I used when I was a kid growing up in the panhandle of Florida, I would ride my bike to the junior food store to see if the new X-Men or Avengers was out. And then if it wasn't, I'd ride another three miles to a different junior food store that was on a different distribution route because sometimes they got the new issue a week earlier. So I I am I am Marvel Universe before Marvel Universe was cool.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Love it, love it. So, so does does any of that love of Marvel factor into sort of like your like where you are today?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Well, you know, it made me a reader early on. And, you know, so you know, my first love was journalism. In fact, if you were to read my high school yearbook, uh, and even my junior high school yearbook, you would see people writing things about how I was going to be, you know, the the next Woodward and Bernstein that I, you know, exposing corruption at the highest levels. And I went into journalism both at an MPR station in Tampa and then at the Tampa Tribune. And, you know, I've sort of can that that was my journey. That was my origin story. Because as a journalist, you know, you have to have a curiosity. You have to have a curiosity to be, I think, to be a good journalist about perspectives that you've never heard before, a willingness to look at the world from a different vantage point in order to tell a 360-degree story. And so, you know, that's what I really loved. I loved investigative journalism. I like to really understand the the motives and the perspectives that drive people. And I and I covered cops, the cop beat for a while, which was fascinating. I remember one time I was interviewing this woman whose husband had been killed, and midway through the interview, I looked at her and I knew she had killed him. And she looked at me and she knew I knew. And by the time I got back to the uh by the time I got back to the office, she had left a message that said, just so you know, when you write this up, I did love him. And shortly thereafter she was arrested. But anyhow, so you know, so I I enjoyed that that journalism was permission to ask a whole lot of different people what they thought, how they saw the world, and then try to weave it together and make it understandable to other people.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Yeah, I actually really I love that description. And I love that idea too, being able to talk to people and see them as sources of information that you can take. I mean, not just sources of information, of course, not reducing people to that, but using like understanding like they might have a perspective, they have information, they have data on the world that's different than me. And instead of seeing that as a threat, maybe I could see that as an asset of some kind, of something that I could that could help me, something where I could be mutually beneficial, or something like that. As I was preparing for this interview and and and kind of looking at your mini credentials, I noticed that you're in the Air Force, and then you had a sh brief stint in the Air Force, is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 5:54

I went to the Air Force Academy right out of high school, Colorado.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

And then and then, but the passage of the don't ask, don't tell. And I was very curious to ask you about this if you you'd be willing to talk about it. Sure. But the passage of the don't ask, don't tell, and that kind of uh precipitated you leaving the Air Force, or at least in some of the documentation I was looking at. Obviously, you're here, so you can tell the real story. Yeah, yeah. But tell me about that experience. Don't ask, don't tell. You know, Clinton signed that into law. He was this famous Democrat, liberal president yet signing this into law. What what was it just for those who don't remember it? And then kind of describe that whole experience.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Well, I just to clarify the timeline, when I graduated high school, there was just a ban on service by gay people. There was just a direct ban. What uh and so and so in fact, many of the cadences, you know, the things you when you're marching, Irene's her name, she's one of the best, you know, like all of those cadences that you you sing were remarkably homophobic. I mean they were they were sexist as as well, but but lots of homophobic slurs. So when so Bill Clinton became president uh years after I left the academy, but uh don't ask, don't tell was considered an improvement from an out outright ban. Because basically it said, as long as you don't say you're gay, no one can ask you. And as long as no you don't say it, then you can serve. But the moment you are truthful about who you are, you risk being kicked out. So basically what it did was codify the idea that as long as you w deceived the people around you or refused to and did not live openly and honestly, you could serve. And then the the lifting of that ban meant people did not have to lie. You know, in in in the Air Force there was a concept of not just the honor code didn't just say you can't lie, it said don't quibble. I mean, do not parse information for the purpose of deceiving people. You know, growing up, if somebody said, Who ate the last, you know, who ate the last of the, you know, Captain Crunch? Quibbling would be, well, I didn't eat the last because I left one in the box, so I can truthfully say I didn't eat the last of it. Now that's quibbling, and it's a violation of the honor code. And yet here was this thing that demanded that people quibble every day about who they were. So so it was seen as an improvement to a flat out ban, but you know, it was still not justice. It was still it was still not allowing people to serve with honor and in truth.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

So you're uh you're the president now of Color of Change. And that that happened recently, right? Like a couple months ago.

