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 going to discuss the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine as we pass the one year mark of Russia kicking everything off by invading Ukraine.
And later on, we're going to weigh in on the online backlash that we've seen over the selection of the first Latina to be crowned Miss Coppin State University.
Now, this is notable because Coppin State, which is in Baltimore, is a historically black university. And so there's been backlash that's been seen online.
Joining me today is a man who, if you get him going, can tell you all about being authentic. Tunde. Ogonlana Tunde. You plan to share with the folks today why there ain't nothing like the real thing?
[00:01:12] Speaker B: If I share that, are they going to come back?
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Guess it depends on what that real thing is.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know. I just, you know, maybe I got to keep them waiting. Let's see. Let's see how the show goes.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: All right, now we're recording this on February 27, 2023. And last week, the one year anniversary of Russia's initial invasion of Ukraine, which kicked off the war between the two countries, passed.
And since then, well, since the initial invasion, I should say, we've seen Russia make some gains and then we've seen Ukraine take back some of what Russia gained. Russia had gained. And we sit today without any kind of real momentum for anything decisive to happen. So, Tunde, as we sit here with a conflict that looks like it may be ongoing for a while, what stands out to you most about the first year of fighting in the Russia Ukraine war?
[00:02:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny. I think what stands out to me is that it's still going on.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: You know what's interesting, just real quick, the thing I wrote down first was that Ukraine is still here, like, which.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Is kind of the same thing.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Like, it was like, oh, no, Russia's going to steamroll these guys initially, you know, is what the concern was.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: It's funny. In preparing for today, I realized, wow, I must have been also a victim of Russian propaganda and disinformation because, like, it's funny, I was in agreement with Russian leadership that they would flatten this country in three or four days. Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. I'm surprised that they're still here. And so that's one thing, honestly, that it's been a year and that Ukraine is still out there fighting and surviving.
And I know we'll get into the nuances behind all of it. And then the other thing, just to finish off answering the question directly, is obviously when the tanks rolled over the borders and all that, it's the first time we've seen this type of aggressive move between one country and its neighbor on the European continent since 1939.
[00:03:13] Speaker A: Well, in a sense, I mean, Russia kind of. They took a piece of. They took Crimea, you know, but they took those. Not necessarily by, like you said, with tanks rolling.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: So this was like, official. Remember, they had their.
The guys without military uniforms back then. Yeah. So, I mean. And that's what I'm saying. I know.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Proxy groups.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll get into all that. But. But really just this idea that, you know, there's a land war in Europe for the first time in a long time where all the countries are engaged. I mean, not all, but a lot of countries, more so than just the two that are going head to head are involved. And it just reminded me of, like, blunders. And, you know, I couldn't help but thinking about Hitler when he invaded Russia. Like, it's interesting that that was a big military blunder which basically led to the demise of, you know, Germany's prowess during World War II. You know, one could say that had he not done that and kept Stalin as an ally, the war might have ended up different. And I think, I feel like this is a blunder at that level where Putin, just, like Hitler, Putin can't undo this one. So I don't see there's any good way for the Russians to come out of this, because they don't appear to have the type of attitude and culture that they're just going to retreat, which means that they may escalate it, which again, will probably end bad for them and others, you know, potentially us, too. But I'm just saying that, you know, that's kind of my. My takeaway.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Yeah. That from a leadership standpoint, Putin doesn't seem to have left themselves any outs here. Like, it's like you either get what you came for and there is no nothing else. Like, it's like he's backed himself into a corner where the way he rules, the way he governs, he can't take. Ls like this, you know, like, he can't just, oh, oh, well, let's just go back. Like, so I guess you can.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: And he'll be the victim.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: Well, no, I mean. And actually, it's all related in a sense, as far as what stands out, because that you said you were the victim of Russia's propaganda, how big, how bad they were, you know, how big and bad they were. But yes, I mean, and that is to me what stands out is the way that Ukraine has been able to in a sense go toe to toe with these guys. You know, Russia, as we were growing up, you know, people born in the 70s, you know, growing up, learning stuff in 80s and 90s, particularly the 80s, Russia was considered a superpower up until the, you know, the Soviet Union dissolves. But even since then, you know, Russia has put together what from outside appear outside appeared to be a formidable military. And for Ukraine to, And so you, and I should say continuing on from that, you would think that they did, you know, like intelligence type work and they kind of sized up Ukraine like for them to commit down this road.
I just would have thought that it was thought out a little bit more and it was planned out a little bit more. Like they kind of anticipated what was going on and what would happen and so forth. And so it's almost kind of like, it reminds me like let's say a Desert storm or something like that. If the US would have went in and Saddam would have just repelled them and it would be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Kuwait, you're out of luck. Saddam just has the heat. And so but it's like, okay, like countries size themselves each other up all the time and they kind of have an idea of what they're capable of. And so for this level of miscalculation is just mind boggling to me. And you can get into the reasons for it in terms of how the top down system as far as the people making the decisions may be very far from the battlefields, the technology aspect of it and the supplying of good technology to Ukraine by allies from the west, you can get it a lot of reasons, but just the simple fact of the matter that Russia seems to make this huge miscalculation and they like, they're not, they look like it's just two countries of the same kind of ilk fighting right now. It doesn't look like it's some big bad bully on the block versus some, you know, little guy about to lose his lunch money. It looks like two equally kind of, you know, equally kind of strong countries. And that's the part I just, and I still haven't seen really great explanations for that other than Russia just greatly over exaggerated in its own minds, you know, their own capabilities.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: But that's why it reminds me of Hitler invading Russia, because it just is a total miscalculation. Like There just doesn't appear to be any well thought out reason why this would make sense long term.
Unless you're meaning the leadership. Right. Whether Hitler or Putin, either they're. That they're delusional or.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: Which.
[00:07:50] Speaker B: I don't know either, man. But looking at them from the outside, I would ascribe Hitler probably to more delusion than Putin. Looks like he's probably willing to face certain bad facts and advice. I think with Putin, it looks like maybe he just had either fired, killed or jailed enough people in his circle over the last 25 years that maybe he only had yes men and people that were too scared.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: KGB guy. How could their intelligence be so wrong as far as the. The capabilities of Ukraine, even if they overshot what their own capabilities?
