Who deserves and enjoys access to “America the Beautiful?” This week OBP guest host and veteran broadcast journalist Celeste Headlee interviews Baratunde Thurston, writer, activist and host of the new six-part PBS series, America Outdoors, about the new series and how we can collectively increase diversity in outdoor recreation and lean into more sustainable practices in nature. Then in the weekly segment, Sippin’ the Political Tea, Farai speaks to Washington Post opinions columnist and OBP contributor, Karen Attiah and public defender for Legal Aid Society of New York and political commentator, Olayemi Olurin about the latest news in the Jan 6 Committee hearings, President Biden’s alleged tactics to address high gas prices, and the controversy around Senator Tiara Mack twerking on Tik Tok.
Farai Chideya:
Hi folks. We are so glad that you're listening to Our Body Politic. If you have time, please consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcast. It helps other listeners find us, and we read them for your feedback. We're here for you, with you, and because of you. Thank you.
Farai Chideya:
This is Our Body Politic. I'm Farai Chideya. It's called The Nature Gap, the lack of diversity in outdoor recreation. Studies show that people of color are less likely to participate in activities like hiking, camping, or surfing. A 2018 survey of National Parks showed that less than 2% of visitors are black, despite being 12.4% of the American population. This lack of diversity largely stems from layers of historic discrimination that make it harder for people of color to access natural spaces. Plus, the very land we call America is scarred with the history of colonization and overuse of resources.
Farai Chideya:
Can we bring diversity and sustainable practices to our great outdoors? Baratunde Thurston, writer, activist, and podcaster is lacing up his boots and strapping on his snorkel gear to visit some extraordinary landscapes on the new PBS show America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston, which premiered on July 5th. I'm someone who was lucky to be raised camping, exploring state parks, fishing, and crabbing. Later in life, I joined Outdoor Afro to find other black folks interested in the outdoors, so we were delighted that our guest host, author, and veteran broadcast journalist, Celeste Headlee was able to interview Baratunde Thurston. Enjoy.
Celeste Headlee:
Before we launch into details about the show, I read in one interview where you said you think it should be America comma Outdoors.
Baratunde Thurston:
I did say that.
Celeste Headlee:
Why?
Baratunde Thurston:
I was feeling pretty clever at the moment.
Celeste Headlee:
It's clever. What does that mean?
Baratunde Thurston:
It means that, even I underestimated the degree to which this show is focused on people and not necessarily close up, slow motion of animals or sweeping drone shots of amazing topography. It's got a little bit of both of those, but it's really about Americans and all of us, from the eldest indigenous Americans to the newest refugee immigrants, and everyone in between, and what we have in common in this series is a strong connection to the outdoors. I also said that because I've had many occasions to talk about the country, often in a remote studio somewhere, and it was cool to get outdoors and talk with people of various persuasions in America, also of various persuasions. Like, the diversity of the landscape is echoed in the people and vice versa. So, America, Outdoors. There's like a pause there that I think is the shortest way to capture the show, and I've ruined that brevity with this long explanation.
Celeste Headlee:
I think it's worthwhile though, to think about it in those terms. I wonder, there are so many nature shows. I remember with my grandparents, sitting and watching Mutual of Omaha, when I was a really little kid. There are so many shows that are about being out in nature. What kind of show were you trying to make? What was missing in this genre?
Baratunde Thurston:
I was missing. Selfishly, there's not a lot of nature shows featuring black folk. There's not a lot of nature shows featuring middle-aged black dudes, and I wanted to see myself, and thankfully I found PBS and the protection company part two. They were excited about me doing this. I grew up as a very outdoorsy, naturalist kid. I was a boy scout. I hiked around the D.C. area, biked all over the D.C., Maryland, Virginia area, and I wanted to see the country through all kinds of sizes and shapes and types of people who can be outdoorsy without necessarily, doing extreme sports or having sponsorships or having a lot of money to invest in all the gear and the travel and the special equipment that occurs to you, certainly, that occurred to me when I would hear the term outdoorsy.
Baratunde Thurston:
There was a level of accessibility that I was excited to have this show bring. It's so many dimensions like, urban folk. We did a whole episode around LA. For some people, outdoors is the backyard. For some people, outdoors is the nearest local park or beach or hillside. For other folks, it is a thousand acre ranch or the Chesapeake Bay or the Outer Banks in North Carolina, but all of that counts. I think I wanted the show to communicate that all of this counts as a connection to nature, all of this is outdoors, and we should strive to reforge that connection because a lot of us have lost it. A lot of us have been in an economy which encourages us to lose it, so there's another way to be with nature.
Celeste Headlee:
There's this stereotype that people of color don't go camping or hiking.
Baratunde Thurston:
Right.
Celeste Headlee:
But like the stereotype that black people don't know how to swim, there's a reason behind it. Many black people don't know how to swim because swimming pools are segregated and they weren't allowed, and that's the same is true of parks and the outdoors. It was 1964 when the National Parks of the United States desegregated. That's so recent.