SPEAKER_03 9:02

Yeah, January.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Yeah. So so number one, I'd love to hear how it's going. And then two, like, what is color of change?

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Yeah, well, it it's great. I I'm loving the people, the coalition partners, the team that I get to work with, and most of all, the mission of Color of Change. And Color of Change is the largest online racial justice organization. We are an organization that has had a huge impact over the 20 years since uh we were formed. And color of change formed because in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, if folks remember, the abysmal uh response by the federal government to at that time an unprecedented environmental disaster that left black people to die in in the aftermath. And so color of change sort of was born out of the desperateness of those circumstances and has worked over those 20 years to build political power, to amplify the voices of the people experiencing the greatest harms, and to change the the structures of power so that those circumstances can't happen again, whether it's racism embedded in the in policing, whether it is what we're seeing now with ICE, an unaccountable m you know, military force under the command of of the president that that insiders are saying has been trained specifically not to abide by the Constitution. And so the voice of color of change, I think, has never been needed more than it it's needed right now, especially when we have a president. I don't know if you saw the New York Times article where, you know, promotions were denied to black and female officers because, quote, Trump did not want to stand next to black females at military events. So we we are living in a time where it's not the dog whistle of the uh Lee Atwater days, it's not coded language, it's not talking about welfare queens, it is the blatant racism that we associate with black and white clips from the the the 50s, not not the world that you know we grew up believing we were heading towards. So I think there's a normalcy bias that makes it hard for people to to comprehend just how retrograde these policies are, these attitudes are, but but we have to snap out of our sense that there's some appeal to normality or decency that it what will what it requires in this moment is for people to not be silent and not expect that things will just take care of themselves. You know, the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice. It might, but I don't think it does so by itself.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

No, I don't I don't think it does so by itself either. I actually think like, you know, I as a Christian for me, I'm a Christian, or you know, and and so I believe in God and I believe that God has a plan. Right. So in that sense, I think that the time the world is moving towards something, right? And there in that sense I could say that there's a progress to it. But I also don't think there's any guarantee taking taking out, like if I were to remove like that bias, I guess, if you want to call it that, I don't know, I I don't see anything that guarantees that things will get better or that things will get more fair. I don't see anything within humankind that guarantees that, how people treat each other. I I think it has he said like when I say that I mean like unless there's an intentionality behind it, is what I mean, unless there's someone saying, No, this needs to this needs to change, and and bringing some kind of force to that, and there's all sorts of different kinds of force, like what what you're thinking is legal pressure, institutional pressure, right? Some kind of you know, social pressure of understanding this is the you know the will of the people, so to speak. So you wanted to get some kind of mass mass commitment behind something so that that can make a change. And and yet this is like an extremely difficult thing to do, but you guys have had success. I mean, I was looking at some of these stats, equality Florida. I'm looking stopped 29 out of 30 anti-LGBTQ plus bills. That sounds like a remarkable success rate, and I would just love to hear what is that, what what's behind that success rate? What does it mean that you stop 29 out of 30? Why were they LGBT like like I guess in broad strokes, what was anti-LGBTQ about them? Yeah. And then what do you do to stop a law? How how does someone stop a law from being best?