[00:08:24] Speaker B: I mean, but that's all I'm saying is that either the intelligence he was given was correct and he didn't care, that could be the delusional.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: He didn't believe it. Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: Or yeah, it was that bad because people were scared to tell him the truth because of the system he's built up underneath him of fear and intimidation within his own ranks.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: I think what we've seen with the turnover in military leadership and all that, the issue with the mercenary Wagner group and infighting with the military, I mean, all this tells you that there's a lot of mismanagement internally in the Russian system and it's being masked and it's not a surprise. In an authoritarian system, you got the same dude in power for 25 years, there's no refreshing of the tree, you know, like there's no room for new ideas and new, A new loyalty is.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: Valued over competence and you know, all those types of things that I think, I think normal for authoritarian.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: And that's a good point. Right, like, like that things over time, like loyalty over competence. Yeah, that, that. I mean, this is what happens. You see these kind of blunders. And so, and I think, look to the, to also the credit of the Ukrainian people, I think it was underestimated the resolve not only of them, but of the other Europeans.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Because I think when that sense though, Let me just jump in real quick because in that sense it's less like the Hitler's move in Russia and more like Hitler's move in England. Because remember, a big part of what Hitler was doing when he was bombing and bombing London and so forth in those cities every night was he was trying to break the will of the British. And surprisingly to him, and psychologists have studied this after the fact that it didn't break the people. The people didn't break. The people actually became. Had more resolve as they had more resolve as the conflict continued and as they were bombed every night, it became part of their routine. It no longer was as disruptive for them. And so in that sense, yes, I think credit should be given to the Ukrainian people. And then I think Zelensky, their leader, in terms of keeping the resolve and kind of the morale of the country up. And that stuff seems to have paid off with victories. And, you know, they have pushed back the. What were the front lines, you know, and pushed those back into. It's still territory that Russia had taken from them, but it's not what it was, you know, when Russia initially made their first offensive. So, you know, like, a lot of credit should be given. Like, I think that's a good point that you made to the Ukrainian people and their leadership in terms of just morale, resolve, you know, just kind of really sticking with it, that grit.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Let me tell you one last thing that I thought of that stands out to me about this first year is.
Let me see how I put this. You know, I'd say early on there was a lot that stood out to me about our media, really, and how it covered this conflict over others in terms of things like refugees and the way that Russia has behaved in the past. Because, remember, this is their third act or fourth act. They did Chechnya, Georgia and then Syria, but no one was paying attention to that. Yeah, they just pay attention to this one because it's in, you know, the European continent. So it stood out to me that, you know, Russia is behaving the way it's behaved for 20 years.
We just, the west just woke up basically last year when it was kind of a country within our sphere of recognition that got it.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: I think some of that is Zelensky, though, you know, that the way he personalized the conflict, it definitely. Yes, you know, like those other conflicts were in Europe as well. But yeah, like, Russia was able to use force, whether it wasn't necessarily, like you said, tanks rolling, but they were able to use force to acquire more territory, more land. And the response was kind of ho hum from the west, from NATO and so forth. And that probably emboldened Russia this time. Yeah, you know, to say, hey, you know, we've done this before, the west isn't going to do anything. And so some of that has to be the variable of Zelensky, who has been able to. I mean, just being someone who knows how to play the media game, it shows you how.
Knowing how to play that media game, knowing how to get out and get people talking and so forth. Zelensky is able to do has certainly played a role in how people have reacted and how people have received this one, because it's not much different than what Russia had been doing for 20 years. So, I mean, and along those lines, I. The other point I wanted to get to on this or question, I wanted to ask you about this parallel with the actual fighting on the ground. There has been a lot of time and effort and energy spent on crafting narratives on the information wars, so to speak. That's where Russia's trying to run their propaganda. The US the west has the information that they're saying, hey, this is what's going on. And we're talking about not just who. Who's good and who's bad, but, like, there's that also. But also, like, what actually is going on. You know, in Russia, it's apparently, if you call it a war, you can go to jail. You know, and so there's this battle, and then China's even, you know, recently we've seen China get into the act and saying, oh, well, this is really about the US Trying to wage proxy wars. Like, everybody's trying to craft a narrative that they're hoping will take hold. And so with that, you know, like, with looking at the information wars that have gone on, what's caught your eye there?
[00:13:48] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's. This is. This is the fascinating part to me, and I think, you know, you know, let's definitely address China's potential role and potential for influence in this, you know, kind of after this initial part, because I find their inability to kind of do something with this also interesting on the world stage. But, you know, let's. Let's take it back a bit when we get into this information wars, because I think it's very important to get back to our memory of the 20th century and the Cold War. You know, this whole thing between the United States and Russia isn't new. I mean, I think anyone over, you know, 35, 40 years old will know that just having been alive maybe over the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall and all that.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: I would say, yeah, in the 20th century, it was defining kind of conflict, defining kind of beef, you know, Post World War II, the Cold War.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: Well, and. And here's the way I look. And we've talked about this in several discussions on air, which is, you know, to me, the 20th century represented kind of the battle. If you look at the 19th century, as the real development of the indust age and all that, and people moving from rural areas and all that to more cities over the 20th century then the war between the west and the east, in the sense of the Cold War, the communists versus the capitalists, was really about the ideas of how you're going to organize societies. And so Karl Marx and that style came up.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: Well, I would say more to that point, honestly, is really about. It's about the attempt at democratic systems versus the more authoritarian systems. Because while we frame it as communism and capitalism, which there are elements to that, it really did become ultimately more about autocrats against, like the United States, which at least was. Had the appearance and was making an effort in large part to have more of a democratic system. Now abroad they were doing other things, like in terms from an intelligence or a military standpoint that may not have been consistent with that all the time, but at home, I mean, they were trying to do it, you know, it was, you know, something that was an effort was made and progression was made. It became more democratic over time versus countries where things became more autocratic over time.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, you know, look, I think every superpower probably has its detractors around the world because, you know, if it's a superpower, probably somebody off. So I think we're stepped on a.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: Lot of shoes to get that.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: I mean, that's just. That's just life. Right. And so my point is, is that.
