LGBTQ+ Struggles and Revolutionary Connections feat. Intervention Pod
Delve into the intersections of LGBTQ+ resistance and revolution! Get early access to each episode, behind the scenes content, and discounts by joining our Patreon Community ➡️https://www.patreon.com/ClosetedHistory
Get ready for an in-depth exploration of the fascinating intersection between LGBTQ+ activism and revolutionary movements in this episode. We'll be delving into complex topics like privilege, power dynamics, and the pivotal Stonewall uprising. Additionally, we'll connect the dots between LGBTQ+ struggles and other revolutionary movements, discussing crucial issues like media literacy and the tangled realities of the Israel-Palestine conflict. So, grab your seat and join us as we navigate through the complexities of history, solidarity, and the ongoing pursuit of a more just world.
Links & Resources Mentioned ⬇️
Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times: https://www.dukeupress.edu/terrorist-assemblages-tenth-anniversary-edition
📕 TABLE OF CONTENTS 📕
00:00:04 - 00:02:06: Introduction and Overview
00:00:52 - 00:14:20: LGBTQ+ Struggle and Intersectionality
00:18:38 - 00:26:59: Stonewall and Queer History
00:23:10 - 00:31:30: Media Representation and Historical Accuracy
00:25:56 - 00:33:31: Revolutionary Involvement and Personal Growth
00:50:49 - 00:57:57: Education and Intersectionality
00:41:10 - 00:56:12: State-sanctioned Violence and Grassroots Efforts
00:49:21 - 00:58:37: Organizing for Unity Among Movements
01:00:05 - 01:01:26: Reflections on Post-pandemic World and Right-wing Influence
01:00:22 - 01:01:26: Concluding Remarks on Future Development
Connect With Intervention Pod ⬇️
Twitter: @intervenepod
Instagram: @intervention_pod
Email: interventionpod@gmail.com
Levi Levi:
Twitter: @levi0levi
Instagram: @levi0levi0levi
Email: levi0levi@duck.com
Wanna work with us? Check out our media kit ➡️ https://beacons.ai/closetedhistory/mediakit
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/ / About Us 🌈
Hi, welcome to Closeted History! Your number #1 spot to learn the Queer and Trans history you never knew! To learn more, check out our website ➡️ www.closetedhistory.com
My name is Destiny (she/they) and I am the creator behind the podcast. Educator, creative, and fellow member of the LG(B)T(Q)+ community. Nice to meet you!
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Full Transcript
Destiny (she/they): [00:00:04 - 00:00:15]
Welcome to Closeted History, the podcast where we out the Queer and Trans history that you never knew. I am Destiny, and I am joined by three of my comrades from the intervention pod. So do you want to introduce yourself?
Nick (he/him): [00:00:15 - 00:00:16]
Sure.
Nick (he/him)::
[00:00:16 - 00:00:30]
Well, thanks for having us, Destiny. My name is Nick. I'm the co host of the Intervention podcast. We're focused on anti imperialism. Steve and I got started with the podcast focus on us and uk imperialism.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:00:30 - 00:00:49]
You'll know in a second why that is when you hear Steve talk. Levi joined us later on, and we brought in a focus on Zionism within that context as well, and understanding Zionism, but we'll probably touch on that later tonight. I don't want to say too much more. I mean, look, we appreciate you having us. I'm a straight white dude here.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:00:49 - 00:01:01]
I'm a communist. I organize in real life. I'm here as, like, an ally in the LGBTQ plus struggle as part of the broader struggle against imperialism. So thanks for having us.
Levi (he/him)::
[00:01:02 - 00:01:08]
Yeah, I'm Steve. Despite what Nick said, I think I've lost my accent. So I am originally from England.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:01:09 - 00:01:09]
Yeah.
Levi (he/him)::
[00:01:09 - 00:01:17]
And just echo exactly what Nick says. I'm a straight white guy as well, but here is an ally. So thank you very much for having us.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:01:18 - 00:01:21]
Cool. And did you want to share your pronouns as well?