Baratunde Thurston:
It's very recent, yeah.
Celeste Headlee:
How do you make this pitch to communities of color? Not just black communities, but also in communities... I was talking to a friend of mine who was an immigrant from India and said that the outdoors, because of British colonization, being outdoors as associated with being savage or being uncivilized. How do you make this pitch?
Baratunde Thurston:
Nature has been conscripted into some of our greatest crimes against humanity. The history of black folk in America with respect to nature and outdoors, complicated. It's the scene of the crime. It's where we were forced to labor. It's where we were tortured. It's where we were lynched. It's where we're forced to run and stripped from our families, our language, our religions, all that, the context is fields and mountains and river banks and oceans. The ocean was the last gasp of freedom for many of us, and as you pointed out, even as we paid taxes and were trying to be full members of this society that wasn't designed for us, we weren't allowed to access the resources we were subsidizing. National Parks, public parks, pools, et cetera. The trees that were involved in lynching didn't sign up for that.
Baratunde Thurston:
We are human beings. We emerge from the earth. We climbed out the ocean. That's our true home, and we all deserve a return to that more balanced state of being with nature around us, and I think a lot of the natural world could use that healing, too, because of the things it was pulled into that it didn't sign up for. It's not as simple as you've already pointed out, that black people don't like to swim. It was illegal to swim. It was illegal to read as well. It was illegal to maintain your familial ties. Questions about the black family, questions about education levels, questions about housing and outdoor access are silly if they don't take into account the context and the full history. The beauty, Celeste, is that the history doesn't have to be the end of the story.
Baratunde Thurston:
Otherwise, many of us wouldn't be here. If we just stopped with the trauma, then that would be it. In the series, I come across all kinds of people who are finding mental health benefits, financial benefits, community benefits from reconnecting to nature, whether it's just walking, growing food in the backyard, bird watching, surfing. So many folks, a big old group of black surfers in LA, BIPOC surfers in LA. It was like Wakanda on the waves, I call them. [inaudible 00:08:39] a group called Color the Water. This paralyzed man in West Virginia, who's a whitewater rafter, Eric Thompson, really opened my eyes and reminded me, these outdoors need to be for everyone and accessible to everyone, and they can be. It's not a burden. It's a great opportunity for us all. If you are a person of color and you've got some complicated feelings about hanging out outside, I feel you. I understand. And we cannot allow the abuse of that relationship to define our future relationship. We are a part of this world and this world is a part of us.
Celeste Headlee:
One of the things that comes up in the show is all the different benefits of being outdoors, even in, as you say, an urban park. The benefit of looking at a tree, not just emotional benefits, but physiological benefits, social benefits, and yet, the access to that has often been so limited, and when there has been research done of communities of color, they are so much less likely to have a tree anywhere near their living space than many other communities. What kind of advice do you have for someone who doesn't live near a park?
Baratunde Thurston:
I think very big picture. You're not alone. Find others, get together, organize, increase and build your power, and get that park. Bring it closer to you. In the shorter to middle term, work to find ways to access the closest thing to a park that's possible. That might mean trading off rides with someone, that might be swapping babysitters, it might be taking a bus or a train or both, to get somewhere, but it's almost like, hanging out in nature can be like going to the doctor without some of the complications of going to a doctor's office.
Baratunde Thurston:
I don't want to put this all on the individual person who doesn't have access. Just like, well, what you got to do is buy a car and buy a bike and get out there. You'll make it happen. Maybe. Maybe that's possible, but with other people you can, and there are a lot of groups. There are a lot of groups that help with that accessibility. I grew up in a very urban part of Washington D.C., but we were also a couple of blocks from a park, so I had kind of the best in and worst of both.
Celeste Headlee:
And it sounds like your mom took you around a lot, too.
Baratunde Thurston:
I also had a very unique, aggressive mother who was just like, "Go outside. Just go." She wasn't just telling me to do what she said. She would join, and she would organize outings with my friends, so maybe you're not that mom, you're not that dad, but you might know someone who is. My mom was that mom for the block, for me and all my little friends, there was only one Arnita, and my older sister, Belinda, she helped a lot, too. We would go on bike trips together when I was much younger, and as she and I both got older, I went whitewater rafting trip with her, mountain biking, fishing, it starts young, and the culture of not engaging in nature can be just as passed on as the culture of engaging. Find a camp, find a nonprofit group. There are a lot of programs in multiple areas across this country that are designed to get young people and grown folks out into nature.
Baratunde Thurston:
I'm thinking of Girl Trek right now, which has chapters all over the country. Basically, this walking group for black women. That's America Outdoors in a group setting, with community support, and now we've got social media. There's Outdoor Afro... Whatever you are, there's a group for you trying to get you outside. Just use your online search skills and find your people doing what you might end up loving.