But if you look at it from 30,000ft, you're right. Like it's how do we organize societies? Do we want to have a society where the people have more of a voice, the more democratic side of society, where there's things like, you know, the entrepreneurship, the personal voice, capital, blah, blah, blah.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: Property.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. You can own property without being harassed by the government, all that, you can transfer that property to your kids, blah, blah, blah. Or do you want to fold into the more authoritarian style where the state sets precedents, maybe the state even owns assets, things like that. And the state will quote, unquote, take care of you versus the other system. Right, that. And so I feel like the 20th century was that battleground and we won. And so the. If. If you look at countries that followed our model, England, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, you know, they're kind of Western West Germany at that point. Right.
Versus the countries that followed the Soviet model, which we could say China, Cuba, Venezuela. And I don't need to rattle them all off. Right. I think like this, the migration of humans tells you what human beings they Voted with their feet. I don't remember seeing over the last 50, 60 years a bunch of Americans and British and Australians trying to run into China and Russia and Venezuela in these countries. But I do see over that time people from those countries, you know, breaking down the borders of the Western countries. So.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: And people from countries that aren't really weren't, weren't a part of kind of the, one of the polls, generally speaking, where the net immigration was going more towards the open societies.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: Yep, exactly. And so what happens? Fast forwarding now to the 21st century, we have the United States early on, you know, around the 911 time through the early parts of the, of the first decade was the world superpower and China was coming up and you had this guy named Vladimir Putin that was wanting to bring back the Soviet Union the glory of the old days. So going back to the information war, what happened in 2013, 2014, is that the Ukrainians were looking to get independent from the Russian influences held over from the 90s. A lot of the oligarchs were in there running business.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: They were running the government republic or, you know, a former part of the ussr.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: Correct. Because yes, that's a great point. That many countries, including Poland and Czechoslovakia and Hungary and a lot were parts of the Soviet Union just like Ukraine was. So what happens is those countries prior to the Second World War and that era were not part of Russia because there was no Soviet Union. They were taken over by Stalin after the war when Russia was, I mean, sorry, when Europe was in ruins. So the information war was between us and the Russians because just like we did in the 20th century, remember, we had proxy wars all over the world between us and the Soviets in Africa, South America, so on and so forth. And so the first time this happened in the last decade was around that 2014 period when Russia annexed Crimea. And that's when we began to see the real information war play out, where the Russians tried to influence Western Europe and us and our populations into saying that Russia had a right to go ahead and annex this part of sovereign country.
[00:19:45] Speaker A: Well, they, they, that was what we saw is their efforts to influence us, their efforts to. And we've seen this over the 20 teens. It, it evolved even further where Russia's, Russia's just testing their ability to influence nations around the world, including the United States, using, particularly using the apparatus of open societies. But also which we don't see, they're doing the same thing at home too. You know, they're trying to maintain a certain perception. And when you look at the information wars. What I find is very interesting about this is that in actuality, this is the normal state of things, is that there are several narratives jockeying, basically, and people pushing these narratives that suit their interests. So Russia has created this narrative out of thin air, basically, that Ukraine is the threat to them, and so therefore they need to invade them. You know, like. So Russia's created a narrative based on a pretext. Now we call that in the United States, and, you know, we're looking at that as. That we call BS on that, really, you know, like. And that's because from our vantage point, at least, the information we've gotten is that Ukraine was doing its own thing. Ukraine, if anything. And this. This goes back. This goes back to the Hunter Biden stuff. If anything, Ukraine is trying to get some of the corruption out that is involved with the Russian oligarchs in terms of. And how they are beholden to Russian interests and the Kremlin and so forth. And so Ukraine's making that push, and at the same time, Russia's trying to exert more influence over. So it looks like. I mean, the ultimate way to put a bunch of influence on somebody is to put your troops there and say, hey, this is our land now. And so that's what it looks like from the outside.
But it's not just like a two sides of this thing. There are other narratives that are being pushed. And I like that you brought up how Russia and China are both kind of trying to push themselves up the hierarchy in the world as, hey, we are superpowers as well, in addition to the United States, because I think China's approach to this has been very interesting from the standpoint of they haven't outright condemned Ukraine. In fact, they initially, not too long after the initial invasion, they gave some aid. Now, it may not have been a ton, but they gave some aid to Ukraine, but they've backed Russia in general, and they've pushed. More importantly, they've pushed more of a narrative that the United States is the problem here, not Russia. And that's despite the fact that Russia invaded this country, but how things are remembered. This is what we have to. When we're looking at this, we have to keep in mind how things are remembered isn't really about what happens a lot of times. It's about who's able to successfully implant their narrative in more people's minds. And so this information battle that we're seeing right now, that you can see all these different people talking about this conflict in all these different ways, it's basically that process being sorted out in terms of okay, well how this, how will this be remembered? Not necessarily by us who were there, meaning who are alive and present and saw, hey, you know, Ukraine minding its own business, boom, Russian tanks are coming over the border, like everybody else, people who came after that, like, how will they remember this? And so to me that's what really stands out about this. And so you can extrapolate this on any conflict or historical event like, oh, this is the process that was happened. We learned one narrative or maybe some people will learn more than one. But ultimately it's about this is actually just as big of a part as the actual fighting is. How is this thing going to be seen? How is it going to be remembered?
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean look, we're watching history being made, right?
[00:23:13] Speaker A: And you're right, everyone's watching it being made, but separately we're watching it being written.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. Everyone's jockeying for the narrative at the same time and you know, he who's loudest is probably going to win. I mean, I'm sure that's how it's happened throughout other moments in history. And the, I mean it's fascinating to me because I think again, we are much stronger than we give ourselves credit as Americans and we continually undermine ourselves. I mean look at like you said about China. It, it hasn't been lost on me that China is in a pickle here because they've spent the last few years really, you know, kind of trying to challenge us and saber idling and all that.
