Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello.
Welcome to the call it like I see it podcast.
I'm James Keys, and in this episode of call it like I see it, we're gonna take a look at the travel advisories that advising people to avoid Florida that have recently been issued by several organizations, including the NAACP.
And consider whether moves like these in the face of perceived or actual hostility and regressive policies can be effective or if they kind of miss the mark.
And later on, we're going to discuss the struggles of those with long Covid now that the pandemic emergency from, like, the formal official policy standpoint, has been officially declared as overdeveloped and resources for dealing with pandemic and pandemic related things have begun to dry up.
Joining me today is a man who could feel your energy from three planets away.
Tunde Ogun. Lana Tunde, are you ready to show to people why you remain so adamantly opposed to the killing of vibes?
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Oh, I was gonna say, as long as you don't kill my vibes.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: Oh, it's just yours? Not in general. Just yours?
[00:01:26] Speaker B: No. Apparently the song was just talking about your own vibes, not everybody.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: So.
All right, we're recording this on May 30, 2023. And a little over a week ago, we saw the NAACP issue a formal travel advisory regarding the state of Florida, which takes aim at the policies and actions of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, which are alleged to be hostile towards African Americans, people of color, and LGBTQ people.
The advisory essentially asked people to understand, quote, unquote, Florida's hostility towards minorities before traveling to the state.
Now, this advisory comes after the issuing of similar travel advisories by equality Florida and the League of United American Citizens, with the one from equality Florida relating primarily to the LGBTQ community, and the one from the League of United American Citizens relating to immigrants and the treatment of immigrants in Florida.
So to get us started, Tunde, what have been your thoughts on the travel advisory that we've seen issued by the NAACP and these other groups to avoid Florida? Like, what's your reaction to seeing this?
[00:02:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I think my initial reaction was one of somewhat disappointment to, and I would say not to be too dramatic. Right. But it's kind of sad to say, okay, this is how you're reacting to it, then just kind of the idea that I'll say it this way without trying to sound too maybe negative about it. I felt like it's another example where some people in this country that are not of the majority group behave and act like they're renters in this country, and not owners in this country. And that it's this. I just felt it was a very.
Not a position coming from strength or a position of trying to help and solve whatever you feel is happening that you feel is wrong. It's kind of a, hey, let's just run out of here and leave. And I feel like it also plays into the hands of those who may want to see groups like the ones you stated. Leave Florida.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: Yeah. So I feel like, okay, if this is how you respond to how Florida is doing things, you might actually promote other states to behave this way, too that may be more hostile to people like the groups you mentioned.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: So it's just, if we're hostile enough, they'll just leave, tyrone, they'll stop coming.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: And I think it's a, it's, look, we, you and I, personally, as well as I think people who we might share our similar outlooks on life and stuff, have spent a lot of time lamenting the fact that we have a certain group of Americans that have the type of energy where they don't seem to want to participate in the democracy. Right. And we talk about things like January 6, the insurrection, as being symbolic of that. That they.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Yeah, they want to blow it up if it's. If they can't control it.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: Exactly. And this is a different expression of that. You know, the NAACP and these other groups aren't saying, let's blow up the state of Florida, but in a way, they're, they're saying something similar, which is, you know, don't participate in this. In this system here, because it is not going our way. Instead of saying, why don't you immerse yourself into the political landscape of Florida if you want to see long term change? And I think it's so.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: I would disagree with that, though, that I don't think that they're, they're saying that you. We don't want this to work, so to speak. I mean, I look at this.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: I mean, well, they're saying, let's leave and don't come here.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: What are saying? Yeah, don't come here. Don't send some money here.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: That's kind of like saying that we give up on this place.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Well, part of my problem saying, they're.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Not saying blowing it up, but they're saying we're not. Don't worry about participating. Just leave. And that, to me, is similar to blow it up, but in a different way saying don't.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Well, but it's in here. I was gonna say, here's actually my part of my concern with this is, that it's not a clear, like, I'm trying to figure out genuinely here, is this a boycott or are they saying that this is, you know, like, this place? You need to be careful about going here because it's not safe for you. You know, like, I'm. That's what I'm trying. It's kind of stuck in between. It's kind of nebulous in the sense that, like, if it's a boycott, call it a boycott. Like, look, we want to exert financial influence on this to change it. You know, we want to make it so that it's, people aren't making money and so they're more willing to listen to us as far as our concerns. Like, that's a legit way to exercise political power using economic means that's, you know, happens, you know, throughout history. Like, then. So that is participating in the system. Whereas if it's like, okay, well, so that on that hand, it would not be akin to we don't like it. So we're blowing it up and saying, well, we don't like the way that you're running this thing. We don't think it's fair. We don't think it's, you know, from the standpoint of equality and stamped and so forth. So therefore we're going to exert influence in this way. And if it's the other thing, if it's just saying, okay, well, we don't think it's safe for you to be here, then that's a whole nother story as well. But neither, that still also isn't just saying, let's flush it down the toilet because we can't control it because we. They were never controlling it. NAACP was never controlling Florida in the first place. You know, it was. They were. They're more so saying, give us a fair shake. But I think this really comes down to how to exert influence or power. When you are a minority or a minority group in the sense that you can't just say, okay, let's just overwhelm the ballot box and exert our influence. That way you have to be more nuanced in how you exert influence. And so to me, that's really what I see. And I mean, you see the, the other groups doing similar travel advisors. But again, my biggest issue is that a travel advisory isn't really, it's not explicitly a boycott, but it's not also, it's not saying, like, don't go here because you might not make it back because these people are, you know, like what you see sometimes, like for certain countries, you know, like, or recently we saw us issue one with Russia. Like, look, if you go here, we don't know, we can't get you back.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Out, you know, and so being a gulag.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So that, to me, is, it's kind of the ambiguity of it.