Farai Chideya:
That's guest host, Celeste Headlee, talking with activist, author, and podcaster, Baratunde, from the PBS show America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston. Coming up next, more of Baratunde Thurston, host of the PBS series, America Outdoors, plus Sippin' the Political Tea with the Washington Post's, Karen Attiah, and Olayemi Olurin of The Hills Rising, on the latest from the January 6th committee and more. That's on Our Body Politic.
Farai Chideya:
Welcome back to Our Body Politic. If you're just tuning in, we're continuing a conversation between our guest host, veteran broadcaster and author, Celeste Headlee and Baratunde Thurston about his new six part PBS series, America Outdoors. Nature may not discriminate, but for many black, indigenous, and other people of color in the United States, there can be big barriers to accessing green space. Baratunde explores the communities of color, building spaces in nature, and some of the lessons from indigenous communities. Here's more from that discussion.
Celeste Headlee:
I think it's enlightening that you're recommending group activities to find your people, and I say that because I think that often, fear is what keeps people of color out of the outdoors because we see headlines even today, that tell us that people of color aren't completely safe in the outdoors. Going back as far as 1919, we see examples of Eugene Williams killed while rafting on Lake Michigan, but even Christian Cooper who was just bird watching in Central Park. We do see these examples of the fact that a person of color, either alone or in a small group, may not be safe. How do we get past that and make the outdoors safe for everybody?
Baratunde Thurston:
Brutal, honest moment, Celeste. People of color are not completely safe outdoors, nor are we completely safe indoors. We can be asleep in our homes and cops can bust down the door and just start blazing and we don't wake up. There is no absolute safety and security. There is more and there is less and there are trade offs and there is community and there's safety in different ways. I spoke with Mosi Smith about this. He was in our Death Valley episode. He is an ultra marathoner, black man from Georgia, who runs 135 mile marathons from the lowest point in North America to one of the highest. Bad Water Basin up to Mount Whitney. That's crazy, and I ask him about Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot and killed in Georgia, his home state.
Celeste Headlee:
While jogging.
Baratunde Thurston:
Jogging through a neighborhood, somebody didn't think he belonged there. He said, "I can't let the outside world define my joy." I spoke with Dudley Edmondson, who is a black bird watcher, bird listener, like Christian Cooper, and he told the story of two buddies of his who are out fishing, and somebody starts shooting at them because they don't think they belong there, just for fishing. That can happen at a 4th of July parade, too. In the celebration of this country, you can be ended. I wouldn't set that as the bar.
Baratunde Thurston:
Instead, I would say, yes, other people can help lower that feeling of loneliness and isolation, and when you're the only one doing a certain thing, it's heightened inner anxiety. It can be. I've found that, especially during the past couple years as I go on my hikes, even around here in LA. I'm in this increasingly gentrifying area and I'm like, do all these people know I'm their neighbor? I'm out here like Ned Flanders, very smiley. Smiley bear, "Hello neighbor, how you doing today?" Just on a hike through my neighborhood. Isn't it great to live here? It's so great to be your neighbor.
Celeste Headlee:
Oh God. That hurts my heart, Baratunde.
Baratunde Thurston:
My other choice is to succumb to the fear and stay away from anyone who looks different from me and assume the worst from anyone I don't know and strap up constantly, which poses its own danger. I refuse to live in a constant state of elevated fear and Dudley talked about, in the manmade world, we have to perform a certain way to get along. We have to be, many of us, be nonthreatening-
Celeste Headlee:
Be Ned Flanders.
Baratunde Thurston:
Extra diplomatic, smiley, happy, a good one, perform white comfort moves. For me, that's a lot of hellos and smiles and my voice is probably like a half octave higher than it would be, and women have their version of that just being around men. Can't make a man feel threatened. Otherwise, he becomes a threat. Many people have familiarity with these comfort Olympics that we have to contort ourselves through. Birds don't care, fish don't care, trees don't care, horses don't care, and if we can get through the threshold of some of the human interference, we can connect with a whole other form of life and energy that actually sees us for the beautiful creature and living cohabitants of this planet that we are, and if we can start to feel familiar in that environment, all kinds of adrenaline drops.
Baratunde Thurston:
I'm not afraid of the bugs anymore. I know what kind of bug that is. I know what kind of bird, I know what sound that is, that rustling doesn't scare me anymore, and we can feel at home, like we belong, which for many of us is a very hard feeling to achieve in this country. The literal country, the plants, the waterways, the hillsides, they love all people who are willing to be respectful and loving of them, so I just think the benefits of breaking through that fear and getting to this more relational place with nature far outweigh the fear and the odds that, that peace is going to be ruined by some idiot, because any moment can be ruined by some idiot, but this moment, this is a special one.
Celeste Headlee:
You also spent time with indigenous people from three different nations, three different areas.