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Well, I think you know, part of the reason it's been important to me as an organizer to stay in the places, the laboratories where some of the worst laws are being cooked up, and Florida certainly fits that bill. When you look at, say, for example, Project 2025, so much of what you see embedded in there was field tested in the state of Florida. Right? It's not an accident that that you know Trump lives in Mar Mar-a-Lago and and you see a lot of the billionaire oligarchs that back him moving, you know, have moved to Florida as well. So it's it's become like this satellite. And and I think there's a couple of things that I bring to Color of Change with me from my time at Equality Florida, and that is speaking plainly about what's happening. Like people have a, I think I'll use an example. There's a group called Moms for Liberty, right? That sounds great. I'm a mom, I'm for liberty, right? Great name. And it's the opposite of what they do. They are about censorship, they are about government control, they're about intruding and surveilling, they're the opposite of freedom, and they're about imposing their very specific and I would say narrow view of the world on on children and and taking the rights away from parents by saying these books can't be in the library. Your child doesn't have the choice of whether or not they get to access books that have families that look like them with life experiences that reflect their life experiences. But they had a great name and they had massive infusion of cash. And in some ways, people thought, well, they're unstoppable because we can't match them dollar for dollar. They've got these billionaires. But it was literally an organization that was born out of this idea. Uh, Christian Ziegler, who at the time was the head of the Republican Party, said, We're we're losing white suburban women who watch George Floyd be be murdered in front of their eyes. And we've got to scare them back into the Republican Party. That was the essence of his argument. So what do you do? Oh, they're indoctrinating your children. There's pornography in the schools. Or as as Donald Trump said, they're they're transing your kids. You send your child to school as a boy and they come back, they've had surgery, right? Like these absurd things. Because what they're trying to press on is not a rational mind, but a fear. And there's and anyone who's a parent knows how quickly you can, you know, fear and and fear that you're not protecting your child, how easily that can be manipulated. And so the way we were able to fight back was to bring real parents, not these cosplaying political operatives pretending to be concerned parents. And very quickly it you discovered they don't even have kids in the public school. Most of them have kids in these charter schools that have a vested interest in dismantling public education and redirecting those dollars to their voucher programs, or where where they're not held to the same standard. They don't have to take the test, they don't have to be evaluated, all these all these things. And so the counter was to get real parents in those school districts to show up and to speak as parents. My child goes to that school. That is my kid's teacher that you're trying to run out of the schools. And the tide turned very quickly. In fact, it got to the point that having a Moms for Liberty endorsement was pretty much the kiss of death for a candidate. There were candidates literally begging them not to endorse. And so you counter that kind of propaganda by having real people show up. And, you know, we had at Equality Florida, we had a program called Parenting with Pride. And one of the rules was you help parents, period. You don't care what their political affiliation is, you don't care if they got the language right. If they've reached out because their kid is in distress, we're going to help you. And that process might move you closer to other parents who were s who are fighting back in the same way. And in that process, like the number of people who came who would say things like, you know, I'm not really political, but I don't like what they're doing to my kid. I don't like what's happening in the classroom. And then they they would they would reach out for help and then they they'd be curious about what the school board was doing, and the next thing you know, they're testifying in in Tallahassee. But it happens because they are they're learning how the levers of power work. Who's making this decision that took all the books out of my kids' class? I want to go see that school board member. Someone someone's making the decision, right? Yeah, somebody's making the decision. So our job is to make sure that the people who make those decisions have to look in the eye the people they're hurting with those decisions.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

I'm curious on your thoughts as a civil rights leader, because from where I sit, anyways, and again, like I'm I'm not an expert on really much of anything unless you want to know something about OSHA, then I'm your guy. But but like when we think of civil rights, we typically tend to think of, I don't know, struggle of black folks and whatnot over time. But it seems like at least in this administration, like when we talk about civil rights, we're we're talking about a much broader group. We're talking about like trans eradication, right? Or or some of the things that are done to the LGBTQ community. Like, so I'm curious, like, is there a different approach to to sort of fighting for civil rights, like depending on the demographic of people that you're you're you're helping?

SPEAKER_00 20:10

I mean, you know, there's a playbook by would-be tyrants, and it's the playbook that has been used time and time again. You find a scapegoat. Usually you pick a scapegoat that is politically the weakest, and you sharpen, you know, the the th the bloodlust by going after, say, the trans community, going after the LGBTQ community. And you and they do it to sort of triangulate. So somebody who is part of a community that that they intend to go after next has helped them sharpen their sword against a community that they're they're not part of or that they're indifferent to, or even have animosity towards. And then they're surprised when that same sword is pressed against their neck. But that's how they build, that's how they build power. That's how they create fear. Because it's not enough for them to say, uh, you know, there's a small minority. We know this. There was a report by, I think it's called the American Principles Foundation, but it's a right-wing think tank. And they put out a memo, and it was quoted in the New York Times, first paragraph of a New York Times article, where they said, after we lost marriage equality, we needed to find a new wedge. And we threw everything against the wall. And to our surprise, what stuck was most Americans did not know the transgender community, and we knew we could work with that. What they meant was where there was ignorance, we could create fear instead of curiosity. And we could weaponize that fear. And they've done it quite uh quite substantially, though the return is beginning to wane. Like people, like there are people who might not know much about the topic, but they don't like seeing this level of hatred directed at a small slice of the American public. Like it doesn't smell right to them. And so there's beginning to be a backlash to the backlash. But then they go to immigrants. Again, this is from the same playbook. You go after a small minority, you you demonize them, and then you go after the stranger, the people whose language or customs are most alien to your to the general population, and you make that nefarious. It's not just that they're not like you, but there's something sinister about the ways they're not like you. And now they've built, they've expanded the base of people that they can they can pull, because it's not just that they're not like you and they're sinister, they're taking things from you. And and that is the recipe, that is the playbook for tyranny. Because people will surrender freedoms for security. As long as I make you fear enough things, you will surrender all of your freedoms to live under my reign.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