Levi (he/him)::
[00:01:22 - 00:01:22]
Sorry.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:01:22 - 00:01:22]
Yeah.
Levi (he/him)::
[00:01:22 - 00:01:23]
He, him.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:01:23 - 00:01:25]
Yeah, same for me.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:01:26 - 00:01:39]
Yep. And I'm Levi. He, him. And as you might be able to tell from my talking, I'm jewish as my accent delivers. But, yeah, echoing what my two esteemed co hosts have said.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:01:39 - 00:01:43]
Straight white guy ally. Anti imperialist.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:01:44 - 00:02:25]
Right on. I love it. So tonight, we are joined in this little group because, as Nick mentioned, our struggles definitely intersect with one another. And so we just kind of wanted to take this opportunity to talk about how intersectionality impacts the work that we're doing and in the fight for oppression. And I took a couple of questions because, in particular, we really want to focus on what's going on in Palestine right now and some of the pink washing that we're seeing from a lot of the accounts and how that relates to the LGBTQ plus movement and the struggle.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:02:26 - 00:02:57]
So that's just kind of where we're coming from and the end goal for this episode. So from the very beginning, like, the queer liberation movement, it's very socialist, and I think, and we were talking in the show before the show that not a lot of people know about the socialist roots of the LGBTQ plus movement and your work. Are there also misunderstandings about the LGBTQ plus movement, like, from imperialists?
Levi (he/him)::
[00:02:57 - 00:03:52]
I think a general comment would be, as we go through all the history that we do. And you try and counteract the propaganda that's out there and talking about pinkwashing as well, which I guess this ties in a little bit. But as things happen throughout time, and it's usually radicals and comrades that start these struggles, but then at some point down the line, when something finally happens on a legal or a legislative background, it's always like the liberals who co opt any movement, and we talk about that a know and how to kind of counteract that and how to highlight the people that actually start these movements rather than, you know, I don't know. Obama was the one who did this. Well, there's a lot more history that I think people, a general person that doesn't dig into it won't know that stuff.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:03:53 - 00:04:20]
I shared with you all that really prior to October 7, I feel like Palestine really wasn't on my radar at all, even though I was a huge fan of Angela Davis and a lot of communists and leftists just in general who had spoken about the struggles of Palestinians, but I didn't know anything about it until it was very public.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:04:21 - 00:04:21]
Yeah.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:04:21 - 00:04:46]
I mean, one facet, I think, of the palestinian struggle as it intersects with our struggle. And I think Angela Davis in particular has focused on this among many others. Right. But when we think about the police state, right. I think the history of the LGBTQ plus struggle is characterized by the radical LGBTQ plus struggle has been characterized by clashes with the police state.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:04:46 - 00:05:03]
Right. Like, I know we wanted to talk about Stonewall A. I think, you know, when we look at the US relationship to the IDF or the better known as the occupation forces, the. Right. Like, the relationship extends to such a level, such that we're all based in Pittsburgh.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:05:03 - 00:05:35]
We're very open about that. But Pittsburgh, among many other cities, actually sends police forces to be trained by the IOF in actual repression tactics that they use against the Palestinians. Right. So when we talk about oppressed people fighting, again, like, the tactics are the same between these oppressive mean. That's like a very specific instance in case to look at how these struggles are related against an oppressing mechanism within the hands of the power that be in that situation.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:05:35 - 00:06:06]
And that could extend to not just tactics like repressing uprisings and everything like that, but also just technology, which, of course, plays into the tactics. Right. But you're talking about transfers of surveillance technologies, identification, things that are used to enforce apartheid openly in Palestine and what you could characterize as kind of like a hidden system of apartheid here with the racial system or however you want to kind of oppress groups within the borders of the US as well.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:06:06 - 00:07:01]
I think that it's like systemic ways that seem more implicit and in ways that you don't know about unless you're really looking into or something that you're experiencing, as we mentioned a couple of times, that I'm in the room with three white dudes, but I'm also white. And that does come with a lot of privilege, and that we don't experience the same systemic oppression that other folks do. That's why it's important to talk about these things. And so I think that there are not only systemic ways that people are being oppressed, but also overt ways with police brutality and the carceral system. And it's definitely more than what we think about just in our daily interactions.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:07:02 - 00:07:06]