Baratunde Thurston:
Timbisha Shoshone in Death Valley, Shoshone-Bannock in Idaho, and Ojibwe, Anishinaabe in central and northern Minnesota, mostly central at that point.
Celeste Headlee:
Talk about a culture for whom the outdoors and land has been both a source of connection and trauma. That's definitely true of our native american brothers and sisters. What did you learn from them?
Baratunde Thurston:
I learned from them, things we have tried to forget at great cost to us. We've tried to forget that we are a part of nature and not a part from nature, that we are one of many forms of life, deserving of life on this planet, not the one form of life singled out to dominate all the other ones. With the Shoshone-Bannock, they called themselves the salmon people. We were up in Idaho. We go up to meet the Matsaw family, who have organized to bring us on this annual ritual of a salmon hunt with members of their nation, and they had to call it off, because there weren't that many salmon to hunt, and the salmon that they had pulled in were flabby, soft, the water was too warm. They were kind of getting cooked in their own home, which is our fate, too. We are getting cooked in our own homes. Look at the southwest on fire on a constant basis. The metaphor's not even a metaphor. Literally, the same thing's happening to all of us, except we are the cause not the fish.
Baratunde Thurston:
They used a couple of phrases which stood out to me, Brother Salmon. They rarely just said the salmon, like they created this family relationship to this fish that they had intended to kill and eat, but at a certain sustainable threshold and limit. They said, "Brother salmon is taking care of us for thousands of years. It's time for us to help out the salmon and do what we can and not take too many and try to do what we can to save their home." They make the hunting rods, these Spears out of big trees, father tree. Even the language reflected a relationship and not just a transaction. That was a deep lesson, super simple one. Super simple, but very deep. There was an area we call Death Valley. The people of that region refer to themselves and the region as Timbisha. The land and the people have the same name. Again, very simple, profound. There's no separation. There's no separation between us and the natural world.
Baratunde Thurston:
Our economy, our version of progress and civilization require that separation, require us to see the earth as just a resource to be mined, extracted from, monetized sold, and the colonial European mind said, "Proper use of the land is GDP and crop yields and all these quantifiable superficial financial activities," which it also turns out, was contributing to a steady mass suicide for our species. The idea that you are the land you're from, it's right there in the name, Timbisha. I love that. Pauline Esteves, this elder, she was 97 years old when I talked to her, so she's probably 98 now, she has been at this activism thing for a long time. The Timbisha were only recently in their history recognized by the U.S. Federal Government. The government tried to clear them out, made way for the national monument, which became the national park that so many of us love to visit, not knowing the cost, and the cost was to displace these people.
Baratunde Thurston:
We tricked them. You know, I say, "we," because it's done in my government's name, too. I didn't do it. I'm complicit in the whole system. I benefit from some of this weird stuff, too. We tricked them into moving into these adobe homes, that civilian engineer corp built. We told them, "If you ever leave these homes, you'll forfeit them," and then when they do their summer migration up to the mountains, because it's hot, we hosed them down with fire hoses. I'm talking to this elder, indigenous woman about the U.S. Federal Government attacking her people and their way of life with fire hoses. This is all too familiar tale, but she's like, "This is not death valley." Even the name is stupid. Really, at the end of the day, what happened was, a bunch of white dudes was trying to cross. They prepared poorly. They had to be rescued and they were like, "Farewell, Death Valley," and the name stuck.
Celeste Headlee:
Even though none of them died. It's kind of like the first Thanksgiving. Again, white people ill prepared. History seems to be all about ill prepared, white people.
Baratunde Thurston:
That's a big chunk of it.
Farai Chideya:
This is Our Body Politic. I'm Farai Chideya. You're listening to our conversation, guest hosted by ACE broadcaster, Celeste Headlee with Baratunde Thurston. Baratunde's new PBS series, America Outdoors, visits spectacular regions, and explores how the many communities who call America home access and relate to the land. Here's more.
Baratunde Thurston:
I could write a whole book about what I learned just from the three groups I spent time with. The Anishinaabe, I didn't spend too much time on here, but got to join their wild rice harvest, the Manoomin harvest. Minnesota prides itself on its wild rice. They're like, that stuff you buy in the store. That's not wild. We call that tame rice. This is wild rice, and we go out there in the canoe and it's in the bog and it's very damp and wetlands and somebody's using a pole to drive the canoe, and there's someone else in the boat who's the knocker using essentially, drumsticks to kind of bend these reeds of rice over the bow of the boat, tap them lightly so that you shake a few pieces of rice off, but not too many, and then you're also reseeding the rice bed because some of it spills off the side of the boat. Sustainable, enjoyable. There's literally a rhythm to it. They let me do it. I felt like I was part of the band. To have this rhythmic musical relationship with gathering food, when many of us we get rice from the store.
Celeste Headlee:
I got to tell you, we're talking a lot of serious issues as we discuss the show, but one of the things I loved, it was just full of joy. We so rarely get to see shows that are focused on joy, but we especially rarely get to see people of color just being joyful.