They mismanaged themselves during COVID as everyone knows. So they hurt themselves with their own population. They have, I think it's as high as 50% unemployment of their own citizens under age 30. So they have a lot of internal issues and then they look like they're about to side with a country that has a GDP smaller than the state of Texas when we're there are we are China's biggest trading partner.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: So what are they going to do? Are they going to go to war with us and then kill hurt themselves in the process because they're going to have no one to trade with.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: They sell all the stuff they make.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: That's what I mean. And so. And Russia can't buy it because they're too poor. So it's, it's the infowars to me are interesting from that standpoint. And I think China, you know, that's.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: Why China's been extra. China hasn't been active in the military Part, at least to our knowledge. But they've been extra active and the information war part of it. As far as trying to push their narrative, I think they're, they're in a pick. Let me give you the other side of the pickle. They're in also, though, because they don't want to do anything that is going to increase the US's relative power.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: You know, so they're like, oh, well, we can't condemn Russia here because a weaker Russia is a stronger United States. And so they're literally looking at this like, okay, well, you know, like we, we don't want to. But they're the United States stronger, but we also don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot economically, you know. And so. Yeah, it's an interesting kind of stuff.
[00:25:08] Speaker B: I agree. I mean, because what if, I mean, like you said about them sending arms, we can all speculate here, right? What if, what if the next thing is, you know, the President says, all right, if you send Russia arms, we're going to build a base in Taiwan. How you like that? Like, meaning they don't have, they're not, you know, they've been losing balloons, they're not doing too well. So that's them. But going back to Russia, here's the thing, because I hear this from certain Americans, you know, because I have a lot of people in my life that have, I feel fell for some of this Russian disinformation. You know, I remember people telling me, oh, well, how do you think Vladimir Putin feels with NATO on his doorstep and you know, blah, blah, blah and going east and all that. And I remember looking at a guy saying, that's interesting. I never, I never heard you be concerned about what Saddam Hussein thought in 03 before we went and invaded him. Like, when's the last time you cared about an American adversary, number one?
[00:25:57] Speaker A: Number two is us being on their doorstep.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's my point. Like, I'm a fan of like the post World War II World Makeup of NATO and us being at the top and us being the big dogs of the world. And yeah, you know what that means. We got to send money out to our proxy nations to help them stave.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: Off their, like, it doesn't even have to be a proxy. It could just be like minded again.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I know, because somebody said to me last week, oh, why are we sending Ukraine all this money? And I'm like, we only sending them like $2 billion right now. We send every country money from Canada to Israel to Mexico to this, that yeah, everybody except North Korea, Russia, and I'm sure we send money to Russia, but, you know, we even still pay rent for Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. We still send them a check even though they don't cash it out of spite. So my point is, is like. And that's what I said to the person I go, so hold on. So you think that if, if Putin gets to totally occupy Ukraine and now he's on the border of Poland, so now he's going to say, I got a NATO country on my border anyway, now he's going to be the victim again, even though he invaded Ukraine.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: Then I bet you if he is allowed to do that, he's going to invade Poland. We saw that. That's why I say this reminds me of Hitler. Oh, well, that's the significance.
[00:27:09] Speaker A: Why it was worth. When you go back and took this back to 2014 and how this was a progression from Putin. And yes, if we don't stop, if we don't assist nations that are trying to stand up to someone like that, nations that are trying to become more democratic, trying to become more open, then they succumb to the autocrat Putin. And Putin's going to be emboldened to keep going.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: Two things. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: Well, I was going to say. And then one other thing, because I want to get actually to the US Politics part and how this is playing.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: Let me ask you one question before you jump.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: That was just going on a serious note, because when I talk to my fellow Americans here who I feel have sided with the Russian angle of viewing this, I wonder about how people used to talk about someone like Neville Chamberlain and call him an appeaser.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: Well, that's what we're going to. But that's what I want to talk about when we talk about the US Piece. The other piece I wanted to mention, though, real quick, before we get there, was, I think not credit, but respect has to be, you know, kind of looked at. It has to be looked at from a respect standpoint. Putin has played the information war very well. Like, as poor as they've done from a military standpoint compared to what their expectations were.
Their playing of the information game has been, you would almost say, masterful.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: Because there is a undercurrent in the United States that, yeah, Putin is cool, Putin's fine. Let Putin do what he wants to do. What do we care what's going on over there? And as you pointed out, that's very similar to the kind of sentiments that we've seen in the United states in the past or just people who were termed isolationists, you know, and just worry about the United States and, you know, like that, that's something that we'll talk about that right now. And I might as well get to it because there's something there that I think needs to be recognized or acknowledged from the standpoint of where that isolationist is coming from or that kind of isolationist rhetoric, because it may not be someone who's actually truly an isolationist. And the thing I wanted to ask you, and I'm going to just keep going here for a second, so just give me a second, is, you know, here in the U.S. you know, like, I wanted to get your thoughts on how this has played out in our politics. And what I specifically want to ask is, or what I want to get into specifically is this context of isolationist type sentiments. And what we're seeing in many respects, we're seeing this. These types of sentiments.
There are gen. There are people who genuinely have isolationist type kind of mentalities. You know, like that's always existed, that exists in both parties. You know, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party. They both have parts of them that have always leaned more isolationist. But we're also seeing something else here where it's people who had very aggressive rhetoric towards Putin a couple years ago, two, three years ago, and now it almost looks like political opportunism. Almost. Well, I should say this political opportunism built on the Russian propaganda machine, where now they're not necessarily. They weren't isolationist two or three years ago when they were talking tough about Russia and we need to contain Russia. We need to make sure that they don't try to do these crazy things. We got NATO there, yada, yada, yada. So how much do we think. Do you think we're seeing this kind of true isolationist mindset, pushback versus just political opportunism, where they're just saying, hey, well, if Biden's the president, we need Biden to do things. Anything Biden does, we have to oppose. Now, this is very bad from a country standpoint, and you're operating a country. I guess this is what people want as far as hyperpartisanship. But just what do you see there, you know, in terms of, okay, well, we have isolationist mindset, then we also have just opportunity.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: It's hard to break one from the other just from looking at the outside. And since I'm not an isolationist and, you know, I don't mind, you know, like I said earlier, right. If we're the big guy on the block, then I expect us to be, you know, out there in the world and not pretending like somehow we can be the biggest. Can't sit in the powerhouse if you get a big.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: You can't sit in the house all the time. That's just how it works.
