Not Ready to Make Nice: Ayana's Tornado of Truth

"Not Ready to Make Nice: Ayana's Tornado of Truth"

Ayana: [00:00:00] It has been one of those weeks. One of those weeks. I've got some explaining to do. Let's get into it.

Hey everyone, welcome back for another episode of Ayanna Explains It All. The podcast that bridges the gap between current events and human behaviors. I am your host, Ayanna Fakir. I am your black Muslim lady lawyer living in the suburbs of Northeast Ohio, trying to weather all of this rain. We had three tornadoes come through Northeast Ohio in the last week and a lot of [00:01:00] rain and a lot of wind and a lot of what the hell is going on with the weather. Climate change is real, people. Ohio is now the tornado capital of the U. S., if you can believe it. My area didn't used to have tornadoes.

But now we're having tornadoes and people are still, What's a tornado? Ha ha ha ha ha ha. It's ridiculous. Ayana Explains It All is available on multiple streaming platforms. So wherever you listen to podcasts, including Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, and Spotify, which is our flagship.

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I'm, I'm working on a special episode that I'm going to do within the next week or so about the Ohio Supreme court race. But this is something that has been gnawing. It's been gnawing on me for a minute, and it's all been kicked up by VP Harris entering the presidential race. And, you know how, whenever a black person does something really big, suddenly All of the ugliness comes out of the shadows.

It's like that scene from Ghost at [00:04:00] the End. Spoiler alert! When, uh, the bad guy gets, he gets, uh, shot. And then all of the dark, uh, the dark souls, the demons start coming out of the walls and the floors. And they, they grab him and they get a hold of him and they drag him to hell, presumably. That is what is happening right now.

That is what is happening right now. And I want to talk about it. I want to rant about it. This is going to be an episode where I rant. I do this once a year. I just have to rant. I have to, because there's some things going on that I need to talk about. And this is my show, right? Okay. VP Harris had a rally in Atlanta.

I think, I don't know if this was the first rally that she had, but it was a rally in Atlanta. and Atlanta, Georgia for you foreign folks, Atlanta, Georgia. And she [00:05:00] invited some entertainers to come on the show, to come on, to come to the rally and entertain the crowd. They do this at all presidential rallies.

Whoever's running for office, they'll usually do something like they'll be in a parade or something. They'll have a rally and they'll have a cookout, whatever, whatever these promotional things. I was talking to my daughter about it and she was like, I did not know that. Candidates will invite entertainers to come to their rallies to entertain people.

And I was telling her all about it. And then somehow we got into a conversation about Elvis going to visit Nixon at the White House. But I'm like, yes, they have entertainers at these rallies. They have all kinds of entertainers. Rock, Country rap, all kinds, but VP Harris had Megan, the stallion, Megan, the stallion.

And so, you know, you've heard, if you ever listened to her rap or you've seen her performances, you know, Megan gets down, okay, Megan. She usually wears something where [00:06:00] her, you know, butt cheeks are hanging out. That's her prerogative, but her rap is very, it can be empowering. It could be raunchy. It could be whatever the hell she wants it to be.

Cause it's her rap career. It's her music, but she, so she gets up there. I don't remember what song she did, but I saw the videos of her performing and she's dancing with her dancers. And she's got on like a suit and some pants and she's up there doing her thing and she's just dancing. She was not twerking, but people were like, Oh, look at her shaking her butt at a rally.

This is so, this is just setting black people, but this is setting black women back hundreds of years. And I thought, is it that easy? Is it that fucking easy? To put black women back into the 1800s, all you got to do is get one of us to dance on stage and somebody doesn't like it and suddenly we're, we're being set back.

I mean, come on, come on. It is, it, it makes no sense. [00:07:00] But I, I've done an episode about this before, about respectability politics. It was in season one. No, it was in season two, season two about respectability politics and how it's going to be the death of us in the black community. And it really is. We're so concerned with how we look to other people, but not only how we look to other people as in other races of people, but how we look to the, uh, Elites, the black elites, the ones who don't like to associate with the lower classes of blacks, how we look to them and how we look to white people, that anytime we do something, it has to be measured against whether white people will approve.

This is why they don't take us seriously. And I have to ask, who is us? And of course they're talking about white people. This is why we don't get invited anywhere, anywhere, where Megan, the stallion has a fucking, she had a sold out world tour. She's been invited places. VP [00:08:00] Harris, she's the Vice President.

Who is, who's not inviting us anywhere? It's this imaginary, this is all in your head. It's all in your head that you think we have to act a certain way and be a certain way to be accepted by anyone but ourselves. Your opinion of yourself is the only opinion that you should care about first and foremost.

First and foremost, but I understand when you're in a position of power, you have to be concerned with what people think about your actions. So people were treating this as if this is, should be some kind of condemnation of VP Harris. And I've said it before and I'll say it again. There are real reasons, real, real ones, not ones you've made up in your head, but real reasons.

To criticize VP Harris, having Meg Thee Stallion on stage at a rally is not. If you didn't like it, you didn't like it. You obviously were not the target demographic. She's in Atlanta, which is like black Hollywood, [00:09:00] really. But also, there are a lot of young people who listen to Meg Thee Stallion, gay people who love Meg Thee Stallion, who are at this rally.