I I am curious about what you think is causing maybe the shift from the general population to be more sympathetic to these things that they're attacking. Because I I attended two briefings by PRI. Melissa Deckman did a great job talking about LGBTQ, like sentiments on LGBTQ, and then one on immigration. And you're right, like if you look at sort of how people feel about you know the way we're treating these two groups, like people on as a whole are like, yeah, that's bad. And and it's it's actually a little bit, you know, nice to see that to see that, hey, the broad, you know, general public actually agrees with me that what I'm seeing is is terrible. Like what what's your what's your thought on on why people just seem to, I don't know, like want other people to treat people like humans?

SPEAKER_00 23:53

You know, it's I don't know that I have a great answer for this, but when I was a reporter, I used to cover and I covered the police beat. I would cover stories where people, without a second thought, threw themselves into danger to protect a stranger. You know, a guy who swam out to a bunch of kids stranded in a metal boat in a in a storm and and swam them into safety. Or, you know, cop who jumped, jumped off the bridge to rescue somebody who was, you know, attempting suicide. And you know, or or you know, or a burning car, like easier to walk away and yet they did it. They they helped people at at the risk of their own lives. And when I would interview them and I would ask them why and they said it basically it came down to we're supposed to look out for each other. Like if we don't do that, what do we have? And you know, not like a deep philosophical or even a religious framework, just like that's what we do. And you know, or you know, one guy said, if that was my kid, I sure would hope that the the person who saw them stranded would go out and help. And so I think there's something in us i innately, a sense of, you know, we're that that we're supposed to look out for each other, right? And then uh I I think a lot has been said about when the slave catchers would ride up north and try to capture enslaved people who had escaped to freedom. And how the neighbors of those folks, who did not necessarily call themselves abolitionists or think of themselves in terms of the in particular political terms, were offended and disgusted by the idea that these people thought they could come into our neighborhood and into our community and do this. And and people fought back and rebelled, and and comparisons have been made to Minneapolis in particular because you see people taking extraordinary risks for absolute strangers, right? In freezing weather, you know, a friend from Minneapolis was talking about how you see people running out in robes and slippers into negative, you know, degree weather because the whistle blew. And that means one of our neighbors is being attacked and we're going out there and we're going to protect them. And it's an extraordinary thing. And it and you know, it kind of brings tears to my eyes because I believe so fundamentally that it's true. We are supposed to look out for each other.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. We're supposed to look out for each other, and it's amazing to see people who will lay down their lives, lay down their material goods, something that's gonna cost them right to do something for someone else, and like you said, let alone like a complete stranger. And that's like such a such an amazing view, I do think, of love, like this this this concrete action that someone is taking to help someone else that's in need, and to be there for their neighbor. And I think that's an epitome of what Jesus did, to be honest, as a pastor, right? He went for the stranger and even people his enemies, people who did not like him, hated him, and he even made you know statements like, Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing, things like this on the cross. It's like and and to see that like portrayed in the lives of like my fellow fellow citizens, and then to see people that are saying that they're Christians making that claim and then doing things that seem very much the opposite of what Jesus would do grieves, it grieves me an enormous amount. The last year, I mean, I you know, I wouldn't say that I'm that I hold back too much on this show, uh although I probably do to some extent, but it I I probably have not expressed how difficult the last you know year and a half have been for me to watch what's happening in this country and to watch you know j just to see uh to actually be afraid for my neighbors that I that are immigrants to actually be afraid for them. I've never felt that before. And I and I did feel that when I saw that ICE was in my my town and had they had that they had seen vehicles around the area or whatever. I it was not a positive feeling in any way. It was an extremely negative feeling, it was an extremely and a feeling like, why are you here? Get out of here. And it's funny because I I've been the conservative my whole life and I've always felt like, you know, hey, you know, immigration policies, citizenship has to mean something. If it's if the borders are just open, then what does citizenship mean? And I still actually stand by many of those arguments as I understand them, and yet the what I've seen and the way I've seen people treated, yeah, that's really, really, really that hasn't helped the Trump administration get my vote. What I've seen, right? And I don't think they're trying to get my vote, but it has not helped. And I'm just like, I'm sitting here in our culture, and I'm really trying to figure out what to do what to do next. And I would love to kind of hear your insights. You know, we were talking about how you you were mentioning the trans community, right? And it's being systematically targeted. And this is one of those things where I think it's interesting, they're like, hey, not very many people know the trans community, which is true. And and so this is a this is a target, a very uh an easy scapegoat, essentially, because they're capitalizing on that ignorance. I would love for you to go in a little bit more depth into that in the sense like what is happening that's making you say that trans people are in some way being systematically you know, systematically reduced in their citizenship and their status and all that, just so people can hear it, so that they if they want to check it, if they want to debate it, if they don't believe I hear so many things. It does I I people, yeah. They just they don't, they don't, they they have their opinions and they'll stick to them. But I would just love if you could give people like, hey, here's what's actually happening, here's why we're saying this, so that it isn't which I already know is gonna happen, woke propaganda media, they're just saying that that's all I get. Whenever I post anything that's not completely conservative from my MAGA friends, a woke, that's woke, it's garbage, you can't trust anything in that. So can you just explain what's happening?