Baratunde Thurston:
There's a group in Boise, Idaho. Boise's one of the larger refugee resettlement regions of the country, so they got a lot of folks there coming from war, coming from all kinds of persecution and torture and pain, and I got to spend a day with these teenagers who are in this outdoor outreach program designed to help them acclimate to the country, by hanging out outside. One of the kids who went through the program, he's now a guide in the program, Tanang, I am 98% sure he's from the Myanmar region, and the adults were telling me, the stuff he grew up witnessing would chill you. I wouldn't ask him and he didn't volunteer, but I believe them when they tell me that, and I asked him how this program helped him feel like he was a part of America.
Baratunde Thurston:
He was like, "Yo, when I got here, I didn't know anybody. I didn't speak the language. I just kept to myself. I ate lunch by myself at school. I went straight home after. I had no friends. And then I got a part of this program and I met all these other kids, and I started coming out of my shell, and the thing that made me the happiest is just being in an inner tube, floating down the river and I can just let go of all my stresses and all my worries from the day and just float and let the river hold it."
Baratunde Thurston:
Oh man. I'm almost about to cry. This kid is like 14 years old and you know, the way he's talking, he has seen things none of us ever want to see, and he's finding a new home through communing with the water, with the fresh air, with these birds, et cetera, and then he made friends and now he's got a leadership position and now everybody wants to hang out with him, and he's coming out at school and being more social and has friends and isn't just locking himself in his room. That's available to all of us, and I love him for sharing that with me. I love that I got to see Boise in that light. This series also recast the country. I saw a different Appalachia than the one I'm used to hearing about, which is opioids and Joe Mansion and Cole. There's so much more, hanging out with regenerative farmers and whitewater rafters and hikers of The Appalachian Trail, and Idaho as well. There's libertarian, gun loving folk who hate government, trying to take over government. Yes, that is in the land there, too.
Baratunde Thurston:
There's also progressive. I was walking down the street in Boise and I heard this music thumping, and I was like, "Oh, what's going on?" It's like a night club. The sun was still up and this is maybe five, 6:00 PM at the latest. I go up to this little mini mall upstairs, it's drag night at the gay club, and there's flags all over downtown Boise talking about, we'll be carbon neutral by 2040 or 2050. And then, you also see air force cadets. There's a major air force base nearby, and you got your big Trump flags and everybody's got an F-150 because everybody's a contractor in this country, I guess. It's all of it. It's just all of it. It replicates the picture.
Baratunde Thurston:
I think there's a lot of passion that I have for the series, which is really passion that I have for the country, and at this time when big parts of me do not feel welcome in this country, do not feel at home here, I got to find other ways to feel at home. And I got to, to your point, experience joy with all kinds of folk who are also experiencing joy and it's not because they make a lot of money, it is not because they cashed out of Bitcoin at the high price. It's because they have found this relationship with nature, which at some level is available to us all.
Celeste Headlee:
Well, I loved it, and the surfing episode had me wondering what the black... If there was the black version of The Beach Boys, because we associate surfing with blonde haired, white dudes.
Baratunde Thurston:
And not Hawaiians.
Celeste Headlee:
Which is the most ridiculous thing or even Samoans.
Baratunde Thurston:
This happens a lot, this whitewashing of culture. If I say yoga, we probably have an image of a slender white woman in some Lululemon, even though yoga is from poor brown people. We can recast the narrative, reclaim some pieces of ourselves in these rocks, in these hills, and in these animals, that are less judgy than our fellow humans can be, so it's nice to have a break from the judgment.
Celeste Headlee:
Baratunde, it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Baratunde Thurston:
Thank you, Celeste, and if I might, I have a lot of friends who quote unquote, don't watch TV, so if you don't have a TV, here's what we got for you. The PBS video app, the show is available there. We have the first two episodes on PBS's YouTube channel. It's on the PBS website, pbs.org/americaoutdoors. It's exciting. I'm very proud to be making this show about America with the American people, so thanks.
Farai Chideya:
That's guest host, Celeste Headlee, interviewing Baratunde Thurston, host of America Outdoors, the new PBS series. Thurston is also the author of the New York Times best seller, How To Be Black and the creator and host of How To Citizen with Baratunde, which Apple named one of its favorite podcasts of 2020. Coming up next, our weekly round table, Sippin' the Political Tea, gets into election headlines with political commentator, Olayemi Olurin, and Our Body Politic contributor and Washington Post Columnist, Karen Attiah. You're listening to Our Body Politic. And now onto our weekly round table, Sippin' the Political Tea. Joining me this week is Our Body Politic contributor and opinions columnist at The Washington Post, Karen Attiah. Hey Karen.
Karen Attiah:
Hey Farai.
Farai Chideya:
Life has been life-ing and we're going to talk about it. Also making her debut on Our Body Politic, we've got Olayemi Olurin, also known as Olay for short, a public defender for Legal Aid Society of New York and a political commentator on The Hill's Rising. Hi Olay.