[00:31:09] Speaker B: Exactly. So, so, so the bottom line is I can't tell 100%. I want to say this. I recognize there are genuine isolationists out there, and that is a political ideology, and I don't have an issue with that as a person that enjoys living in a democracy with diverse opinions, because someone who's genuinely an isolationist, at least one could have a debate with them.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: And then we can vote. And if we vote, I find some.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: Common ground and maybe there'll be a time when they do believe that isolationism needs to be put on the side and all that. So that one to me is, you know, if someone's genuinely in isolation is. I'm not going to fault them.
[00:31:46] Speaker A: But the thing also, though, like, that's what our system is built on is differing opinions that genuinely.
[00:31:51] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying.
[00:31:52] Speaker A: And then you can argue for your side, you argue for your side and you say, hey, this, this person, this, this theoretical, true isolationist. They'll get up and they'll say, why we need to be isolationists. And people either vote for that or not. And then the problem is, or not the problem, but the question is resolved for two years or four years or six years. And so, yeah, that's part of having an open political system. We're not all going to come to the table with the same mindset and approach, but you get to vote on it, people get to vote on it, and then we either go one way or the other. So, yeah, go ahead. I just wanted to kind of add that into what you're saying.
[00:32:22] Speaker B: Well, that's the bottom line. So I don't want to stay on this too long. But the bottom line is, obviously, if someone is genuine about their.
I'm not here to, you know, disrespect them or anything, whether I agree or not. Right. I think the opportunists are the ones that one has to just look at sideways and say, seriously, you know, and. And again, I'm not going to sit here and say, I'm going to point to which one's which. I'm just saying that we can assume that some people who oppose what's going on from the American response and assisting and all that may be genuine isolationists and there's probably a big chunk of them that are just opportunists that if it was, you know, and I think this is where leadership is important because I'm not going to say if it was a Republican or a different Democrat or something like that. I just think that we had leadership for a few years in this country, which basically appeased the Russian story. Right. I mean, and again, people can hear what I'm saying and interpret it however they want. Well, no, I mean, I saw a press conference.
[00:33:22] Speaker A: Former President Trump literally said he believed the Russian.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: I know, that's where I'm going.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: Version of the story on several things, you know, like over our.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: US no, but that's all I was going to say is go back to look at the. Play the tape from Helsinki, Finland.
[00:33:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:36] Speaker B: And that conference when he walked out side by side with Vladimir Putin and said, I believe this guy over my own country, my own intelligence services, everyone else. So again, when you muddy the waters, you talk about information war. Think about that might have been the biggest win in Russian history from a propaganda standpoint, where the Russian president was standing next to a US President and the US President said, I believe this guy next to me over my own agencies.
[00:34:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: Ronald Reagan might have done a full black backflip in that coffin. And that's where I'm getting at. And that's why, again, it's sad.
[00:34:12] Speaker A: Well, no, not just Ronald Reagan. Every U.S. president.
[00:34:16] Speaker B: Hold on. Who was the guy that started that the Cold War started under? Unfortunately, Truman. Right.
[00:34:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:22] Speaker B: That's what I thought of in my head. I thought of all of them. I said, okay, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: We're not going to run through all the.
[00:34:30] Speaker B: I'm running Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton, GW Bush, Barack Obama, and then Donald Trump.
And now we have Joe Biden. And the whole time, Russia has been our adversary. And only one of those presidents didn't behave that way. And that's okay. Meaning when he was running, when Trump was running for office and he said, we should look to have better relations with Russia. I'm not opposed to that. But just like they did to Obama when he was coming in talking about I'll talk to dictators, and they got all mad at him because why? There's got to be certain conditions if we want to play ball with Russia. Russia needs to behave a certain way, too.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: Yeah. They need to play ball with us. It's not going to be. We have better relations with them by doing what they say.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:16] Speaker A: You know, so. Exactly.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: Yeah. No I mean, like, I wanted. I'll say this now if you want. I'm not going to spend the time to do it, and you clearly didn't want to spend the time to do it. But we do have receipts on who are the political opportunists here, because the political opportunists are the people who were in 2019 or 2017 or whatever out here talking greasy about Russia and saying, oh, Russia got to do this, Russia has to do that. And we're going to stop, right? We're not going to let Russia, like there. There are plenty of documented quotes from politicians that are currently very prominent that we're talking all this stuff about Russia. And then now that we have this going, they're talking a completely different tune and it's all our fault. And it comes dangerously close to literally the propaganda messaging that Russia is putting out there. Well, we have our own politicians repeating that now. That opportunism I find, like, yeah, I agree with you from the. If you're an isolationist, then, yeah, let's have a debate. Let's have the people vote. And if you win the vote, then, I mean, hey, it looks like we're going to be isolationists for a little bit. But the opportunists are what are dangerous, you know, in this type of situation, because they're essentially what a political opportunist is, is a person that puts whatever political opportunity that they see or that they're trying to push over the country.
That should be a red flag for any politician, if they will, if they're going to take opportunism when it comes to our primary adversary in the world, or if it's not the only primary adversary, it's at least a primary adversary. As you pointed out for the past 80 years. If they're going to use the comings and goings of that country, particularly the comings and goings of that country, invading other countries which are trying to be democratic and so forth, neighbors of NATO, exhibiting belligerence towards NATO nations and so forth, then that's the kind of person that'll sell your country out completely, you know, like, because that's literally what they're doing. They're saying, hey, my political disagreement is more important than the interests of my nation. And so therefore, I will say things or do things that undermines my nation's international effort and international standing to gain a political advantage domestically. So it's very dangerous from the standpoint of that. And a lot of times I think that, again, I'm not here to sit here and tell you who's doing what and everything like that. But I think that we all should look at the people who we support and say, okay, are the people that I support, do they put politics over international relations, over national security? Are these issues issues that. I'll say one thing and I'll say something else. It just depends on how the political winds are blowing at that time. Because those aren't the kind of people that you want in positions of leadership when, you know, when hits the fan or even in good times. Because those are people that'll sell you out. Even in good times.