And so, but with looking at the organizations, I'll say this and I'll kick it back to you, but I think, I mean, NAACP, NAACP, part of their mission is to agitate. So this is consistent with what they, it is that they do. They're trying to agitate. Now, whether or not it's the most effective way to do it, we'll get into. But this is, it has people talking about it. You know, people are talking about this. People are talking about, therefore, talking about the policies that they're upset about. They're going on the news program saying, oh, well, this is what we don't like. And yada, yada, yada, without making this travel advisory, they don't necessarily get everyone's attention on this. So mission accomplished. From that standpoint, I give them kudos. But ultimately, like I said, I wish that what they were doing here was a little bit more defined and less nebulous, because you and I would agree with them that the policies here, you know, that are, that have been put in place and the actions by the governor are inconsistent with the creed of the United States, at least in terms of what was written. And, but it's like. Well, hold on. What are you saying here? Like, what? Exactly. Therefore, what are you, what are you saying that people should do? Should they not spend money? Should they do this and so forth? So, but now, but, I mean, I know I jumped in on you a little bit, but I want to get my initial thought out, but go ahead.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I'm not going that far down the rabbit hole on it in terms of what are they really saying? Because I think you're right that the fact that they're maybe clear about that. No, I know, but the fact they're not being clear just tells me, okay, this, this is more, I just feel like this is more of an emotional reaction than a, than a, like you're saying kind of a, something where people really sat and thought, okay, what's the most effective way for us to voice our disapproval with the attacks that we've seen from, you know, the top down, right. The, the governor's mansion on things like, I mean, they cite specifically things like the, you know, the attack on AP history courses that discuss black history. And again, I think that, you know, everybody, not everybody, but, you know, the kind of different sides of this, I feel, you know, preparing for this. I actually spent time watching some kind of videos and documentaries on the civil rights era, but stuff that was filmed back then, which I found very interesting to see people being interviewed in the street in the mid late sixties and being asked their opinions about things. And it's the same things you hear today. And, you know, and so I feel like people like the governor are approaching this the same way, like the southern strategy way of let's talk about crime and immigration and, you know, attacking people who are, want to see pluralism and multiculturalism as being leftists. And remember, it was communists back then in the sixties. You know, if you were, integration was, Washington was equal to communism. And it's the same thing, being open to things like gay and minority stuff and all that today is because is considered woke and leftist. So he's approaching it, and that group is approaching it the same way. I feel like, you know, NAACP is reacting in a similar knee jerk way of just saying, okay, this is, you know, this is just bad. And let's not, let's just focus on the same conversation that you're banning black history and certain things instead of a more nuanced conversation saying, hey, first of all, this is a prevention of freedom of speech. Second of all, you're indoctrinating all kids in the state, let's say, to not learn the full story of the american history. This isn't black history. This is american history. So again, I just feel like everyone's retreated to their corners and it's the same type of argument instead of being creative and trying to find a new way to come at this. And, and so, you know, that's, that's.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Kind of, that's the, the downside of it, kind of. Or maybe, I mean, if that's what their objective is here, then that's the upside of it being kind of nebulous as far as what exactly they're trying to get out of this. Like, it does come off as almost a tantrum in the sense that we're mad at what this guy is doing. And again, I would say justifiably mad about what he's doing. So we're going to issue a travel advisory, but it's like, okay, but are you doing a boycott? Are you asking people to not come and not spend money on, you know, as far as tourism, Florida, Florida relies on tourism for a large part of its money, as you know, from a government standpoint? Or are you saying, like, again, like, that's, to me, like, the nebulous piece of it? I don't know if they view that as a strength, but I would view that as a weakness. And so, because like I said, and I was saying before, we see these kinds of things, you know, from the state Department for other countries, and, you know, I have a concern in this that if they're looking at. If they, if they put this out here like this now, one, the way our media system works, it's not, people aren't necessarily like, it would be difficult for this to happen. I'll say this, but my concern with something like this is don't end up being the boy that cries wolf, you know, in the sense that, okay, like, if this, if we're at this point now where we have a travel advisory, well, if Florida, Florida continues, can still be more hostile towards the interests that they've been hostile. Hostile towards. And so if Florida amps it up a little bit more, then have you already shot the boycott bullet, even, even though you didn't really call for a boycott now? Like, can you even go further than this now or have, is this just your shot that you've taken? And it's like, okay, yeah, Florida starts just locking up people, you know, just randomly because they've decided that, you know, well, they, they've decided they just don't participate in the ideals of America anymore. And so protesters are out protesting, and Florida's tried to make that illegal now. And so now we're just gonna start locking up thousands of people because they were peacefully protesting. Then what do you do? Have you already exhausted your kind of, you know, like, the bullet you had, so to speak, to, to go at Florida now? You know, obviously there's still lawsuits and so forth. But I agree with you in the sense that the creativity aspect, is this something that is a, is this something you can. Then you can put in place and then you can escalate it, or what is it? Because when it's. If this is your, this is the. What you have to push back and you've shot it now, one. I mean, you need to be, you know, you need to do some brainstorming to come up with other avenues to, to exert pressure, you know, as a, as a group representing minorities, again, because minority, meaning there's less of you. And in a democratic system, which we purport to all value, if you have less people, you have to figure out other ways to make alliances and so forth.