Olayemi Olurin:
Thank you for having me.
Farai Chideya:
We are thrilled to have you. We're going to cover a lot of territory, including how President Biden is faring with the public and a Rhode Island Senator twerking on TikTok, but let's start with the house committee investigating the insurrection and those who plotted to block the peaceful transfer of presidential power. The January 6th committee held another public hearing this week, the seventh so far. This time, focusing on how the Trump campaign and white house advisors fomented the insurrection.
President Trump:
If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
Farai Chideya:
Now, that was a clip of President Trump speaking at the Stop the Steal rally, and this is representative, Jamie Raskin, Democrat from Maryland reading a tweet that President Trump sent after meeting with dueling advisors in advance of the rally.
Jamie Raskin:
Shortly after the last participants left the unhinged meeting, Trump sent out the tweet with his explosive invitation. Trump repeated his big lie and claimed it was "statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 election" before calling for a big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there. Will be wild.
Farai Chideya:
These hearings are chaired by Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat from Mississippi, and vice chaired by Representative Liz Cheney, Republican from Wyoming. Those two and their colleagues are piling up more and more examples of Donald Trump's role in stirring up the insurrection and pre-gaming it. Olay, is this committee doing a good job of presenting evidence to the public that Donald Trump may have committed crimes?
Olayemi Olurin:
Yes, but I think everybody who is prepared to accept the reality of what the Republicans and Donald Trump have been doing knows that, that happened. We saw it happen in real time, and the other half of the country want to pretend like that's not the case because that's what they've been doing the whole time, pretending like they don't understand who won the election, pretending like they don't understand that this was an insurrection, pretending that they don't understand the magnitude of these, quite honestly, tyrannical type behaviors that Donald Trump has been engaged in. It's extreme.
Olayemi Olurin:
Just the fact alone that he lost an election, and every president before him is engaged in the peaceful transfer of power, and he refused to concede the election. We had a president embolden a group of people to engage in what is effectively a coup. That's what they wanted to do, and you see them keep trying to mitigate the rhetoric. It's changed from insurrectionist to January 6th. I think it's important that they stick on it, but I think that the people who are prepared to ignore it and pretend like they don't get it, and I say pretend because there's a major, major consistency in deliberate, obtuseness that you see from the Republican Party where they gaslight the whole country.
Farai Chideya:
Do you think that there will be an impact that comes out of this like charges against the president? It sounds like you're like, well, duh. Yeah, this happened, but what comes next, do you think?
Liz Cheney:
If I had to put my personal money on it, I would say, no, that they're not going to charge Donald Trump just because the Democrats have shown me repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly that they're just not prepared to go to the lengths that they're supposed to. I think if the tides had been turned, if the roles had been reversed and it had been Biden who did this or whatever, and Trump would won, we'd have been seeing charges. We'd have really seen the most intense of retaliations, but I don't think we're going to see it from the Democrats because I think Donald Trump has been engaged in a series, a series, a series of criminal activity the entire time. We've known him now and he never gets checked, so I wouldn't put my money on it.
Farai Chideya:
There was another thing that came out this week that really has to do with the question of attempted witness tampering. Here's the Vice Chair, Cheney.
Liz Cheney:
President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation. A witness you have not yet seen in these hearings. That person declined to answer or respond to President Trump's call.
Farai Chideya:
What do you think? Now, we've got witness tampering possibly layered on top of everything else. What do you think, Karen?
Karen Attiah:
The revelation of potential witness tampering throughout this entire process only adds fuel to a potential or what should be a DOJ case against Donald Trump, but in terms of laying out before the public, criminal activity of our former president witness tampering is a crime. Even if people want to pretend there was doubt about what happened on January 6th and the actions leading up to that, seeing that the president is attempting to even manipulate the outcomes of this investigation, again, just adds to the case file of a former president who is engaging blatantly in criminal activity and trying to point blank, undermine democracy, by interfering with this process.
Farai Chideya:
It's up to the Department of Justice, how to pursue both the witness tampering and any other criminal charges, and some legal observers really are critical of the Head of DOJ, Merrick Garland. I wanted to catch up on some of the developments in the arc of the testimony, so I want to play one more thing on this point. This is Stephen Ayres, who pled guilty last month to disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building that was during the insurrection, of course, and here he's questioned by Representative Stephanie Murphy, Democrat of Florida.
Stephanie Murphy:
Did you think that the president would be marching with you?
Stephen Ayres:
Yeah, I think everybody thought he was going to be coming down. He said in his speech, kind of like he's going to be there with us. I believed it.