[00:38:02] Speaker B: Well, you're, you're asking a lot of people, you know, they remember the tv. The TV and the Google machines and the social medias make it so people get emotionally attached to their political favorites and that they get emotionally.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: He's my hero.
[00:38:18] Speaker B: They get emotionally disturbed by the people who they're supposed to be disturbed by. But here's the thing, and this is where to me that the information war part is interesting, because, yeah, it's happening. And Putin, like you said, is very good with this. I want to read a couple quotes from some of his recent speeches. This one is From October of 22, after it was a little bit after the Nordstream pipeline sabotaging. And he says, this is what I find interesting, what a lot of Americans don't appreciate about the European continent. He says, quote, sanctions were not enough for the Anglo Saxons. They moved on to sabotage. I love that quote. Because in America, we're so, you know, what's the word you often use?
It's reductive to just black and white. Right. Like, oh, all white people are the same man. That was a great quote. As a reminder that Europe is a very diverse ethnically.
[00:39:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: And so most, I would say, you know, pre, middle of the 20th century, most white Americans were descended from the British Isles through maybe Germany. Right. Maybe that kind of Western Europe. That's really where Anglo Saxons are at that part of Europe. The Eastern Europeans. Remember we did the show on eugenics, how white Americans in the 20s didn't think of Eastern Europeans as white. Remember?
[00:39:38] Speaker A: And then in Southern Europe, it was the same thing from the same.
[00:39:41] Speaker B: Exactly.
What Putin is fascinating is he's bringing all those ethnic. This is what people don't get over here about Europe. They know how to fight.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's for thousands of years. I mean, well, this whole Ukraine thing is in large part about the Slavs, but.
[00:39:57] Speaker B: Exactly.
And that's why, though it wasn't a surprise for me after last Year, once the Ukrainians started fighting and the rest of Europe started protecting them. Because the Europeans know what this is. When somebody comes over someone's border, they got this history. Those old ladies that were spitting at the Russian tanks, they were 5, 10 years old during the Second World War, you know what I mean? Like, they don't want this. And so. And so I think that's where, again, Putin miscalculated his own propaganda. And even in the recent speech, he did. And this is where I think it's fascinating to me, and then I'll hand it back for this last week or so, marking the one year where Putin was already to give his version of the State of the Union. It was called the State of the Nation address last week.
And what did Biden do? Again, this is to me the interesting games that we see, the psychological warfare part of it between the guys at the top.
[00:40:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:51] Speaker B: For him to sneak into Ukraine, take a 10 hour train ride from Poland to Kiev. Now, here's what I heard, too, that the Americans told the Russians he's doing it, which was to me also a big middle finger to the Russians because it's also daring Putin.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: I didn't know it's saying that there better not be any accidents. I didn't know.
[00:41:12] Speaker B: That's basically what they were saying is, hold on, this guy's going to be 10 hours in, 10 hours out with no US military in that country. It's the first time I learned since Lincoln went to South Carolina during the Civil War that a president went into a war zone without American troops, like, really present there. Like, you know, and we see all of our presidents in recent years go to Iraq or Afghanistan. They showed up to American base where it was safe.
[00:41:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:37] Speaker B: So for Biden to be. Not only sneak in, but definitely once he was there and given press conferences and all that, the Russians knew he was there and they knew he was leaving.
And if, I mean, they. I'm glad they didn't shoot him, but they could have. Right. And so, you know, I just, again, going back, like, I heard one of my friends recently tell me that it was Biden's fault for the invasion because he made us look weak on our withdrawal in Afghanistan. And that made Putin think that he could do this without us, you know, being in retaliation. And my point is, is that this is what saddens me about what I see with the propaganda war, which is a lot, not all, but a lot of Americans have kind of fallen for this kind of stuff. When I'm starting to think, how do we not look like. And look at the people of Ukraine, like our revolutionary. Like our founding fathers.
[00:42:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: We were fighting off the yoke of King George and authoritarian. And they're doing the same with this guy. And.
[00:42:30] Speaker A: But that's where. Because partisan advantage for many people is. Is more important than foreign relations, you know, international. Like, it's just, you know, what we're doing basically. And so that, again, that's what we're worried about here is like when someone says that to you, Tunde, they're looking for a reason to poo poo what's happening. Like it's, it's not like Putin isn't looking at Afghanistan. He wasn't looking at Afghanistan when he did Crimea. You know, like he wasn't. He's doing this because this is his plan is what he wants to do. And he thought he was going to steamroll it. And you know, like, the thing is. And what I'll say this before we close this out is just that I think you're correct in the sense he overestimated the reach of his propaganda in one particular location, and that is in Europe. Europe seemed to not buy what he was selling. Like, he's gotten a foothold here. Like there are certain elements of America, of the American population.
[00:43:24] Speaker B: Europeans know what Russians are about. That's why. Well, yeah, we don't.
[00:43:27] Speaker A: They sing clearly. And so, like they know. And it didn't work. But the Americans, he was able to get an inroads and you know, like I said there. There's many stories of, you know, Russian propaganda on the airwaves. On airwaves here in the United States.
[00:43:40] Speaker B: Can I stop?
[00:43:41] Speaker A: And in Russia as well, he's been able to hold it together as far as the propaganda goes and so forth. But we got to get to our next topic, man. The second topic that we had, and you know, it was, it's very interesting to us, something that caught our eye from the standpoint that it's something we don't ordinarily see. Now, Coppin State University is in Baltimore, Maryland. It's a historically black college university, HBCU. And this year they crowned a Ms. Coppin State who was a Latina and wasn't much of a big deal on campus. I mean, she apparently was Miss Junior, Miss Sophomore. So she had been kind of in these type of roles before on the campus and everything like that. But once certain things got posted online, I think she posted a TikTok which showed her and talked about her and so forth, and that went viral. And her name is Keelan Perez. And that went viral for a lot of negative reasons as well. There was a lot of pushback. A lot of people that were upset that a latina woman was Ms. Crown, Ms. Coppin State. And so it was something that caught our eye and we wanted to discuss because ultimately, I mean it raises the question of are things like one, the bottom line question, are historically black colleges and universities only for black people? And more narrowly here is are historically black colleges and universities, are the positions of prominence, should those be only for black people? So Tunde, what was your reaction to.