And so what do you, do you think there's a risk, you know, of with these, with, you know, NAACP and, but also the other organizations, equality Florida and the League of United American Citizens, which, by the way, is the largest hispanic group or latin, hispanic type group in the United States. I'll say specifically the largest hispanic and latin american organization in the United States. Do they run the risk of kind of shooting their shot too early or delegitimizing themselves because they, they're protesting. They're, what they're doing as far as a protest isn't fitting for, isn't clear or is it fitting for what the actual, what they're protesting?
[00:14:43] Speaker B: So I think I'll break it up into two. So I think do they risk the shooting, the shot early? I mean, I don't know. I think, you know, the time will tell on all this stuff, and people can get more aggressive or not based on how they feel the state is maybe treating other people right. So I think that one, you can always come back to the well and complain and make your public stance. Whatever happens, you could always agitate some more. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So I don't think that that one, to me, is just hit or miss, but I think that the other one you cite is more interesting, which is do they risk delegitimizing themselves? And the thing, I'm not sure how to, you know, really play that out. I guess time will tell. But I think there is a partial answer, which is yes, because, like, for example, the, the governor's office already responded, calling all this a stunt. And it kind of seems like, in a way, just like I would say that, you know, a lot of his actions in terms of governor DeSantis, his actions have been stunts, too. And we've discussed them on different, different times and different discussions on the show. But, so everyone is, is, you know, has, has, has the ability to pull stunts to try and do something to prove a point to their kind of side or their base. And then by, but by doing it, they, you know, others, you know, whether the people doing it, realizing or not, others from the outside are looking at it saying, you know, it probably won't have the desired effect that, or it might undermine them.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Let me, let me jump in real quick because you've made a good example in other shows about this with the Martha's vineyard when DeSantis was flying migrants to Martha's vineyard. But by doing that, so he got to own the headlines and all, you know, his constituencies, you know, they were very happy and cheered him on. But the people who he flew were able to get residency because of, because he flew them to Martha's vineyard, he triggered a law that allowed them to stay here. And so, but in that part, necessarily didn't get covered as much. But so he undermined his own cause by doing the quote unquote stunt that he did. And so that's a good point you raise in terms of how that could be. Like, if this is a stunt, so to speak. And I don't say stunt as a, like, you have to do stunts to get attention, you know? So, like, I'm not saying stunt as a negative, but if this is a stunt, so to speak, there is a potential downside to pulling these stunts, which may not get covered as much, but go ahead.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: And also, also, the downsides take a long time to play out. So, for example, you know, another stunt, um, not to pick on Governor DeSantis in this way. Right. But another stunt that clearly looks like it was a stunt at this point was his, the way he's attacked Disney, the corporation, you know, instead of just kind of having his sparring match with him, maybe in public for a little while and then letting it go, he got so aggressive that now the long term outcome might be a negative impact, long term, at least, or midterm on the Florida economy, you know, to. Disney just announced recently that they're not going to follow through with a $1 billion investment, and now they're questioning whether they're going to go through with a full $17 billion investment over ten years and create 30,000 jobs. So those are things that, again, because of culture wars, the governor may have a long term, or let's say midterm, five to ten year impact on the Florida economy when it comes to the largest private employer in the state, um, you know, because. Because they had to do this sparring match publicly. And so getting back to what we're talking about directly of unintended consequences, and also going back to the point I made earlier, where this is where I feel like, again, everyone's fighting these old battles, like you and I are watching people fight battles that our parents and grandparents were kind of around to see, and we weren't. So, for example, the governor has clearly made a decision in recent years that he's going to go this direction with being the anti woke guy, being the anti we got to stick it to the left kind of guy, which is, you know, that's his prerogative to do that. The interesting thing I find is he's behaving this way in a state that has the third largest black population, somewhere between 15 and 17% of the state is black, african american, caribbean, whatever you want to.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: Which results in a raw number. That is the third highest number. Raw number of black african american, you know, however.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: Yeah. In the country.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: In the country. Raw numbers.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: Yeah, we could say that it has the one of the highest percentage. I'm not going to compete with California on this one, but we know that Florida would have one of the highest percentage of Hispanic Americans and immigrants from all stripes just because of, you know, the nature of Florida. And then we. We all know, especially living in South Florida with places like Key west or Wilton Mandev in Fort Lauderdale or Miami beach, and every major city in Florida has a pride week or pride, you know, month. So this. It's one of the friendlier states and has been traditionally to the LGBTQ community. So that's why I find this kind of fascinating, because governor DeSantis isn't doing this from a state like Idaho or Wyoming or Maine, where you would say, okay, you know, it's 80% kind of white american Christian. You know, there's not a lot of blacks or Hispanics or gays. They're openly gay. At least you've got, you know, that the gay chamber of commerce here is. Is one of the largest in the state besides New York and California. So when you think about it, by attacking these groups, it's a potential follow on. The Disney thing in the big picture is that you may run the risk of driving long term. Right. People out of the state or tourists from coming who feed our economy. Because again, talking about the black population, Florida also has the second highest amount of black owned businesses in the country. So it just. And I'm not saying I fear that all these people are going to leave. I don't think that's going to happen. I just think it's interesting to watch this fight because he's picking a fight with a bunch of people who collectively are large constituency of his. But he's made a choice to say, okay, I want to court the people who are intimidated by this group, you know, these groups. So.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: No, it's a good point. It's a good point. I mean, and that's actually leads me to the third piece I wanted to discuss here. And, you know, like, first off, I'll say, like, it's clear that this is. This is political. Like, we. We have to do better in terms of how we talk about things because people are like, oh, this is the NAACP. This is just a political thing. You know, like, yes, it is a political thing. It didn't.