They knew their target audience. That's one, one thing about her team. They know their target audience and they will play to that. They will have a performer that speaks to the people at every single rally. Meg, the stallion to have at a political rally is a big deal. First of all, that's just how huge she is, right?

Whether you like her or not, she's huge. And I, um, I was on Instagram and I was just scrolling through and this Muslim she went off about how, why would you have Meg the Stallion at a political rally and you're running for president, you're a woman who's running for president, you shouldn't have this kind of thing at your rally.

And I said, honey, You're you weren't the target. She wasn't trying to get [00:10:00] you on her side. First of all, She was trying to appeal to a different group of people. If it in no offense to you, But we're not the ones she's trying to appeal to, okay? She knows Who she wanted to see this performance and they saw it and they were fine with it They were okay with it, right?

But even if they weren't who cares it's just somebody performing at a rally Whether you're going to vote for BP Harris or not. It's still up to you But you don't get to use this performance as an indictment against an entire group of people, entire group of women, black women. Suddenly we're supposed to, Oh, black women shouldn't be acting like that.

Why are black women always getting on stage and they're shaking their butts? What are we supposed to do? We can do whatever we want. We can do whatever we want. When do we reach the conclusion that we can do whatever the fuck we want? When was [00:11:00] the last time you let somebody stop you from doing something?

Nobody stops me from doing anything. And you know why? Because I'm free. My only bounds because I'm Muslim my bounds are religious bounds. That's what that's that's where I say Okay, this is not something I should be doing like breakdancing at the Olympics This is not something I should be doing but people do whatever they want But it's because black women do whatever we want.

It's the problem. That's the problem. That is the problem, right? the the the the the naysayers and the contrarians You of our community have been trying to stop black women from doing whatever the hell they want since probably the 1900s, the early 1900s, when we had to go to work to support our families because our men were being shipped off to war or they were being put in chain gangs.

They were being sent to prison or they were being murdered by police. [00:12:00] Our sons and our husbands and our fathers were being killed and we had to go to work. People have been trying to stop black women from advancing, from getting the top spot from being, you know, Beyonce level famous from being, uh, you know, Congresswoman famous, Senator famous, CEO, famous, entrepreneur famous.

A lot more black women are becoming entrepreneurs now because it's easier to be a black woman when you work for yourself. As opposed to when you go out into, uh, corporate America and you're working under white people and you're working in an environment where people are not accepting of you because you are black.

Yes, these, these situations still exist. People don't take you seriously. People don't respect your authority when you're a manager. I saw this, uh, this post once it was a tweet [00:13:00] and the, the woman said, uh, I don't care what kind of job I get just as long as I don't have a black woman as a boss. And then the comments under it was like, yup, yup, girl.

I don't want a black woman as a boss. No, they are the worst. Oh, the absolute work. And I'm like, what the fuck is wrong with y'all? What the black women are out there giving other black women jobs. Every fucking day. We're entrepreneurs and we're spreading the wealth around our community. If you don't want to work for a black woman, what is your problem?

What is your problem? Because we're getting the jobs. We're starting the businesses. We're getting the jobs. We're making supervisor and manager and, and owner. We're owning things and you're saying you don't want to work for a black woman because why? Oh, because they have such attitudes. And if you work for a white man, a white man will let you get away with things.

Listen to yourselves. You sound fucking dumb. I might cuss a lot during this episode, by the way,[00:14:00]

cause I'm going off the rails. I might cuss a lot. I'm like, why, why are people always turning on us? Not that I care. Hey, go, go ahead. When black women are still going to advance, we're still going to do our thing. We're still, we're still going to have what we have, but why the bleep are you all always turning on us?

There's always this black women have to act just so we have to be professional all the time. We have to be professional all the time. for people to accept us. We have to be, you know, your skirt has to come below your knees and you have to be wearing a nice pair of professional heels and your hair has to be tied up in a bun.

You can't be wearing one of those weaves or wigs. You can't, you can't wear a weave period because then people will talk about how that's not your real hair. Nevermind [00:15:00] that white men, women wear weaves and wigs all the time. Nevermind that if you want to wear a wig or weave, that's your fricking business.

Who, why do you care? Why do you care? It's just another thing that people use to try to de demean and put black women in their, in their place. I'm using quotations, their place and you can't wear, you know, uh, fake nails and you can't wear a lot of makeup. You can't wear false eyelashes. You can't, you know, you can't be doing anything that makes you stand out.

But then you also have to be soft. You have to speak softly and you have to bat your eyelashes and you have to talk like this. You can't, you can't talk like this. I kind of have a deep voice, so I, you know, I don't know how to speak softly. If I [00:16:00] speak softly, I sound ridiculous. I sound ridiculous. But you also have to be, oh, I don't know how to do this.

Can someone show me? Can someone help me? I need a man to help me with everything. Oh, look at her. She don't need no man. How many times do I have to be told? Ayanna, look at you. You don't need no man. Listen, I tried it. I tried it. The man didn't need me. It's what happened. A lot of what I do is out of necessity.