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Sure. I mean, I I'll talk about some of the specific things that that have happened, but I mean, I would say it this way: if you can't access a public restroom, you can't access the public square. I mean, it was the reason that you know bathroom laws existed in America that banned, you know, black people. Right? Because it was about controlling where you could publicly be. And and, you know, try it. You know, drink drink a couple of liters of water and go out in public and see how long you can stay in the public space. If your access to a bathroom is going to make you a criminal. So there's that. There's cutting off access to health care, life-saving health care. That is an act of of a kind of violence that is is particularly cruel because it has nothing to do with anybody else. But for the government to say a doctor cannot treat you in the best way that doctor knows, because we don't like that you exist.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

There's Can you explain why it's high how why why it's life-saving? Again, I'm not trying to it might be exposing my ignorance, but I actually I think I know. Like I think I know what you would say. But but just for people that ca because I just know one of the things, if can can I just real quick just kind of make a complaint about the left, just coming from the right, just from my is that a lot of times there's just this assumption that people would know things that they that they just don't know. That why don't you understand the medical? Why don't you understand this? Why don't you understand?

SPEAKER_00 33:04

And it's like but what I would say is why you don't know. Yeah, what I would say, Josh, is uh you don't have to. You really the question is why is my government with my tax dollars imposing itself in people's lives?

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Yeah, I think that's a great question.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

I don't have to understand all of these things. I don't have to understand every religion on the earth to say the government should not be telling people that they can't worship or should not be using tax dollars to compel people to worship. Yes so what I would challenge people to do is like what question are you asking? Are you asking people to defend their humanity that that they should have access to the things that you freely have access to?

SPEAKER_03 33:52

Like bathroom.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

If if the government said, Josh, you can't get cancer treatment, we think that that what you call cancer, we call a manifestation of God, and you have no right to remove it, right? There's no you there's no act of man should be permitted, whatever their reasoning would be.

SPEAKER_03 34:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

And so they're going to compel you not to get access to treatment, right? You would find that outrageous. And it would be weird for me to be debating whether or not you needed the surgery to decide whether you should access it. It none of that would be any of my business. The only thing that's my business is that my tax dollars are being used through the government to stop you from accessing the best medical care available. And so I would just say to people, ask yourself why you should be permitted to intrude in people's lives in this way, regardless of how you think or feel about it.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

I think that's a great question. Real real quick, Willie, it is you. But real quick, I think that's a I I love that. I absolutely love that response. Um, just to make sure the is the life-saving, it's because that if if there isn't the treatment that it typically in in alarming cases it leads to suicide. Is that is that the life-saving part about it? Yeah, I guess what I'm trying to say, because if I don't treat cancer, then it's going to kill me. But it might it might, right? Yeah, it might, right? So it's like, but like it wouldn't be me killing myself, right? It would be the cancer killing me, although you know you can make an argument by refuse treatment, whatever. Yeah, that would be a good thing. Yeah, what yeah, it's the suicidality. Okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Yeah, yeah. So that's absolutely documented. Like if, you know, and uh without question, you know, the the research is very, very clear. And so, yeah, so to deny people access to things that can bring them relief, can bring to can keep make them healthy, is wrong.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