[00:21:21] Speaker B: DeSantis is being political.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: Yeah, correct.
But this is, like, this is the game. Well, but hold up. This is legitimate political. They're not being personal. These aren't personal attacks or anything like that. This is legitimately political. They're mad at political things that DeSantis are doing, and so they're doing a political response. You know, like, this is about policy. This is about posturing and so forth. And so, yeah, you can say that this is political without being. It's something that we're saying, oh, yeah, we're trying to demean it in any way. Like, yes, this is all a political fight. And so, you know, the. From there, I question whether. And we've kind of danced around this, but I want to get into it directly, whether there'd be a better way to express the political displeasure here, particularly in a state like what you just said, where you. This is not a state where you have a 90% or 95% majority, and then everybody else is kind of on the, like, literally on the fringes. Like, if this was being done in Wyoming or Idaho, you know, you said you throw out, like, this would be a different type of situation. But it's done in a very diverse state. Now, the diversity in Florida, though, is very. It's very concentrated. You know, like, where Florida is diverse, is very diverse, and then it also has large swaths of places, areas where it's not diverse at all. And so that creates this dichotomy of Florida. Honestly, a lot like the United States in general, where you have just, if you go by county, you have a bunch of counties where it's not diverse at all. Then you have a few counties where it's very diverse, but most of the people live in those counties where it's very diverse. But I wonder, and I'll get to you in a second on this, because in that instance, like, the NAACP isn't coming into Florida, or is. You know, they had their own. It was actually the Florida portion of the NAAC there, one of the Florida chapters that initially proposed this to the NAACP to make this, to do this travel advisory. But from that, you would, you wonder whether there would be a better or more effective way. And I wonder if they explored these or not. You know, they maybe they explored them and realized they just couldn't do them to exert this kind of pressure. Governor DeSantis also has a lot of enemies already, like Disney. You know, I've seen it suggested from some of the people in Florida that from some of the black people in Florida, black organizations in Florida, they weren't crazy about this travel advisory. Like, well, hold on. Have we looked into, like, seeing if we can do something to help Disney or work with Disney on that where you, you know, again, with political things, you look at people who are also adversaries to the person you're trying to work against. You team up with them or any other ways to create alliances to then exert political pressure in another way or in a way that, again, doesn't take you down this nebulous path of. And one of the downsides of having a nebulous path is how do you even judge success, you know? So from your standpoint, tunde, do you think, or what's your thought on, you know, kind of a finding a better way or exploring a different way to kind of exert this political pressure on a political issue? Because, you know, again, what they're doing now, it could be the only way, but it may not be.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, well, you got a lot of interesting things right? Like our mind this, again, I go back to kind of, I think the culture wars of the sixties, that kind of, I think, formed our modern, I think for anyone like under 100 years old at this point, you're kind of formed by those things. Whether you live through it or like us, you were born within a decade or so after it and people born after us. Right. Everyone's kind of been influenced by this 1960s reorganization of american culture. And by that, I mean, you know, all the stuff we hear where southern democrats were, the segregationists, you know, and then, and then it kind of switched over that decade of the late sixties into the early seventies.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: They were courted into the Republican Party.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: Yeah, courted into the Republican Party. And the blacks used to, you know, occupy about 30% of the Republican Party and switch to being Democrats. So we've kind of those fault lines have been drawn and we've been living kind of on either side of them. Right. And very few that can straddle both.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: Worlds, which, by the way, just from a historical perspective, is pretty interesting in the sense that the kind of reorganization of the political parties, remember, the political parties themselves aren't inherently ideological. They're more like clubs. But they are, they've been reorganized throughout the american history, you know, but it's interesting, the reorganization that happened in the late sixties, you know, civil rights era, from the Civil Rights act, essentially Lyndon Johnson saying, I just signed away the south when he signed the Civil Rights act signed away the south from the Democrats. The Democrats, he said, for a generation, aren't going to have anybody in the south. It was more than that. But we've actually been relatively static since then relative to american history. Usually there's been more shuffling of the parties from a time standpoint over, if you look over a 60 year period, that this is very stable in terms of the kind of constituencies that make up the parties. But go ahead.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and so I think that a lot of us have a knee jerk, kind of, like I've said before in the show, is that the knee jerk way of looking at it in this kind of static, black and white as we have been conditioned us as Americans to think of things as literally white Americans and then just African Americans as black Americans, you know, the kind of one drop rule and all that. And even in preparing today, I started thinking how many blacks, like, let's say, are in the state of Florida, right. That aren't african american?