Because I have to do it. I have the house and the kids. There's nobody else around here to take care of my house and my kids. So yeah, I'm doing it without a man. Because ain't no man here. You think if a man came up to me and said Hey, let's do this together, I would be like No! Well, first of all, we would have to be compatible, sir.

But, I If there was somebody who wanted to do this with me to be my partner, I'd be like, Fuck yes! You know how [00:17:00] hard it is to do this? You know how hard it is to maintain a home on your own? I've had to learn how to do gardening, plumbing, electrical work. I had to learn how to use a freaking pole saw to chop down trees.

I've never done that before in my life. And of course, I could pay someone to do it, but I'm also not rich.

But the fact that I know how to do all of these things should not be something that people look at and go, well, then she doesn't need a man if she can do all of that. Human beings should know how to do things. If you're on earth, why is it that you don't know how to take care of yourself and your house and your kids?

And you, why do you think you should know how to do stuff? Are we, have we passed the point where people should know how to do things? You could just pay someone to do it, Ayana. Just pay someone, pay someone, pay someone. I could do it myself also. I could do it [00:18:00] myself also. And I do. I do my own lawn care. My yard looks very nice, by the way.

By the way, mashallah. Did I pay someone to do it before? Yeah. And they fucked it up. I brought it back. I could pay somebody to do a lot of things. I prefer it because I enjoy working with my hands. I like working with my voice too. I enjoy reading if anyone's interested, but telling a woman because she does a lot of things and because she owns, you know, property.

That she doesn't need a man, or she's being manly, man ish. Using this as some kind of indictment against her, and then against an entire group of people is ridiculous. You sound stupid. It's asinine. It's asinine. You have to look at the person and wonder, how did they end up in this situation? [00:19:00] A lot of us end up in these situations out of necessity, and then a lot of it because, becomes, because there, we don't, we don't want to be bothered with trying to find acceptance outside of ourselves.

And so we just do for ourselves. We do for ourselves. We take care of ourselves. We do for ourselves. And the only acceptance and love we seek is our own self acceptance and self love. And that bothers the fuck out of people. The reason that Meg Thee Stallion can get up on stage and dance and do whatever she does is because she doesn't give not one scintilla, not one ounce of an F U C K about the opinions of other people.

You have to be Strongly confident to get on stage and dance and perform day in, day out because people are going to hate you for it. And the fact that [00:20:00] you get up and do it every day anyway, says a lot about you. There are a lot of people who are stopped from doing what they love, what makes them happy because of the opinions of other people, because of what other people think about what they do.

Think about how they dress. Think about how they talk. You think I would still be doing this? This podcast, if I cared what people thought about what I say and how I speak as a Muslim woman, and I've had all the opinions. Oh, Ayanna, why are you saying that? Ayanna, why do you talk like that? I can't believe you do that.

I, I, I, I never thought that you, oh my God, you, Ayanna, wha, wha, la, la, la, la. Worry about yourself. Don't worry about me. I'm fine. Look, I'm fine. Worry about yourself. I own my soul. You own yours. Well, that's debatable. Worry about yourself. You're so worried about what [00:21:00] other people are doing. That now it's become some kind of, um, litmus test for their worthiness.

Is Meg Thee Stallion worthy of being, uh, listened to or taken seriously because of how she dresses in her songs? Is VP Harris worthy of being president because she had Meg Thee Stallion dancing on stage at a rally? Are the questions people are asking themselves now, it's asinine, it's asinine. You obviously are not taking things seriously if that is where your focus is.

 And I get the opinions too. I get the opinions about the things that I say as a Muslim woman. My goodness gracious, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy. And I don't even argue with people anymore. I used to, it used to matter to me so much what people thought about me to the point that [00:22:00] I could not be myself to the point where I was masking my real self.

because I cared so much about what other people thought about me and I want it to be the, the, what do they call it? The consummate, the, the quintessential, the ideal Muslim woman. I want it to be accepted. So I thought that I should make myself the ideal Muslim woman and mimic what other people were saying and doing, because that's the only way that I would be accepted.

And then you get out into a world of other people, other personalities, other faces of that. You go other places and you see people being themselves and they're happy and you're not being yourself and you're unhappy and you think to yourself, wow, maybe there's something to that. Or you get to a point in your life where it's really hard to continue to mask who you really are and you don't want to do it anymore.

And you let go of it. You learn to love yourself. [00:23:00] You drop the mask, you let go of it. You be who you are and let the chips fall where the fuck they may.

The opinions of other people about what you do and who you are do not matter. They don't matter. They don't matter. That's one of my mantras. That is one of my mantras because everybody has something to say all the time. All the time. There are certain people I do not talk to any more. Okay. Because every time I would say something to them about something I was doing or something I had said they always have a Fucking opinion that's negative and I don't want to hear it I don't want to hear it.

And so because you're not going to stop doing that. I'm going to stop interacting with you period period There are people who I would, you know, just run to tell my accomplishments to [00:24:00] and it was always something negative Why are you doing that? Who told you you could do that? Where'd you learn how to do that?

What makes you think you can do that? You'll never be successful. I've had people tell me, you know You'll never get a sponsor for your show You'll never get anybody to collaborate with you because your opinions are so strong and your opinions are this and your opinions are that I don't give not one fuck.