I think that that's also kind of how we get so disconnected from the history.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:07:06 - 00:08:25]
I think to struggle to sort of pull together a number of these threads that we've already mentioned, and to use the concept of intersectionality, that sort of five dollar word that is so important in the way activism is understood today. But it's a word that we sort of take for granted, that hasn't been around for very long. And I think it has to do with what Steve was saying earlier, that there are certain representations and peoples that have been mainstreamed, so that there's certain representations of queer identity that are considered appropriate given time and place in the United States, that provide a certain amount of breathing room, that allow people to think about their identity in a multilayered, multi level sense that is easy to take for granted in a place that we're at. And I think we might get to this on another episode, or maybe we'll get into this later. But that's where concepts like pink washing really come into play, because certain representations are acceptable, whereas more radical representations, the kind of people that we might pedestal or hold up in our collective history, as radicals, as leftists, as communists, are not acceptable history or ways to represent our history.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:08:25 - 00:08:45]
And I think that'll also come up in the way Stonewall has in some ways been appropriated as sort of a postage stamp moment, in the same way that you can buy a Malcolm X forever postage stamp. I believe this month they have one, but they don't want you to really look into what Malcolm X was saying.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:08:46 - 00:09:18]
Yeah, King's like a great example. I mean, it's another example of that whose radical politics have been whitewashed to the extent that we can have a. Like a national day as dictated by the same people that killed him. So I guess at a very general level, when Levi is talking about what's acceptable, I think when we're having these conversations, a question that we should all be asking ourselves is who is defining the terms of acceptable image, acceptable participation, and what are their motivations in defining it that way?
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:09:19 - 00:10:18]
Yeah, because I think that it's not only about privilege, but also about positionality. And your proximity to things does also matter. And I love what you said, that it does matter who is defining what those terms are, because all of my favorite gays are communists also. But a lot of that has been kind of desensitized and not only whitewashed, but radicalized, I guess, and mentioned MLK, that a lot of times Malcolm X is taught in juxtaposition to, you know, again, just appropriating his image and his words and cherry picking what you want, because MLK very openly socialist and critiqued capitalism. But we don't talk about those quotes.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:10:18 - 00:10:22]
We just talk about the ones from the I have a dream speech.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:10:25 - 00:10:37]
Or that he was assassinated supporting the garbage workers union, that his class analysis was central to his ideology, especially by the end, that is absolutely never mentioned.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:10:38 - 00:11:19]
I think that people's unique relationships to money and to capitalism keeps them from understanding that that's what unifies our struggle. Obviously, there are other things that can unify us and we can celebrate our differences, but money is how they keep their thumb on us. The boot is crushing us because of capitalism. We have to participate, to eat and to live. And so I think that it can be really hard for people to think about those things.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:11:19 - 00:11:24]
Like when you're just doing what you can to survive and put food on the table for your kids.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:11:25 - 00:11:26]
Definitely.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:11:27 - 00:11:27]
Yeah.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:11:27 - 00:12:06]
But I think because we brought up the c word of class, I think that we need to be very explicit that when we talk about terms like intersectionality, at least as I understand it, we have to understand that the intersection of these struggles is the class struggle. Right. So we're not just throwing out an empty phrase when we say these things are related. They're related on the basis of class. Now, again, it's not as simple that we live in a very complicated world with layers of stratification that have been imposed by systems of racism, systems of apartheid, systems of imperialism on a global scale.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:12:06 - 00:12:28]
But again, when we say that, we mean it very literally as the meeting point of these struggles, the unifying point is class. And again, it's much harder to actually get together on that basis in real life as you're working through all of these other problems. But I think we do need to be explicit, like, what we mean when we say that, at least as I.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:12:28 - 00:12:58]