And it just creates this interesting dynamic, which might not have been the case in the sixties. Most blacks in Florida in the sixties were descendants of american slaves that were brought from Africa. Right. Now we've got an, you know, for example, you know, a lot of Americans don't know this. Brazil is a country with 120 million blacks, almost 50% of the population, and they're the same genetic, you know, descendant of african slaves because, you know, the slave ships went to South America as well. But, you know, black Brazilians that come here don't consider themselves african american and don't have the same historical culture and kind of maybe feel intimidated by behaviors of, you know, like saying, we're not going to teach black history and ap high school courses, you know, to Haitians and caribbean, you know, caribbean blacks. That doesn't have the same, it doesn't resonate maybe the same way as it does to African Americans who have more of a emotional and cultural connection to.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: That history, understandably also that are just that if kind of their parents or grandparents have seen this before versus the immigrant necessarily won't necessarily have the same sensitivity.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: Because, you know, like, they, they're coming more. They wanted to come here and they're coming in more fresh and not necessarily with the same, like, oh, okay. Yeah, when this happened with my grandmother or whatever, this is what followed or whatever.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: No, that's what I'm saying. And I think people like Governor DeSantis that are playing this from, you know, the other side of the fence, let's say, might not recognize that, you know, again, there's a lot of, you know, european and hispanic immigrants who also don't share the same emotional and cultural feelings of white Americans. Right. Like, they're not maybe as intimidated of talking about some of the history and all that. And so I think that both sides, again, are competing for attention based on kind of, yeah, american. Kind of like our recent 50, 60 years of american history. But I think a lot of, you know, not realizing that both sides are talking to a lot of people in this state, especially because we have such a high immigrant population and immigrants from everywhere, white immigrants, black immigrants, that I think a lot of this stuff is. I wouldn't say it falls on deaf ears, but I just think that both sides are trying to make points which the public is, like, looking at them saying, you know, okay, man, like, I see it. But, you know, this is not making the trains run on time. This is not, you know, this potentially damages the economy, so on and so forth. And so that's why it's fascinating to me.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: No, I mean, and I think, actually, that actually leads to where I was gonna go with this, because what I was thinking with this is that regardless of what overt acts you take from an agitation standpoint or from a lobbying standpoint or whatever, what I think the NAACP really should be doing here, or focusing on or equality Florida or the League of United American Citizens, is the persuasion piece. And I think what you just said raises, brings. Makes that even more pertinent in the sense that there's not enough discussion on why this is bad. It's almost like the NAACP is getting out here, or equality Florida is getting out here and saying, okay, here's the travel advisory. What DeSantis is doing is terrible.
Boom, end of story. But you're supposed to know already why it's bad or why this is contrary to american ideals. Like, I think they need to spend more time explaining why this is contrary to american ideals in terms of what the founding fathers said, in terms of equality, what the Constitution says, as far as equal protection under the law, and just the. The principle of teaching american history, which involves all types of Americans, and just automatically assuming that everybody already has all of the fault lines in their minds already is a mistake. I believe, and I think actually, you see this in some instances where. Where DeSantis, he may be, I don't think he's being, let's say, fully forthcoming about it, but he does always give reason, substantive reasons about why he's doing what he's doing, you know, in terms of, you know, the. The demonization of wokeness. They don't just assume everybody hates wokeness. They also go in and say, oh, well, wokeness is doing this. Wokeness. Wokeness is communism. Like they now, it's a lot of buzzwords and so forth, but they are trying to actively poison the term wokeness, not just assuming that it's already poisoned. And so from, on the contrary, I'm not saying you need to go in and cape for the term wokeness. You know, that's just used as a signal nowadays. But you need to explain the principles you're trying to uphold and why those principles are central to America. And how you do that is a marketing question. How you do that in not doing some long verbose things by some lawyer like myself is you need to come up with key points. You need to come up with things that people can grasp onto, things that make people feel good about America and tie those to the values you're trying to defend. And that's the piece that I don't see. And it's, it's, it's right now that you make the point that you make. I see why. Like, there's almost an assumption that anybody who is agreeable to me in general is going to understand why I'm doing what I'm doing. This is speaking from the NAACP's perspective, and I don't, but, so a lot of effort isn't made to go out and explain it over and over again. This is why we're doing what we're doing. This is what's important to us. This is why it should matter to you, not just, oh, well, they're taking, they're not teaching history the way they should be or, you know, they're not allowing protest the way they should be, and so, therefore we're doing this. So I think it's a missed opportunity, particularly right now, when you're agitating. You should have as much, if not more education behind that in terms of these messages on why you're doing what you're doing. And that, to me, where I could think they could do better constructively, like, you know.
[00:32:50] Speaker B: No, I think that's, that's what I was saying at the, at the onset. I guess, as we, as we close out this discussion here, that, you know, they're just, I don't think that they are doing it in a way that is gonna lead to long term change. You know, like, I guess with the civil rights movement, part of it, number one, was the idea of civil rights, right? Like this idea of rights as Americans. And I think that once we, because if you frame this from the lens of, let's say, freedom of speech, like, how can a governor or anybody, right. In terms of in the state power now, not a private corporation, how can a person say, you can't teach history? How can they say you can't? You know, you can fire, I mean, forget about the history stuff. The teacher in Tallahassee that recently got fired for, in an art school for showing the statue of David. Yeah, like, that's what I'm saying. Like, this is offensive, not just to black people. This attitude becomes then offensive to everybody who is a fan of creativity.
[00:33:56] Speaker A: Like, if you don't, like, fan of the constitution.
[00:33:58] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's what I mean. Like, if you're, if you're not a fan personally, of renaissance art in Europe, that's okay. But one should recognize that, you know, a lot of people find that stuff beautiful, and it's led to helping human beings be more creative, you know, since.