I still do my show. You know why? Because I don't need, I don't need anybody else. Nobody, you don't need anybody to do a podcast. First of all, all you need is a microphone and some recording software. If you want to grow your brand, grow your, you know, your podcast, you might have to, uh, branch out, reach out to people, sell yourself a little bit.

That's fine. And if people want to work with you, collaborate with you, that is also fine. But if they don't, you will be okay. [00:25:00] I never got into this to, to make money. I got into this because I have a unique voice, I believe unique opinions, and I wanted to share them, my ability to analyze information, my ability to tell a story, my ability to talk about things.

to bring certain issues to the masses. I feel that I am, uh, uh, uh, very intelligent and smart, mashallah. And I wanted to share this with people. I wanted to bring people's attention to certain things. I wanted to open people's eyes. And maybe I've done that with only five people or 10 or 20, really, if I've reached one person, Alhamdulillah, that is enough.

I'm not like some people who, you know, have to put on every single day. They have to perform every day to keep their, their brand growing to keep, you know, their partnerships going and whatnot. I'm not one of [00:26:00] those people. I actually have a full time job. As an attorney, I've been an attorney for, uh, what year is this?

I've been an attorney for over 20 years, 21 years, in fact. So I could walk away from this today and not care and go do something else. As a matter of fact, because I have ADHD, I'm probably, this is probably, uh, the longest that I've kept any hobby in my life. I used to write poetry. I used to write short stories.

I used to do poetry performances. I used to do a whole bunch of stuff that I no longer do because I get bored.

And people are always like, Oh, you can make money doing this. You can make money doing this. And me knowing my short attention span, I'm like, yeah, sure. Okay. Okay. All right. But I say things and I talk about things and I give my opinion on things and I open up [00:27:00] to people about things that you normally would not hear a Muslim woman or a black woman talk about.

I thought I was going against the grain because I don't on this podcast, I don't talk about gossip shit. And I don't talk about relationships, except maybe every once in a while, I'll do an episode on, you know, I think it was at season one when I did an episode on how to have, how to fight fairly or something.

But I don't talk about relationships and marriage and there are some people who build their entire brand on that and that's fine for them. But I don't want to do that because that is not my entire life. I have been married and divorced. I've been in relationships. I have kids. I'm a single mom. I'm all these things.

I'm not going to focus on one thing because Where I operate at, I feel like my life is affected by a bunch of different factors and I want to talk about all of that stuff. I want to talk about economics and politics, and I want to talk [00:28:00] about technology and health and mental health, physical health, and I want to talk about race and discrimination, and I want to talk about self love, and I want to talk about, you know, um, parenting, and I want to talk about all of these things, and I'm going to, and I have, and I do.

But if I kept myself in that little box that people want to put me in, I would not be able to do any of this. I would not be able to do any of this. And if VP Harris kept herself in that little box that people think black women belong in, Meg Thee Stallion kept herself in that little box that people think black women belong in, they wouldn't do any of the things that they do.

We wouldn't benefit from any of the things. That they have given to society for better or worse. Somebody is benefiting. Somebody is happy with it. Somebody needs it. Somebody wants it. It has fulfilled someone somewhere. And it's because they, they are not afraid, they are [00:29:00] unabashed, unabashed. And that is me too.

Don't put black women in a box. Don't do it. Don't put the respectability politics and the class condescension on us. Don't do that. There are people who straight up believe that it is their mission to put black women in their place. You will never succeed.

You have not succeeded. Your little opinions have done nothing except make you look like a fool. You have no power. You don't actually do anything except give these goofy ass opinions on the internet. There are people who talk shit about black women and their mother is black their aunties are black their grandma's black Daughters are black and they have the nastiest opinion about black women Nasty low opinions of black women.

How do you live with yourself? How do you face the women in your life every day knowing that you think of them [00:30:00] as being some? you know Uncontrollable beast.

I've had it. I've had it with all these people. I don't, I don't communicate with these people. I don't interact with these people. I don't pay them any attention whatsoever. These people have the same opinions that black women have been combating since the freaking 1950s and forties. Oh, you shouldn't wear your hair like that.

Oh, your skirt's not long enough. Oh, look at you going to the club at night. People, what are people going to say? Oh, look at you with a man you're not married to. What are people going to say? Oh, look at you and what you're, you're saying. What are people going to say? What are people going to think? You're bringing shame to your family and your community.

Why do women have to uphold the honor of society all the goddamn time?

If you're depending on us, Oh honey, please prepare for the [00:31:00] collapse because many of us do not give a fuck about upholding your society. It's not our job. It's not our job. It's not our job to make you feel good about anything. It's not our job to make you feel good about us. It's not our job to fulfill you.

Our job is to be whatever we want to be, whatever we want to be.

There's this woman who, who does, uh, this very beautiful, I don't know if she's black. She looks like she's, she's probably black woman who does the traditional wife thing. And she makes everything from homemade for her husband. And she has a very, I think her name is Yara, Nara, something like that. And people make fun of her.