Farai Chideya:
This person now says that he regrets believing President Trump. We're starting to see a bit more of a movement in some polls on Republicans who don't want to see President Trump run again, which he's eligible to do because the impeachments were effectively blocked from the full loop of completion by the Republican party, particularly Mitch McConnell, who was quoted in a variety of background documents as basically saying, "Let the Democrats take the hit for this." Like, let's stay out of the way of this bus, but there does seem to be a bit of a softening of Republican support for President Trump as a future candidate, if he can even run. Is testimony like this, an example of some of the people who might be backing away. Does that even matter? Olay.
Olayemi Olurin:
I don't think they're softening because they recognize that this is an unhinged bigot that they've put into the office and headed their party. I think they're softening because he's become a liability and they see a replacement in a Ron DeSantis. It's a strategic move, and I think they recognize that and his continued behavior has become a liability to the party, and I think that they see an opportunity to move him out and replace him with a DeSantis that's going to give us a lot of the same rhetoric, embolden the same people. I don't think it's because they see now, oh, we've been led astray by this Donald Trump. It's just, this might not be going the way we want, and I think I see a strategical option to get a DeSantis. That's what I think is going on.
Farai Chideya:
You're listening to Sippin' the Political Tea on Our Body Politic. I am Farai Chideya and this week we're discussing with great vigor the latest from the January 6th committee, plus the backlash that a Rhode Island State Senator received for twerking on TikTok, as she campaigned for reelection. Here with us is Olayami Olurin, Olay for short, an attorney and political commentator, and Karen Attiah, Our Body Politic contributor and opinions columnist at The Washington Post. There was one poll just recently from the Harvard University Center for American Political Studies, and it did some one-to-one matches. Trump would beat both Biden and Harris, but Harris would win against Florida Governor DeSantis. I don't know if there's any point to something like that at this point. People can't see you, but Olay, you're shaking your head. Why don't you go first and then Karen chime in.
Olayemi Olurin:
Kamala, not beating nobody. I'm so sorry to say it. It's not even personal. Regardless of how I feel about it, Kamala's not beating nobody. Kamala's not beating nobody. Kamala can get the nod on her own. Kamala can get her own community support. That's just not going to happen. Listen, it's a great ceiling. If your ceiling is Vice President of The United States, your ceiling's higher than anywhere I've been, so it's not slander, Kamala, but I think we've seen the top of the road for Kamala. Kamala not beating nobody's DeSantis. It's just not going to happen.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. One of my producers just Slacked, the tea is being served. Karen, how do you react to this offer of tea from Olay.
Karen Attiah:
I would like to put you under witness protection actually, because the KHive going to come for you hard.
Olayemi Olurin:
Really? Shut up.
Karen Attiah:
They are.
Olayemi Olurin:
[inaudible 00:41:20] worst thing I've ever said about her. They better look up on Twitter.
Stephen Ayres:
They are wild, but what I would say about this conversation, it's just another example of how in this country, it just really pays to be a white man, even if you're doing crime. The idea that we feel like we can't even honestly talk about any consequences for a leader who basically incited a rebellion, a coup, treason to this country is still a crime. We don't use the T word. We're battling about insurrection January 6th. This is treason to the country. The fact that the only consequence that the Republicans might be considering is that he doesn't get to run for commander in chief again, is just wild to me.
Stephen Ayres:
Honestly, it would be incredibly detrimental to the democracy of this country and to our international standing if there are absolutely no consequences for what happened on January 6th for Donald Trump. I really worry if the DOJ does not act after what we've seen over the past few weeks, in the past year. It just sets up a playbook for this to happen again, and frankly, for there to be more bloodshed. I hope that after this, I pray for this country that after this, that there are some form of consequences and more so than just, oh, Trump, doesn't get to run again.
Olayemi Olurin:
Beyond the fact that they call this The Big Lie, as opposed to calling it treason. We'd be calling it treason in a normal place. It's obviously that. It's textbook that, but instead, even the people that say it's wrong or calling it The Big Lie. They're calling it January 6th. They're calling it all these mitigating languages, but then the last audio we just heard from the person who was... They got disorderly con- disorderly conduct is a violation. It's not even a crime. As a defense attorney, I find it absurd. Usually BIPOC people, black people, are responsible for any kind of crime that happens in the commission of a crime. So, if you're committing a felony and something else happens, someone dies during the course of that, they will hold you legally responsible for that.
Olayemi Olurin:
You mean to tell me, a group of people, you want to call them insurrectionists, treasonists, whatever, they went to the capital with the intention of overthrowing the government, and it literally caused a death of an officer. Nothing. No felony murder, no felony charge, no nothing. A disorderly conduct? Disorderly conduct is what you would get, what I would plead you out to in New York City for urinating at a park or being in the park after hours or something like that, but that is what we are looking at. Those are the consequences of people that literally attempted to overthrow our democracy and quite literally, are invalidating our democracy to not just our own nation, but everybody else that can see this around the world.
Farai Chideya:
Karen, I want to talk about a couple things that may be on your mind. Let's start with President Biden's trip to Saudi Arabia. Mr. Biden promised to make Saudi Arabia a pariah on the international stage, and now he's going to meet crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. What do you make of it?