And I just want people to understand why, because I hear that so much. And I hear people, well, what do you mean? Cancer is gonna kill me, that disease would kill me. Trans isn't gonna kill anybody, it's uh whatever, right, whatever they might say. But the issue and what it leads to.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

Yeah, and part of it is sort of like you know, we have we have a problem in our country about talking honestly about things. And, you know, like for years we don't talk about depression. Depression kills people. Now, one of the symptoms of it might be but depression kills. And so we have to be able to uh engage in interventions that create mental health for people. And so, but again, I would say, is that a is that actually the question that people are asking? Or are they really asking you to defend the humanity of someone that has been demonized to them? And you can say, what do you have that you would give up? Would you permit the government to intrude in your life in the way they're allowed to, they've they have decided to intrude? And why would you obsess about the the lives of people when they had when it has nothing to do with your freedom, your health, your safety, your family? But that's how propaganda works, where I suddenly feel like I have a right to interrogate your existence. I have a right to question. It's why Yeah, I'm entitled to ask you what you're doing here with your skin color, right? I'm in I I feel entitled to say, uh, don't speak that language in front of me. This is America. All these things come from a sense of entitlement that I get to intrude in your life in a way that I would never permit you to intrude in mine. And that sense of entitlement is the problem. It's like it doesn't ma make one bit of difference if the people in the restaurant sitting in the next booth are speaking Spanish. It doesn't change the flavor of your food. But in a world where you're told that everywhere you go, you should be able to understand nothing should be, you know, different for you. Yeah, people feel that sense of entitlement and and that anger. Like you asked me what the root of this all is, and I think it comes down to two things. One is political structures that aggregate power to an increasingly small group of people. You're hitting the nail on the head, maybe. And and then everything else is kind of the psychological operation of maintaining that power, right? So I don't want you looking at the obscene wealth and the way we evade taxes and the way we have private islands, you know. Epstein Island is a horror. And then ask yourself how many other islands are out there. I'm not saying that they're all Epstein Islands, but they're all tech shelters and ways of scamming and not paying your fair share. All of that, right? And there was a time when we made people pay their fair share. You know, they made their business on roads that we all paid for, highways that we all paid for, using infrastructure we all paid for. And we used to be able to push back if an employer was exploiting. It's like we we have a wage, a minimum wage in places where businesses would say, as they hire you, we will also help you apply for public assistance because we know we're not paying you a livable wage. And then we'll use the fact that you're on public assistance to call you a freeloader, even though you're working a full-time job. And then some. And so, you know, but as long as that group of people is fighting among themselves and not going, well, wait a second, wait a second, shouldn't I be able to afford a home, pay for health care, you know, take care of my kids if I'm working a full-time job, the system is broken. So we now discover across race and gender and all other religious differences that we're actually together experiencing pain because the people who aren't paying their fair share have controlled all of the levers. And they don't want that conversation to happen.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

So there's that you are very insightful, Nadine.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

Well, and and here's the other thing, and I'll and I and I want to say this particularly because of the the content, the theme of the show. One of the most powerful things recently that I saw was when I visited the African-American History Museum in DC shortly after it opened. And and they have it set up so you kind of walk from the beginning of the transatlantic trade slave trade through through, you know, Jim Crow, you know, to the future. And and it takes you kind of like through the hold of a of a ship where enslaved Africans were brought over. But there's one place where they have letters uh from that time period. And there's one that I'm pretty sure was etched in glass, and it's the wife of a pastor saying to him, Don't you have some misgivings about our faith and being part of making money from the slave trade. And you see the the pastor write back to his wife, you know, I I struggle too with the things that you're raising, and I understand what you're saying, and and there is conflict, but but the money is so good. I'm paraphrasing. But that to me crystallizes how we're how we find ourselves here. And you know, you have to ask yourself, what's your price? Because they believe everybody has one. They believe for ICE agents it's whatever the you know six-figure salary to turn. $17,000 signing bonus? $75,000 signing bonus? Yeah. So for them, that's like, okay, look, we know there's a price. Whatever misgivings, you'll you'll you'll rationalize it because we gave you uh just enough money. And they that's how they move through the world. Everybody's got a price. What's yours? And it and if you haven't given us your price yet, you're you're still haggling.

unknown 42:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

And so that mindset I think is really toxic. But I think the antidote to all of it is community. I think we're hungry for real, a real sense of purpose and belonging and community. And we have been turned into just consumer units and you know, not like like what is it that animates you? What what is it that makes you feel like it's worth being alive? And for me, it's being in community with people who care about something bigger than themselves. You know?