And all I can think about if that's, if that's what the fuck she wants to do with her life, who cares? She wants to be a stay at home mom, content creator, make everything from, uh, homemade [00:32:00] from scratch and have babies and, and just cook and clean. Go ahead, ma'am. Go right ahead. That, that is what feminism is about, right?

Right? That's what feminism is about. Letting women decide what they want to do. Letting women choose what they want to do. And if they choose this, The traditional thing, or they want to go work outside of the home, or they don't want to get married, or they don't want to have kids, fine. Absolutely fine.

It's okay. I'm not going to make fun of you either way. If that's the life that you choose for yourself, mashallah. Have it.

Women get made fun of for being fully clothed. We get make fun of for taking our clothes off. Ask me how I know. As a woman who wears hijab, [00:33:00] who dresses modestly, people ask me, Are you hot in that? Why you got that thing on your head since I was a little girl? But then if you take your clothes off, Oh, look at the way you dressed!

Why you dress like that? People are gonna say whatever the fuck they want anyway. So dress how the hell you want. It doesn't even matter. People are gonna talk anyway. People are gonna talk anyway. Anyway! People will find fault with you for any reason, no reason. You could just be sitting somewhere and somebody will decide that it bothers them.

Black women get dinged all the time just for fucking breathing, for being alive, for existing. But this is why I love us because we are resilient. We're resilient. Men could in fact, learn something from women, black women. You can learn something. I'm just saying. [00:34:00] And another thing, this is totally unrelated to what I was just talking.

But this is something that's also been kicked up from VP Harris, entering the presidential race now. But this is something that I've been thinking about for a minute. I know I've done a lot of episodes on the genocide in Gaza and the relentless onslaught of terror and murder from Israel on the Palestinian people.

At some point I decided I had to focus on the domestic issues, the issues that my people are dealing with. In my community, in my state, in my city, in my county, in my country, and that was a problem. Yeah, some people were upset about that. You're not talking about Palestine anymore? You're voting in the election?

The other day, somebody told me that I was upholding white supremacy by [00:35:00] voting.

And I, I, I mean, I've been called an anti Semite, and now I'm upholding white supremacy. It's incredible. I'm an incredible person. I didn't realize I could do it all. I am the real wonder woman. How I could be upholding white supremacy and be anti Semitic at the same time. Oh, I'm amazing.

It's ridiculous because I want to focus on what's going on at home because I even want to talk about the presidential race . I did a whole episode about why Muslims may not be voting for Biden and Harris. Whole episode last December, December, 2023. I'm recording this on August 10th, 2024, by the way. If you don't want to vote for those people, don't vote for them.

But there's something else that a lot of us have to consider. I have to consider myself. I work in public service. I have to [00:36:00] consider who I would want to run the government that I work for, who I would want to run the government that I work for. I have to consider these things. And then I have to think about local races.

I have to think about property taxes. I have to think about the schools that my kids go to. I have to think about the judges that are being elected in my state. You know, the Ohio Supreme court is choosing three justices in the state of Ohio. Judges are elected. They are not appointed. This is state and local judges, by the way, not the, uh, the federal ones, not the district court ones.

They are elected. We vote for judges every election cycle, every election cycle. There are judges on the freaking ballots. There are issues. There are judges. There are mayors. There are state representatives. There [00:37:00] are house representatives, national. There's a Senate race. I have to think about all of this, not just because I work in public service, but because I am a participant in this constitutional democracy.

It is the people who uphold this land. If not for the people, this land would collapse. Absolutely. That's how a constitutional democracy works. It's up, it's upheld by the people. And a lot of power is being given to people who, um, look like the palm of your hand

because the other people, the blacks, the Latinos, the Asians, they're not voting at least where I live at. They're not voting unless it's a presidential, a presidential election year. Really? [00:38:00] They're not showing up to the primaries. They're not showing up to these congressional races. They're not voting in the mayor races.

They're not choosing the judges. Most of the people who vote where I live at are. Older, like probably 60 and older white people, they are the ones who are voting consistently in every election, in the primaries, every election year, in the general election and in the primaries, white people, older white people are showing up to vote.

And on TV, I have YouTube, I have YouTube TV, by the way, I've seen political ads only for the Senate race,

only for the Senate race. Meanwhile, we are choosing judges. In the state of Ohio, some places are choosing a mayor, some places are choosing state representatives. [00:39:00] I haven't seen any of these commercials. I haven't seen any of these ads. I haven't seen any of it on social media either. Why are, uh, the democratic party, the Republican party, why are you people not reaching the masses, the voting masses?

Where they are consuming media. I understand that the mainstream media is pushing the presidential race, they're pushing it hard because that's where their bread and butter is, that's where they make the most money talking about Trump and Harris, talking about Trump and Harris every damn day, covering their rallies, covering all the dumb shit that they say every day, covering their vice presidents, you know what these people eat for lunch, reading off their resume.

They'll just sit there and read the fucking resumes of these people every day. Win it. In your own communities, there are real issues, real issues that are going to be on that ballot in November and you're not hearing about it, [00:40:00] you don't know anything about it because the information is not reaching you.