[00:45:17] Speaker B: Seeing this as interesting? I felt like kind of like we've talked in some other conversations. It's, it's, it's Black Americans are, you know, maybe at one point in this country we're a monolith that, you know, were.
Had a shared need for survival, you know, in terms of the culture and a lot of.
[00:45:40] Speaker A: Yeah, they were made into a monolith by terrorism and discrimination.
[00:45:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So there was Maslow's hierarchy and survival in the nation was of high paramount. Now here we are a couple generations after integration and all that. And again this is a lot of things I joke, but it's kind of a serious joke. Right. Some of the political backlash in the country culturally we've seen because integration worked. And I think this is another example of integration working, which is what was once maybe seen as something for black people. Guess what? Non black people are integrating into those areas as well. And black people are having mixed reactions when they see a non black person in a space that used to be maybe traditionally dominated by a black person. That's what I'm saying that it's interesting to watch a minority group go through this when we're used to seeing it more so happen that when blacks and other minorities enter spaces that were traditionally white. So that's why I say it's interesting to see it.
I'm glad to see the amount of support the young ladies had and saddened by the detractors and the negativity, but it's not a surprise. So that would be my.
[00:47:00] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean I think it does reveal. And if it. Because if people don't know this, this would be eye opening to you. But it does reveal that people, I think you said at one time, sometimes people are human beings too. And I think it reveals that in this instance, basically the idea of being exclusionary is not something that is owned by white people. There are people of all races, of all religions that view things in a more zero sum exclusionary way. Hey, this is mine. Let's keep other people out. Let's keep out people that either don't look like me or don't have the same faith as me. There are people like that. Now, I think that's a minority of people. Particularly if you believe in the creed of the United States, that should be a minority of people. And we need to continually push back on people like that. Now in this country, just because of the historical setup, most of the pushback has been against white people who are offended when non white people enter spaces like that. But we've also seen it with women as well. When women enter spaces, there's pushback if they historically haven't been there. But in this instance, what we're seeing is the whatever percentage of black people that kind of have that mentality as well are looking at this and say, hey, this is for us. Whereas in actuality this is. It's a historically black college. And that's excellent. That's something that. But that's something that we should be proud of. But at the same time, we should want it to grow into, to continue to improve, to be something that a lot of people would want to go to. You know, I know. I think the latest numbers, 2021, was that 25% of the enrollment at HBCUs is non black. And I think that is a credit to HBCUs being a desirable place to be. I'm an alum of Howard University, which is an hbcu, and we had. There were. There were white guys there when I was there and we were cool.
[00:48:46] Speaker B: I mean, it's all good, you know, it's cool. I learned that the non Black students at HBCUs get to apply for minority scholarships.
[00:48:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:56] Speaker B: So a white kid could go to Howard and be a. Considered a minority to apply for a scholar. I thought that was pretty cool.
[00:49:01] Speaker A: But see, honestly, it's an all or nothing thing. Either we're going to say that opportunities that this country is about inclusiveness and hey, this is something that it could be historically. Harvard is a historically white university. But they can't take the position that, oh well, since this is historically white, only white people can be here, or only white people can have the positions of prominence here. And it goes both ways. It's not one of those things that, hey, well, I want to be able to discriminate, but other people shouldn't be able to discriminate against me because that goes, that goes their way because there are plenty of people of any race or like I said, any religion that would love the Opportunity say, oh, we're discriminating now. Let's do that. You know, they want to go down that road. And so people who believe in openness and inclusiveness in the society, which is the creed of our nation, then those are people that have to stand up at times like this and say, look, no, no, no. This is, this is, this is what happens in an open society. If it's an hbcu, more likely than not, you'll probably have a black person in those roles because It's. Those are 75% of the people. In the same way that anytime there's a minority of some subset, those people are more likely to be prominent in places.
[00:50:12] Speaker B: Yeah, well, no, it's interesting because as you talk, it's like again, as we go having this conversation, I guess it's about a university. Our country's in the throes of these arguments about what's going to get taught, let's say at the high school level and in public schools and all that. And again, this is why it's kind of asinine to try and exclude certain historic narratives from our whole country's story, because why are we even having this conversation? So HBCUs are defined as institutions founded before 1964 with the specific mission of educating black students amid the realities of legal segregation.
[00:50:52] Speaker A: So you said date because of the segregation issue.
[00:50:55] Speaker B: No, but that's why you say something profound, which is there was a time when every non HBCU was, was a white only school.
[00:51:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:02] Speaker B: So there were, you know, Harvard.
[00:51:04] Speaker A: And to this date, they're all historically white schools.
[00:51:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And so the point is, is that, would we be offended if today somebody said, well, a black kid can't be the valedictorian or the, or the homecoming queen of Harvard because they're not white? Of course we'd be offended.
[00:51:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:21] Speaker B: So I agree with you.
We should call out our own who say the same thing about other groups. Now, the other thing I found interesting about this specific case is the young lady, Ms. Perez, she's of Guatemalan descent and she ran unopposed in her thing.
[00:51:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:39] Speaker B: So I was, I was thinking like how people, I'm sure all the people making hay on social media, which is why I'm so glad I'm not on it.
No one's probably looked at the fine printed thing. Number one, she ran unopposed. So then that would beg me to ask somebody. Well, if you're upset that she won't. Are you saying that, that even somebody shouldn't be allowed to do this and just you just don't have anyone if no black person's running. Like that sounds pretty dumb. And then the other thing, which I felt really nice. First of all, I want to say that it seems like all of her peers at the other HBCUs are all supporting her. All the other.