SPEAKER_01 43:01

Yeah. So you know oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Yeah, no, so so I I think that is why some of what, you know, I have a friend who started a group called Leaving MAGA, and he talked about how he walked himself into MAGA and how he walked himself out and and what that experience was. And the thing that surprised me was how much he talked about so this is Rich with LeavingMAGA.com. How much he talked about how he felt felt special, like he was part of a special group that had been called to this moment, right? And and this how much of his identity became wrapped up in this. He said, if I had met you at another time, I would have called you an enemy combatant. He said, It wasn't, it's not enough that we disagree. You are wrong and dangerous. And that's how we move through through space. But that I understood the sense of wanting to belong and feeling like you were part of something. It's just sort of like, so I think that's a got-checked moment that we all have to have whatever religion we claim, whatever community we are part of. Is it built on denigrating and feeling superior to other people? Or is it actually built on a sense of we're supposed to look out for each other?

SPEAKER_01 44:21

I don't I don't want to read a problem into your work that where there isn't none, but as you're talking, I was I was thinking about something Andrew Seidel said to me years and years ago on on the show where he he made a a comment basically saying that Christian nationalism can you know be tied to like every single little aspect of like our society. And at the time, you know, I just took him for his word because I wasn't smart enough to really argue it. But over the years, as I'm reading and understanding more and more, I'm like, that old that old guy was was when he's not old, I guess. Like he was right, you know, like that there's a lot. So I'm curious, like, do you see influences of Christian nationalism and just sort of the work that you have to do, you know, the obstacles that you have to overcome doing civil rights?

SPEAKER_00 45:14

I mean, I think the Christian part is just like a veneer that's sprayed over it. You know what I mean? Like to give it a sense of you can't even interrogate. You can't, you can't challenge me because I've used this card that says, my because it's my faith, that's all you that's all. You know, it it's we were just talking about the basketball player who got traded from the Bulls. And he's like, oh no, that's my religious freedom. Nobody stopped you from believing what you believe. Nobody stopped you from saying what you said. What you want is no consequences. And those aren't the same things. You are free to practice your religion. You are free to say the words that you desire to say, and that organization has a right to say, we do not want our brand associated with your words. If it was somebody saying, I don't believe that women should ever be in positions of leadership. It's my deeply held religious belief. Okay. So if any there if there's any woman in leadership in this company, she cannot give me directions. It has to go through a man. You're fired. You have infringed on my religious belief. No, we didn't. You can't function in this system because we will not accommodate your beliefs by reducing women to second class citizenship. Like we won't we won't you know, you you are free to say these things and and people are free to hold you accountable for the things that you say. So But yeah, that's I I think that the the veneer of faith is a tactical move to make it so you don't have to explain yourself. Because what it really is is this right-wing extremist, you know, form of of of fascism, of of total control. Like right now, we were watching the the President of the United States with his finger hovering over the nuclear button, sending these cryptic messages, right? Bombing countries without provocation, without uh co congressional assent, like asserting that I will do whatever I want to do because nobody's here to stop me. Right?

SPEAKER_02 47:31

Basically.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

Yeah, okay, judge, you told me I can't do it. You and what army? Like, you know what I mean? Like, and so we are in this place as a country of going, oh, all the things I read in civics aren't exactly true. They they depend on some norms that have been so totally violated that Trump destroyed a wing of the of the White House. His putting his own face or his own signature on money has changed the name of the Kennedy Center. Like I mean, it's it's it's it's unfortunate. Any one, you know, any one of these things would have been like game over.