[00:34:15] Speaker A: Fundamental level, if we believe in freedom of speech, we believe in freedom of expression. And so if we hold those terms. Deal. Deal. If we hold those ideals close to our hearts, then we have to, we should be offended when someone says, we're banning this book or we're banning this photo of this famous artwork. And so that, that's exactly what I mean. Like, in terms of make that connect. Don't assume that everybody already has that connection in their mind. And because the other side is saying this is bad because it's teaching kids this or it's teaching kids that. And it's like, well, in a free society, sometimes that's how it works, you know, and when there's freedom of speech, that there, there are, you know, the freedom of speech has the whole thing. It's not just free. People are free to say things that you like. It's sometimes they're free to say things, and then there's concern about that. But that's how freedom of speech works. And so, yeah, tying it to ideals of the country, freedom of speech, as opposed to just my particular concern, but an overriding concern that all Americans profess that they care about and that they have affection for, I think would make a big difference in terms of, you know, so it's a good point. And like I said, I think you made it even a better, like, you, you, you really set it up for me in the sense that just pointing out, like, hey, not everybody was here for the fights in the sixties.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Well, and the other thing, and I know we want to move because you said something pretty profound, which I want to piggyback on just now because, and this is what happens when we don't allow ourselves as a country to actually just speak and have, you know, this whole kind of truth and reconciliation as a concept. Right. But, but they actually come in a successive order. You got to have truth first before then you can heal. You can't start healing off lies. So the thing is, is that we've seen it not just here in Florida, but specifically states like Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Arizona. So I can name them like, that's what I'm saying. You can look this up. They have spent time banning books on american historical figures that, again, our culture in general, like you said, the majority of Americans, of all Americans have seemed to have settled on being comfortable with a certain narrative of a american history. That narrative includes names like Frederick Douglass or Martin Luther King, not, not figures that one could say are maybe somewhat polarizing, like Malcolm X or Stokely Carmichael. Right. And so when I see books like that banned in those states, in certain school districts, what that tells me is, like you said, there's a minority of people there. That it's not necessarily that the stories of Martin Luther kingdom have something offensive in them is the fact that those stories actually talk about people like you and I, who stood up for themselves and who asked this country to honor the words of its founders, that to them is offensive. And I think that is something that we are not being allowed to discuss. Instead of this whole knee jerk reaction, let's leave Florida. We should ask the governor, hey, why are you so intimidated by including this history?
[00:37:18] Speaker A: Why use it as an opportunity to talk about it more?
[00:37:20] Speaker B: Exactly. And also, you're showing us that you're choosing as a politician to court this energy, which is a minority of people in this state. They seem to be more energized. So I know you want to win because they'll, they'll vote.
[00:37:32] Speaker A: You show up.
[00:37:33] Speaker B: They'll show up. But why not be a leader and tell those people, hey, why don't you come and embrace the America that has developed? Right.
[00:37:42] Speaker A: Well, or the one that actually is an accurate representation of historic. I mean, and that's, that's getting, we say all this, all of the criticism.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: We'Re saying it to each other, actually.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: But let me say this as we close this, because we're saying all this stuff about the NAACP's, the travel advisory and so forth, it's really constructive criticism because the problems that they're identifying, we identify those as problems as well. But the issue is that the travel advisory makes it difficult for a person who is not already invested in to a particular side of the issue. It makes it difficult to see who's fighting for american ideals because just you say, we're doing a travel advisory, Florida's hostile, yada, yada, yada. And that's like, okay, well, but you need to tie this directly and repeatedly to the fact we're on the right side here. We're the ones standing up for the constitution. We're standing up for the First Amendment. We're standing up for an accurate telling of what actually happened. And that I don't think comes through inherently in the travel advisory. And that, I think, is a big concern here. It just sounds like a tit for tat. Like you said, it sounds like an emotional, oh, you're doing this. We're mad. We're gonna get back at you and do this. And it's like, well, when you do that, when you wrestle with a pig or, you know, don't wrestle in the mud with a pig, because if, you know, people can't tell the difference between the pig and, you know, so to speak.
So. But I think we can move on from there. The second topic we wanted to discuss today was something we've recently seen, you know, whether it be the World Health Organization, you know, the US, the CDC and everything, but major health organizations around the world have pretty much told us, you know, officially proclaimed that the emergency aspect of the COVID pandemic is over. And, you know, so, and it's interesting now for most people, that's like, okay, yeah, you know, many people have gone on, particularly, you know, people younger than 60 or whatever, have kind of already been in the mode of not much thought to the pandemic for a while? And naturally, it makes sense that that would happen before the official organizations, you know, make the proclamation and so forth. But there are many Americans in the millions, some have counted in the tens of millions who experienced long Covid or long Covid symptoms. And a lot of them are looking around like, well, hold on.
What's going to happen to us now? That kind of the, the health bodies, the large organizations around the world are kind of moving on to the next thing, and so are we still going to get the same level of support which they're starting to see dry up? So what's your, what are your thoughts, you know, on the, on this kind of direction that things seem to be going? And are you concerned as far that there won't be sufficient support for the people who we don't want, you know, are we leaving people behind in the COVID pandemic, so to speak?
[00:40:31] Speaker B: Well, you threw a lot out there because if I was a conspiracy theory guy, I would say you said that they've moved on to the next thing. So I could say, are they planning the next pandemic?