But in my case, the information has reached me because I look at things. I look, I go to, go to Ballotpedia, by the way, Ballotpedia. com and go to your state. They'll show you what races are going on in your state. They'll even show you what races are going on in your County and your city. But I knew what races were going on because I voted in the primary.

I always vote in the primary. I vote in the general election. I vote in the primary. But this time around, it's a problem because of the genocide in Gaza. Because of all the revelations of people suddenly realizing that the U. S. government has been giving billions and billions and billions and trillions of dollars to Israel, money in arms, since the 1960s,

people have [00:41:00] finally realized that they've been voting for candidates who have been, you know, giving money to Israel, who have been carpet bombing, uh, Muslim countries and, and killing people who look like them. Suddenly people are aware. They're like, Oh no, you don't vote. Don't vote for them. Don't vote in this election.

Don't do this. Don't did it. Did it vote for this candidate because they said that they're not going to, uh, give any more money to Israel. First of all, first of all, Congress, the house and the Senate are the ones who approve these bills that the president then signs so that so and so can have money. So that our allies can have money

so you saying vote this person for president. You're really focusing on the wrong motherfucker Okay, you [00:42:00] need to be focusing on the representatives and Kong in the house and the Senate the senators You need to be focusing on that, but I don't hear people talking about that. I don't hear people talking about it I do not hear people talking about it.

That is where the money is coming from

But you all, you protestors, who I love, by the way, I love the work that you're doing. But you're getting on my goddamn nerves. I have to say it. You're on my nerves. The moment somebody told me that I was upholding white supremacy because I was defending BP Harris against attacks on her gender and her race is the moment I knew you motherfuckers cannot be serious.

 You have lost your minds. I saw the videos where the protesters, when she was, uh, when VP Harris was in Michigan [00:43:00] and Detroit at a rally and they were heckling her and it became this big deal because she shouted back at them, you know, let me speak as she is known to say, critiquing politicians is absolutely fine. You want to heckle them?

Ayana: Absolutely fine. You want to get in their face and demand that they do this so that they work for you. Absolutely. Disturb the peace. Absolutely. My problem with you people is that you do not keep that same energy for these other motherfuckers who really are behind all of this money that's going to Israel.

There are people running for the House. You don't heckle them. You don't get in their face. There are people running for the Senate. You don't heckle them. You don't get in their face. There's an entire party of people who you all do [00:44:00] not confront. At all,

who are running a president candidate, who are running Senate candidates, who are running House representative candidates, all poised to send money to Israel, who have all sent money to Israel, who have all said, we're going to continue to send money to Israel, who when Netanyahu came to speak to the House of Representatives, were standing up and cheering for him when he spoke.

You all are not heckling them. Thank you very much. You're not heckling them. You're not getting in their face. You're not saying to them, Hey, you're wrong. You need to stop. Don't do this. And yeah, you need to give them that same energy. Yeah, yeah, absolutely do. Because they are as responsible as the people on the left, the people on the red side are just as [00:45:00] responsible, just as responsible.

I don't see them getting the smoke that you're giving to the Democrats. I don't see you giving it to them. And even when people have suggested it, I've suggested it on my Twitter. I've talked about it many times. What's the response that we get? Well, you can't expect marginalized people to go over to Republican rallies.

And be safe. But then when I look at these Republican rallies, I see marginalized people in these fucking rallies! They're already there! And I know Muslims, I know Muslims, Arabs too, who are full blooded Republican voting for Trump, voted for Trump in the last two elections, by the way. And Donald Trump has sworn his allegiance to Israel, but you all are not giving these people the same smoke that you give to [00:46:00] Harris and the Democrats.

It's always whatever's easiest, right? It's always whatever's easiest. And they're saying, oh, it's because, uh, the people who are, are doing the heckling, it's because they're not gonna, they're not worried about the Republicans because people aren't people who are supporting Palestine. They're not going to be worried about that.

They're not voting for that. It's a lie. It's a lie. It's a lie. It's a lie. And you're fooling yourselves. You're fooling yourselves. You only do this to Harris and the Democrats because it's easy. It's easy because you know, maybe we can get these liberals to feel sorry for us. There's no way we could get Republicans to feel sorry for us.

Have you tried? You haven't even tried. You haven't even tried. You have not [00:47:00] tried.

You haven't tried,

but I'm supposed to feel bad because I care about domestic issues. You want me to feel bad? Fine. I feel bad I feel terrible every day. This dread I feel it because the world is on fire The world sucks and I have to work every day except Sunday.

Sometimes I work Saturday.

So yeah, I feel bad I feel bad for people. I feel Empathy sympathy commiserate. I, I, I relate,

but I, I feel the most for myself. I feel the most for myself. I have [00:48:00] to live with myself. Absolutely. I have to live with my choices. I have to live with my decisions. I have to live with the things that I say,

but I also have to think about my community, my community, my local ass community. I have to think about the people I work with. I have to think about my neighbors. My neighbors, I get to think about my neighbors. I get to look, I get to think about the people who live in my house. I get to think about my neighbors.

I get to think about the people who live in other countries. But I also get to take care of home, too. I'm entitled to. I have to. This country runs on people. It runs on people participating in, in, in civics, civic participation. That's what it runs on. It runs on people voting and [00:49:00] participating in their legislator, in their legislature.