[00:52:16] Speaker A: And it wasn't an issue at Coppin State either. Like this.
They all were cool with it for them apparently as well.
[00:52:23] Speaker B: And I love this, I'm a quote from the article that says, quote, she said she was drawn to Coppin State for its smaller classroom size ratios and its diverse student population. Coppin State student body is 80% black, 3.1% Hispanic or Latino, and 1.7% white. Quote. When I came to Koppen, I truly felt welcome. They pushed me, they inspired me. And I felt like when I came to their orientations, I found everything that I've always wanted in the university. My point is they should be celebrating this young lady. This is a great commercial for HBCUs.
[00:52:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:55] Speaker B: Just like here you got a non black student saying, wow, I feel so welcome. And this place is awesome. That should be. They should be putting this girl out in commercial.
[00:53:03] Speaker A: Yeah, she's touting it like, yeah, that's what we want. Don't we want to take our things? Things. If you say this is ours, okay, let's take our things and make them dope. And if you make it dope, then other people are gonna want to do it too. That means you're doing well. And so. And I'll tell you this, though. I think I saw the unopposed piece as well. But I think even that, like, that's a secondary kind of piece. Like, okay, yeah. From a practical standpoint, the person saying that, oh, well, this should be only for a black person, you know, oh, well, so that person is saying they should go unfilled because a black person didn't run. But, but with that, though, I don't think that should be the main point though, because even if it's unopposed, like the concept that we want to exclude other people from doing this on the basis that, oh, well, they're not black and this needs to be reserved for.
[00:53:46] Speaker B: Black folks on the basis of their skin color. Imagine that.
[00:53:49] Speaker A: I find that, you know, like, from the, from that standpoint, it's like, look, no, let's not, you know, let's. Let's open it for everybody. And, you know, like, you just let it go like that. Like, that's what an open society is, is that sometimes things aren't going to be exactly the way that you want it. Or exactly, exactly the way you would build it if you could. And so if that's the case, like, that's something that people, we, again, we see this struggle, this mentality struggle with white people more prominently because most things in the United States are historically white this, historically white that. And so white people have this anxiety. Not all white people, of course, but the white people who look at things like this have this anxiety publicly more often. But we're getting to see that this exists in the black community, for example. I'm sure it exists in other communities as well, because it's a human thing. And again, people who are here because they want to be in an open society or because they were born here and they buy into the idea of the open society, this is the opportunity to say, no, this is okay. This is what happens in open society. Sometimes things that you might not love it, but that's not the thing. You know, it's like, look, a lot of things. A lot of times things happen in open societies that you may not love, but it's about being inclusive and being open and, you know, let the best man go or the best woman go. And, you know, we go from there.
[00:55:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's interesting as we wrap it up because it really just does speak to the. Sometimes people are human beings too, you know, the humanity of it. That. Because I think when we did the conversation about Kanye West's anti Semitism last year, it's kind of similar where. Yeah. You know, culturally, our society, we're not used to seeing black Americans be bigots. Yeah, right. I mean. I mean, we all know.
[00:55:21] Speaker A: And it's not because there isn't some small population of them that are. It's just that they're. That they're not generally the ones that are out there causing havoc based on bigotry.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And. But that's why I say it's fascinating to watch it play out more so in the open space. I'm not saying I like it. I think it's sad. But it's in one way one can say, yeah, this is what integration looks like. Even the group that was once the minority group, you know, there's some level of equality, they're going to discriminate, too. And I think that it brings us more to this place of.
[00:55:53] Speaker A: Well, you shouldn't say that though, because again, she is. She. She got put in this position. She got elected to this position and everything. And so what it's more so is that some people in that group will be unhappy about that.
[00:56:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. No, and that's what I mean. It's a great point you make that we've seen. Like, here's an example what I thought of Charlottesville in 2017. The Unite the Right rally. Remember? Let's be again. You want to go talk about information wars. That was a big one too, in our country. The reality was that the city of Charlottesville, the city had a vote and its citizens voted to remove Confederate statues. Local government decision by the people.
These right wing guys didn't like it. They found out about it and guys came from around the country with. Armed with. With shields and sticks and all that. And with the tiki chores, talking about Jews will not replace us in blood and soil. Remember that?
[00:56:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:45] Speaker B: And then if you look and anyone can use their Google machine to.
[00:56:48] Speaker A: And they did it. I mean, you can't leave out this part. They did it to intimidate the local officials who.
[00:56:53] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:56:53] Speaker A: The locally elected government. Locally elected officials, they wanted to intimidate them, to try to get them to reverse course on something that the people wanted.
[00:57:01] Speaker B: Correct. And so Charlottesville is not a majority black city. That means that white people voted to remove the Confederate statues in their cities and other white people saw that around the country, didn't like it and came and made a big mess of it. And somehow where we were told there was fine people on both sides of that. But that's besides the point. And what I'm saying is this is similar where internally the group was okay with it, but then people from the outside are coming and saying, oh, we got a big problem with this and disrupting this.
[00:57:30] Speaker A: This isn't how it should be exact. Yeah, people from the outside. Now that's a good point because yeah.
[00:57:34] Speaker B: We should take the people that are detracting this young lady and the people who went from out of town to Charlottesville to march against the thing and we should put them all in a room together and no, you know what? We should put them on a barge and let them find our own countries. Clearly they don't love America and they don't like the America that they don't.
[00:57:50] Speaker A: Like what America stands for.
[00:57:52] Speaker B: Maybe, you know what? Maybe they can go to Russia.
[00:57:54] Speaker A: Hey, well, Russia does like to get down like that.
[00:57:57] Speaker B: Yeah, they need more troops too, now. So these guys are tough guys. They can walk around with those tiki torches on the Ukrainian streets telling them, you know, you won't replace us, you know. Yeah, yeah.
[00:58:07] Speaker A: No. So. But no, I think we can wrap from there. We appreciate everybody 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, and until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:58:18] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Guelana.
[00:58:19] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk to you next time.
[00:58:24] Speaker B: I'm.