[00:40:43] Speaker A: What happened to all the conspiracy people now, though? Like, where are all the. Where are they doing an accounting of all their conspiracies that didn't, like, make all the stuff about COVID Like. No, no, no, but just. That's an aside. Go ahead.
[00:40:53] Speaker B: No, they are. The nanobots were in the vaccine. That's why they didn't take it, remember? So they're clean. So. But, um. But no, so, I mean, it's. It's funny, this is a personal topic for me as a member of the Long Covid gang, which I learned is an estimated seven to 23 million Americans are suffering from long Covid. So I have at least I'm not alone, let's put it that way.
So the. No, I think it's. I find all this fascinating, man, because basically back to the 30,000ft of kind of our whole show, right? Like we spend a lot of time analyzing kind of what makes people tick, the human mind, psychology, all this kind of stuff over various type of topics. And I think this whole pandemic, not just the pandemic itself, the shutdown. And then, like you just alluded to the reaction of people to, you know, things, right? The remedies, the different discussions we had as a society, the loving or hating of people like Tony Fauci, you know, this kind of, you know, we all got our heroes and villains in this stuff. You know, it became like a good kind of production this whole last few years, right? So I think it's interesting as we come off of it and as regular humans, we all have a short attention span and people are tired of the pandemic in general. So people do have an emotional need to want to move on.
But I do feel, and especially as someone, like I said myself with long Covid, I feel things in my body that I know are just there from this virus. And, you know, I believe they're going to be probably permanent.
And so it is an interesting feeling to want to leave something behind and myself want to just say, this is over and let's move on. But knowing and feeling that it's not inside of me. So I feel like part of the long Covid community has a lot of things that we see in every other group, right? It's all of based on fear. Fear of losing research dollars, fear of not being able to solve it, all that stuff. And I guess maybe I'm just wired different. I'm done being scared of anything. I just feel like, okay, this is just my journey. I'm just gonna already told my wife, don't expect me to live my full life expectancy. And I had a serious conversation with her about it. And I don't know what that means. That means maybe if my life expectancy at this point in modern world is 85, maybe I'll live till 75. Maybe I'll live to 81. Maybe I lived to 65. I don't know. But I could also die of a heart attack or being shot on the street or in a car accident. So this is another thing that we can allow to stress us out. Um, and I know that some people with severe long Covid is different. That's more like a chronic illness. Um, or you just take your lumps and say, this is a hand I was dealt. Let me keep, you know, that's a.
[00:43:44] Speaker A: Healthy way to look at it.
[00:43:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:45] Speaker A: Because, you know, I oftentimes, you'll see very smart people that come to the conclusion in terms of just the life we lead and how much chaos is really involved. And then we tell ourselves stories and narratives to kind of make ourselves feel better about the chaos, you know, that, and to kind of blur the chaos. So we don't. We don't know that it's all chaos or that it's 95% chaos. And, you know, but we feel like it was an arc. There's a story. And so it's very, from your standpoint, a very healthy standpoint, just to be able to look at it and say, okay, you know, like, to recognize that there's a level of control that I just do not have. And so if I spend my time, all of my time worrying about the level of control I do not have, then I really go at my quality of life in general. And so, I mean, I think with everything there is going to be, you know, in terms of how society deals with it, there's going to be a focus, and then eventually focus is going to wane from it. So, ultimately, what I see the challenge here is to make sure that there still is an effort to try to understand Covid-19 and what it has done to people. And if there are things that we can do to bring people back to the close to what they were before, the people that still have long Covid. And the reason I think that Covid can't. We're not leaving Covid behind. Although the emergency may be over, where we're worried about the emergency rooms being overrun or, you know, so many people getting sick at a given time and so forth, that part may be over, but Covid still exists. It's people are still getting sick, getting. Getting Covid and dealing with it and so forth, and then presumably getting better, you know, again, not necessarily going to the emergency room. It's not the. It's not a novel coronavirus anymore. It's not something that most of our bodies have never seen before, which lessens the threat because we run into viruses all the time, but it's still a threat. So ultimately, to me, I think this is kind of the anxiety that people are feeling right now is necessary and natural in terms of, as we're trying to find our new level, the water level, you know, has to, like, we're pulling out of the emergency phase now. How much of a percentage of, you know, 100% of, you know, our research budget is going to stay with COVID You know, if it were during the emergency, it might have been a much higher percent than otherwise it normally would be. And the people now that are. That are expressing anxiety and concern about, hey, we still have long Covid. Covid still circulating. Let's not forget about COVID They're a necessary part of making sure that that water level doesn't go down to zero for Covid. Like, so if they didn't speak up, then, yeah, you know, squeaky wheel, you know, gets the oil. So they. Those people we were observing, I don't think this is, you know, cause for alarm, so to speak, to. For society. It's like, okay, well, no, those people have to speak up now so that all of it won't go from, you know, 80% of the dollars to zero. It'll go to whatever the appropriate water level is. It'll go to that. And so that's what we're. We're just living through this. It's gonna be of finding that water.
[00:46:54] Speaker B: Level and like you said about being not in the emergency anymore and resources having to be devoted to other areas. I just think, look, that's what I kind of accept for me, right? This long Covid stuff is going to be, just have to compete for interest and dollars like every other, you know, you think about cystic fibrosis or, you know, yeah, we can't stay in the.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: Emergency forever because then we do neglect everything else.