Stephen Ayres:
Yeah, I think this trip is unnecessary in many ways and absolutely goes against his campaign promises. Perhaps a lot of your listeners know already that I was the editor of Jamal Khashoggi when he was writing at The Washington Post, and when he was murdered, the CIA concluded that Mohammed bin Salman was part of the orchestration of that operation. The questions in Washington in regards to this trip really have to do with just what is Biden really going to get out of this, honestly? The one who stands to benefit the most is Mohammed bin Salman, who after four years after this horrible, horrible murder is basically, reappearing on the world stage and regaining legitimacy from the most powerful country in the world.
Stephen Ayres:
This whole kind of question of, well, this is for world security and peace in the Middle East. Honestly, the way I look at it is, this is almost exactly the rhetoric that Trump used to excuse Jamal's murder, and it just sends a message to journalists around the world, to American residents, Jamal Khashoggi was an American resident, and to any enemies of Mohammed bin Salman that all he has to do is just, he can commit the crime, he just needs to wait it out for two or three years, and it's fine, and that's a really, really dangerous message for Biden to be sending right now.
Farai Chideya:
Olay, this is being marketed in some ways by the democratic party, as Biden's moved to lower gas prices. What do you think of that framing?
Olayemi Olurin:
Biden on the gas has been awful. Every response that he has to explain how they're going to address this issue has been empty, worse than the last, and tends to shift the responsibility somewhere else. I know originally, was like, all right, blame Russia. Then it was blame the gas stations, that they're just choosing to have these prices. Biden would be better off just coming out and saying, "Listen, inflation. We're here, right? We've decided we are going to involve ourselves in the Ukraine, Russia conflict in this particular way, and it's going to have these consequences."
Farai Chideya:
Well, I want to wrap up with the question of Tiara Mack, Rhode Island State Senator. She has been trending for days after posting a video on TikTok, twerking while doing a handstand, and a lot of people had opinions. Some praised her, some condemned her, called her disgrace. Tucker Carlson aired it. Olay, what do you think of the video and who's amplifying it and why?
Olayemi Olurin:
I don't think it warrants any moral outrage of any kind. Republicans do not have the moral high ground, the moral authority, Democrats either, but Republicans certainly not. Their last person has been sued for sexual assault 18 times. I don't want to hear anything, this moral high ground about twerking at all. People who are engaged and being racist and being bigots towards us will always find a reason to do it, and I don't think that black people should police one another based on trying to appease the sensibilities of racists who are operating in bad faith and disingenuousness in the first place.
Olayemi Olurin:
Additionally, for Tiara Mack, she's not trying to appeal to us. She's on TikTok. She's trying to appeal to a younger generation that like to see themselves represented. We've moved away from the world, and when I was in high school, you can't have your hair a certain way. You can't have your nails a certain way. Even when I was going to law school, there were black professionals telling me that, "You can't have your hair like this. You can't have your nails. You can't have these tattoos," because that's what we've been taught. We've been fed this idea that it has to be this way and there's no space for us in the room if we're like that. That's not the truth anymore.
Farai Chideya:
Karen, what do you think? Is this sit down respectability politics, or you just don't do that, like why?
Stephen Ayres:
It's definitely creative and honestly, politics is also a game of name recognition and building your brand. The fact that, I didn't know who she was before the twerking video. Now I do. Now, this might be a person who I would watch. I'm just thinking of the candidates on the other side, who pose with guns, who run ads pretending to assassinate the other side, and people are going to be worried about twerking? Twerking ain't killed nobody as far as I know. The one politician who I think uses social media extremely well is of course, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I think it's really interesting and effective, and I'll just be curious to see how the TikTok generation gets involved with politics. We're going to see if it works or not, but for now, we're talking about it. She's accomplished her job. I can't really be bothered about respectability politics.
Farai Chideya:
Mack said that this is the same person that was elected in 2020, who's going to lead with empathy, compassion, love, and silliness. Maybe that was part of the silliness package. Like you were saying, let's get over ourselves. That was political commentator and attorney, Olayemi Olurin, of The Hill's Rising, and Karen Attiah, Our Body Politic contributor and opinions columnist at The Washington Post.
Farai Chideya:
Thanks for listening to Our Body Politic. We're on the air each week -- and everywhere you listen to podcasts.
Farai Chideya:
Our Body Politic is produced by Diaspora Farms. I'm the executive producer and host, Farai Chideya.
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Farai Chideya:
Production and editing services are by Clean Cuts at Three Seas. Today's episode was produced with the help of Lauren Schild and engineered by Archie Moore.
Farai Chideya:
This program is produced with support from the Ford Foundation, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Democracy Fund, The Harnisch Foundation, Compton Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the BMe Community, Katie McGrath & JJ Abrams Family Foundation, and from generous contributions from listeners like you.