SPEAKER_02 48:11

Obama. I mean, I I I can't even, I mean, honestly, I can't even look at like I mean, my cried. They cried when Obama got re-elected. And they promised me he was gonna do everything that Trump is doing. And they promised me that that's what he was gonna do, and he didn't do it. And he's not gonna, there's no way he's gonna give power over. It just, I it, it, it, it actually is one of the things that makes me so mad. It's like it it the hypocrisy that's dripping in the conservative garbage that I see in the way that I mean, if oh if Obama did a quarter, I mean he I I just sat through and I heard so many people spew so much hatred towards Obama and so much about how he was gonna do this and he was building concentration camps and he was gonna go door to door, and he what do we have? And it's like it's crickets, dude. And I'm like, that is garbage.

SPEAKER_00 49:12

Let me that's let me still let me steal your mantle for a moment. It's now it's the will and it is so Josh. Let me ask you this. How what do you what do you think is at play? Like, what is at play when the same universe is like lionizing Nicki Minaj and 88% of religious conservatives didn't vote for that's what's at play.

SPEAKER_02 49:38

What's at play? Power. We're afraid to lose our power. It's fear. You're talking about, I mean, the fear mindset. They've convinced us. It's civil that so so, and I've been doing not only is it kind of my opinion, my experience, and I I definitely want to hear your thoughts on this, Amy. Um, it's not my opinion or my experience it that is part of it, but I've trying to be doing real research into this, and there's a real fear of civilizational collapse because of allowing the left and policies the left, right? Again, those are just those are just in honestly stupid labels, to be honest. That's what I think. But that woke left, whatever you want to call it, the fear is civilizational class. That what we had and what we wanted our kids to have, we white Christian men wanted our kids to have, they're not gonna have. Because they're being taught about transgender in schools and they're being, you know, they have people with two moms and two dads. And I'm and I'm not trying to be offensive here. I'm saying what's really happening. It's um, those are the things, and as much, and we we might know I shouldn't feel that way, but it doesn't matter if I shouldn't feel that way. Really, when it comes down to it, it's what's going to affect me. You really have to push to get past that. And I think people can do that. I think I've tried to do that. I mean, sitting here, being able to talk with uh one of my best friends who's a Democrat and things, all these things, I never would have had that being able to have a conversation which I'm really enjoying with someone who's lesbian and activist for LGBTQ and for, you know, all that, I never would have been able to do that. So there's like, I'm seeing the progress, but it's required an enormous amount of work that's not easy to do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for someone like me, for someone who grew up around it, it's really not that much work for people that have kind of grew up and they understand it and they, you know, that a lot of this generation, they're just like, yeah, I mean, the next the newer generations, they're like, Yeah, I mean, you're gay, you're lesbian, you're LGBT, you're, you know, it doesn't matter, right? You're just you're just a person, which I think is a good view. People are people, everyone's made in the image of God. But I think it's fear. Sorry, I'll get back to what you asked. I think it's fear of civilizational collapse and the things that we thought we were gonna, and I think that we are part of that is that whites are gonna be in the minority. And we've never had that in this country, and I think we're scared. Very, very, very scary. A certain generation, right? Uh very scary.

SPEAKER_00 52:14

You have done your homework. Yeah, no, I think you're I I'm glad, you know, because civilization civilizational collapse is a is the the code for the end of a white majority. Right. And so cultural collapse. I mean, our culture is leaving. Yeah, because you go, okay, like like if you begin to ask people, I I think there was somebody who was being interviewed by the, you know, for an appointment to some cabinet position or subcabinet position, and he and he was talking about you know, white replacement. He goes, Okay, so what what aspects of the culture are you afraid are going to be taken away? And he just stood there staring for a moment. He was like, Well, you know, our our Judeo-Christian roots. Like, no, but specifically, what's what's going away? Like, you won't be able to celebrate Christmas? Like, what are we talking about? And and at some point he invokes like Highland, Scottish Highland culture. And it just sort of left the room going, like, what are you talking about? Because the reality is like like the fabrication of these concepts of of race, right? Like they are social constructs, but they're very powerful and they were very useful. But it's like, what is whiteness? It's like there's Italiann-ness and there's German-ness and there's Englishness, there's the other things. But we have allowed all of those cultures to be flattened into this idea of whiteness and then made people terrified that that identity is going to be taken from them. It's quite a trick. I am eight minutes late for my next meeting. I just realized. Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 53:58

Well, if uh if you gotta go, perfect. Um, we will just leave it there.

SPEAKER_00 54:02

Uh thank you so much for inviting me back sometime.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

I'm and uh thanks to our audience. Remember, keep your conversations, not right or left, but up, and we'll see you next time. Thank you. Goodbye.