[00:47:17] Speaker B: Exactly. So, so it's just going to be another medical condition that's asking for a seat at the table as in terms of research dollars and all that. So, you know, it's. But I think it's. It's interesting, right? We're at this, I guess, when we look at history and we've done shows on Covid about, you know, and compared to things like the spanish flu or the Boston thing in early 19 hundreds, you know, and they started having issues with arguing about vaccines in, like, 1902. And it's, again, when you read things in history, there's always like, it's just dates on a page. So it's like, oh, yeah, this 90 through 1920, 119 22. And it's like, okay, it was just over. And it's like, oh, it doesn't work that way. Like, I'm sure by 1925, there was still a huge cultural kind of just hangover. Right.
[00:48:05] Speaker A: And we made. But just. Just to tie it in, we made the point a year or two ago that when you're living through the dash, when you read that 1920, 1919, through that dash, whatever, 1923, you don't think about all the years that were lived in that dash. And so now we're at the end. We have the end date, so to speak. But it's, again, that doesn't mean everybody forgets about it and the society doesn't have to deal with it anymore. So that's a good point.
[00:48:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And I guess, you know, even to round it off and finish up. Right. That's everything. So you could even go back to our first section of this show today and say that from a cultural lens, you know, these, these dashes and living at these points, nothing really ends with a hard, finite. Right. It's, things bleed into other, you know, you know, things and change over time. So, you know, will this long Covid, I mean, look, if Covid in this form never comes back, then everybody like me with long Covid at some point will die. You know, in the next 2030 years or whatever, I. And, you know, the world will have rid itself fully of COVID Or like you said, Covid will stay around and it'll just be another one of many viruses and diseases that human beings deal with. So. And that'll compete for attention, you know? Yeah.
[00:49:22] Speaker A: And for me, one side benefit that I'm hopeful for is now I'm hoping we can have the conversation in a more sober way of what Covid, you know, was there anything preventable about the way Covid arose and that we can try to address that because in the middle, this is the point I made at the time, in the middle of the emergency, it's really difficult. You know, if you're trying. If you have. If the house is on fire, you don't send in the investigators at that moment to try to figure out how the fire started. You got to get the fire under control or put out. And so once the fire is put out of, then you send in the investigators say, okay, how did the fire start? And so I'm hopeful that at this point now, the thoughtful conversation can have. Okay, how it, like, let's look more closely now. This is tough because China doesn't provide information. China does is not open as far as much information. But I'm sure there's still some forensic stuff that can be done just in terms of figuring out what exactly happened.
Let's not go based on what's convenient for all parties. Let's go based on, okay, what's most likely and everything like that, and then what can be done in the future, because there's still, you know, like, pathogens are not going anywhere, you know? And so there is, if we're doing experimentation or if we're doing things that put us at risk for pathogens hopping over or pathogens, you know, being taken out of animals and tested and stuff like that, whatever it is, let's just make sure that, one, the precautions are in place to try to avoid this and or to the like it. That stuff is constrained in a way. And again, I don't know that this is something you try to ban out.
[00:51:04] Speaker B: Right.
[00:51:04] Speaker A: Because then you lose all control over it because it happens in the dark, so to speak. So I don't know that ban is the right answer because it doesn't. Bans generally don't end things anyway. But I hope we can have the conversation. We can have the analysis in the.
[00:51:18] Speaker B: Conversation, though, is gain of function research and all that stuff.
[00:51:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, gain a punch and all that stuff. I just think this now is the time to look at that stuff and say, okay, well, you. What's going on here?
[00:51:29] Speaker B: You deal with all that. You're the smart guy. You know what I'm gonna go back after. Now that we're out of the fire stage and we can go back and analyze, I want to go back to the idea of putting bleach under the skin and making that work. So when I'm gonna go in my direction and I'm gonna spend a few years making that work, you have fun in your direction. We'll be back up. Okay.
[00:51:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:49] Speaker B: When the next pandemic comes and I put this syringe with bleach in my arm and I don't die. You're gonna say, tunde, say, now I gotta put, I need some of that.
[00:51:57] Speaker A: On the front of the podcast.
[00:51:59] Speaker B: Say, I need some of that. I'm gonna say, no, you didn't want to come research or you had to go look at all that fancy stuff and gain a function and all that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:52:06] Speaker A: All right. So, yeah, you're. You're doing research on injectable poison, and, yeah, so they would go with that. But no, I mean, like I said, I think now is the time, basically. I think from the standpoint, it will. It won't necessarily. The people who would have emotional and extreme reactions just aren't paying attention to this anymore. So now we can have a real conversation without them coming in and making it all about themselves or, you know, whatever it is.
[00:52:30] Speaker B: So I get a feeling, though, they'll still show up, though.
[00:52:34] Speaker A: Only delivers ratings, man.
[00:52:36] Speaker B: They'll find their way back in some.
[00:52:38] Speaker A: We got it. We got to distract them, man. We need some. We need some. Need to. Some CRT or something we can point them to distract goes bad so we can have a real conversation.
[00:52:46] Speaker B: The woke ism.
[00:52:47] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:52:48] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:52:49] Speaker A: So. But, no, I think we can wrap this conversation from here. We appreciate it. Right. For joining us on this episode of call. Like I see it. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review us, tell us what you think. Send it to a friend. Until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:53:01] Speaker B: Tuna. Lana.
[00:53:02] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk to you next time.