It runs on people participating in their government. And I've had this talk with people so many times, so many times, there's a difference between politics and government. There is a difference between politics and government. A lot of people get their panties in a bunch, get their, you know, acid churned up in their stomach about politics and they forget that there's an entire whole ass government

that we're choosing who's going to run this government, the government that serves people every day, that there's a natural disaster.

When you need a passport, when you need disability benefits, when you need to bring your foreign spouse to the U. S., when you want to travel abroad, when you've been discriminated against, when you need a [00:50:00] small business loan, when you need aid for your farm,

when the state that you live in has denied you clean water because you're black,

when someone you love has been killed by police,

when drugs are being swept through the country,

when there's a tornado, when there's a hurricane, when there's, when there are fires.

There's a government that shows up for people every fucking time, every time. There's a government you appeal to. There's a government you walk into the doors and you want to go talk to somebody. You want to write a letter to somebody. You want somebody to know what's going on. You want somebody to investigate something.

You want somebody to make a law that's going to change the course [00:51:00] of your life for the better. There's a government that you appeal to, that you ask for help. Forget about politics, there is a government that we have to think about that is running this country for better or worse. But when you need help, you appeal to that government.

When you need something, you appeal to that government and people will say, Oh, because that's the way the system is set up. Yes, the system is set up to serve people.

The system serves people. It runs on people.

They got agencies, offices to do every freaking thing. When you need housing assistance, when you need food assistance, when you need cash assistance, where do you guys think that money comes from for SNAP? It comes from the federal government.

Those housing vouchers, that comes from the federal [00:52:00] government.

There's an entire government that has to be run and who is in charge matters greatly about how you get served and about the rules that are used to serve the public. Who is in charge matters. When you need assistance from the federal government, who is in charge matters because then these people appoint secretaries and commissioners and those people set rules for these agencies and for the people who work for them and who is in charge matters greatly.

And people don't think about that. You're not thinking, you're not thinking, you're not separating your politics from the practical everyday shit. The things that are affecting you day to day, the things that are affecting you right now. As a U. S. citizen [00:53:00] present on the soil of the United States, what is affecting you right now?

Did you drive over a pothole on your way to work?

To fix highways, it comes from the federal government. Mostly. It also comes from the state. The state gets money from the federal government to fix bridges, the federal government, to fix dams, the federal government.

Cities invest in renewable energy sources so that they can have another way to collect tax money so that they can provide for the people of their city. I saw this story the other day. People are upset about windmills, about the, uh, the wind farming. People don't want to look at windmills on their horizon.

When they look out of their windows, they want to see just flat earth or mountains or clouds or whatever the fuck. And they're [00:54:00] upset. They don't want to look at windmills, but these renewable energy sources are paying for schools. They're paying for road repairs. They're paying for projects that cities need.

Cities are collecting boo coo tax money

from these wind farms, from these solar farms. Boo coo tax money, and people are upset they don't want to see solar panels. Where are you going to put them? Why do I have to look at this? People are upset and they don't understand that this is helping them. But see, this is what I'm talking about. You have to know things.

You have to know things, not just about politics, but about government. What is your city running on? Tax. Revenue. Where is it coming from? Businesses. [00:55:00] It's coming from consumers, residents, tourists. When people complain about tourism, tourists are paying your fucking city bills, your state bills,

all of these things people don't think about because people are thinking, well, this inconveniences me, or this doesn't look pretty, or this doesn't align with my values. You're not thinking about what's running your day to day life or ruining it. For real.

My kid worked, uh, the summer at the city hall, the city that I live in. She worked for the summer at the city hall. And she said every day, mommy, somebody came in complaining about something. And I thought to myself, why would they go to city hall to complain about that? But that is where people go. But why is there a city hall that you can even [00:56:00] complain to that's government.

 Wouldn't you rather have somebody in charge who makes some fucking sense?

Who people trust?

Who people can count on? If that bothers you, I don't, I don't know what to say. I don't know what to tell you.

I've worked under an idiot in government. I have. Absolutely, it was awful. And we've had lean times in government. Leadership matters. Leadership matters. You have to be able to trust the person who's leading you. You have to be able to believe that they care about you.

They have to show you that they care about you, care about the people there they're leading, but also care about the people that they're serving. Remember, public service, these people are elected and some people only care about their pockets, honey. Real and true. [00:57:00] Honestly, truly, they only care about their pockets.

And because you're not voting. Or because you're voting for an idiot and a liar, the wrong people are getting into office. People who do not care about people.

People who don't care about people.

 But people want everything to be the way that it was when their grandparents were alive. And my grandfather could get out of the service and he could go get a house and that house, he only had to pay a hundred dollars a month.

People want everything to be the same. They don't want to evolve. They don't want to acknowledge that times are different. They don't want to acknowledge that people are different. Even young people are different. Protesting is different. Things are different. I [00:58:00] had this conversation with someone online the other day and they were saying, you know, uh, the way people are protesting now and the things that they're protesting about aren't, aren't very different from the civil rights protests.

Times aren't very different. Times are the same. Everything's the same. And I said, you got to be kidding me. You're, you're having this conversation on a social media platform that no one even contemplated 60 years ago. What are you talking about? People have different ways of communicating now that no one contemplated back when they were just inventing the telephone.

People are different, especially black people. We had the benefit of, uh, standing on the shoulders of some pretty tough people. Civil rights leaders and icons, people who had to literally get their ass beat to go to work. [00:59:00] People who had to, to push, to fight, to be able to do what they want to do so that this generation, us, our kids could do what they wanted to do with their lives.

We have the benefit of their struggle. We have the benefit of their fight. So yeah, times are different because we're not coming from, uh, as behind as we were. In the 1800s and the 1900s,

the main group had a pretty big lead over us and they made sure that lead was widened every time we tried to achieve something. They made sure their lead was widened by passing laws that ensured discrimination against us. Now we have all of these protections. We have all of these ways to achieve without fear.

So yeah, times are different. People are [01:00:00] different. People are built differently.

Are some things still similar? Absolutely. But times are different. Technology is different. Engineering is different. Math is different. Even good Lord. They don't even teach math the same as they did when I was growing up.

They don't even teach, uh, cursive writing anymore. They teach computers. Computers are in classrooms, sometimes as young as age five, in kindergarten. I didn't see a computer until I was in, in high school. A very long time ago. People are different. They're getting technology a lot earlier in life. They're getting online.

They're seeing things online.

People are different. People are different. And it's okay. It's okay that society has changed. It's okay that times are different. We are meant to evolve. Oh, I [01:01:00] forgot people don't believe in evolution. Sorry.

If you want to, if you want it to be how it was in the 1940s, I mean, I don't know why it wasn't easy for a lot of people in case you didn't. I know they don't let you guys read books anymore in school, but there was a world war. I just finished a book called a different mirror. Awesome book by the author's name is Ronald Takaki.

 And it's all about the history of multiculturalism in the United States. Okay. And he talks about all of the different groups that make up the supposed melting pot of the United States. The melting pot is really just homogeneity white, but he talks about Blacks, Mexicans, uh, indigenous people, [01:02:00] Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese.

He talks about Sikhs, Indians. I mean, he talks about Irish and Italian. He talks about all of these different groups and how they came to the U S what their experience was in the U S individually. But also as, as part of trying to merge into popular, into popular society, into the main society, into white culture, essentially, and how many of them were vying for white approval.

That's what they were doing the whole time they were vying for white approval, because if they had that approval, that means that they were accepted and they had power. And this kind of attitude remains today. People are still seeking white approval. And I'm listening, I, I, I, I'm reading all about this and I'm listening and I'm, and [01:03:00] The author's talking about all of these, the richness of all of these cultures and peoples and group and, and their food and their, their language and their, their dress.

And it's unique and wonderful. It's just all of these different flavors. Why would you just want to be like white people? He even talks about Jewish people and how they were seeking of, of white acceptance. And how they faced treacherous discrimination, treacherous,

by a very popular university, Harvard. There were so many Jewish people getting into Harvard and they were doing well and they were high achieving and it bothered the whites. And so the president of Harvard came up with a plan to make sure that there weren't as many Jews getting into Harvard and it worked.

But it also brings to mind why a lot of these, a lot of cultural groups, a lot of different [01:04:00] groups, we see them living together in one neighborhood or one city. We see them corralled together because really that's where they were put when they first came to the U S and a lot of them never made it out of that area because they weren't allowed.

They weren't allowed to participate in the larger society. They were kept out by discrimination, by racism, but then they still wanted the approval of these people of the larger society of white society. They still wanted the approval. Blacks knew it best. Blacks knew it worst,

but we just wanted to be free. But now it's gone from we're free to we're still seeking white acceptance. But then we're giving white people all the power because we're not showing up to [01:05:00] vote in these elections. We have all of these negative nasty attitudes about civic participation in voting and about each other that it's keeping us from seeing the heights that we could see if we would just let go of the need to be approved of the need to be accepted.

If we would just get our opinions up off of each other, please. It's like a herpes sore.

Let people have their lives, their opinions, their things, their whatever it is they want. And listen, hey, if you don't want to vote, if you don't want to vote, hey, do whatever you want. Don't want to vote? Fine. But understand what you're giving up, the power you're giving up by not voting. Understand the power you're giving up [01:06:00] by not investigating what's going on in your government and seeing what you can do to make it better.

Understand what you're giving up by failing to be a part of this constitutional democracy, by failing to participate in it. You're still being taxed. I don't know about you, but I'm not letting somebody tax me and I'm not saying anything about it. I'm not letting somebody tax me and I'm not giving them a referendum on the job that they're doing and that referendum is my vote.

I'm not living under someone's laws and then I also don't get to tell you what I think about those laws. I

have a voice, I have a face, I have a name, I have a voice and I'm going to use all of them however I want, whenever I want. And yes, there are [01:07:00] consequences for all of that, but you know what? I cannot be afraid, nor should you. If you believe you are right, then you should not be afraid. If you believe that you are right, then you should not be afraid.

And this has been Ayanna Explains It All brought to you by Facts, Figures, and Enlightenment. Take care. [01:08:00]