Understand that term, intersectionality, I can't remember who mentioned it, but that you said that it's kind of like, relatively a new term, that it's been a term since, like, the 1980s. I think it was developed by Kimberly Crenshaw. She's a professor at UCLA. I believe she's been talking about it. But also, I think that black women and black trans women face a different type of particular pressure.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:12:58 - 00:13:58]
And I think that that is also apparent, because when you were talking about all these queer fems or black women who are leading this work, that they're not getting the recognition that they deserve. Black women in particular face a different kind of oppression in addition to oppression of class or documentation or any language barriers. And that's the really great thing about intersectionality, is that when you think about it from this framework, that everyone has a different thing. When I look at it for myself, in particular, that, as I mentioned, I'm a white woman, so I have ADHD, I have fibromyalgia. So I would describe myself as disabled, but I was born in the United States, and so I'm a us citizen.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:13:58 - 00:14:31]
English was my first language. So there are still other ways that I have a lot of privileges. And I think when we recognize those things and we apply it to the work that we're doing, that we can all kind of come together, because, like you said, it is a point of together, but it's not the only one. Let's talk more about, like you mentioned, Stonewall. Stonewall is actually one of my favorite events to talk about.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:14:31 - 00:15:16]
I know that it is very like you can get a postage stamp, but I think that it's a really good starting place for someone just kind of getting into queer history because it really introduces you to the roots of things. You get introduced to Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, both who were there. They were both trans women of color who actually started an organization called Star. They housed unhoused trans youth and helped to keep kids safe and give them community and did a lot for the gay liberation movement.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:15:16 - 00:16:10]
But years later, I think it was in 1972 when Sylvia was giving a speech, because, Steve, you mentioned earlier about when there's kind of a legal proceeding that gives us some progress within a movement, then couples were able to have domestic partnerships and seeing progress in that regard in terms of legality. And they totally left behind all of the trans people who helped them fight the police and housed them and gave them food. And you look back. And you look at archive footage of Marcia, and she just seems like the gentlest person. Everyone just has such nice things to say about her and about Sylvia, and they were both very openly anti capitalist.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:16:10 - 00:16:32]
And when Sylvia is giving that speech, she got booed off stage because there was kind of like, a separation. Actually, let me back up some. So Stonewall was June 20, eigth, 1969. It lasted six nights. And police car was set on fire.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:16:32 - 00:16:48]
Apparently, Marcia jumped on top of that vehicle before it was on fire. Such a badass, right? She was there. She got there at, like, two or 03:00 a.m. But she wasn't the first person to throw the brick heard around the world.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:16:49 - 00:17:17]
There have been a lot of rumors about whether it was a brick or a shot glass or something else. But Stormy Delarvary, a butch lesbian who was a drag king during that era, police have her hands behind her back, and he's, like, being all roughed up by the police. And so she yells out to the crowd, why don't you guys do something? And it totally erupts. And police are trapped inside the bar.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:17:18 - 00:17:51]
It's being set on fire. The police car is set on fire. And after Stonewall, it was kind of like, at least on the east coast, queer community wasn't taking any shit anymore. We're ready to fight back and to stand up for who they are and who they wanted to be, and we start seeing some. So after Stonewall, there's this organization called the gay Liberation Front, and they're created, and they create pride.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:17:51 - 00:18:33]
And bisexual woman Brenda Howard does a lot of the work in organizing for the gay Liberation Front, but years later, there starts to be, like, some tensions. That speech happens in 1972 where Sylvia is booed off stage and people are telling her out of here, and they're forgetting all about the trans people who help them. And then the gay Liberation Front splits. So there are now two organizations, one who is still keeping those very radical roots of, like, okay, we're anti capitalist. We just want human rights.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:18:33 - 00:18:55]
We want housing, health care. A lot of the things that we're advocating for today because we still don't have them. But then there was another group, and they just kept going with what they were doing. And that's where you see some of the rainbow capitalism starting. They start getting corporate.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:18:57 - 00:19:46]
You know, the police are now coming to the parades, and you're losing some of that history that is really crucial. I think that while Stonewall is kind of overdone a little bit and very poster child for the LGBTQ plus history canon, I think that it does serve as a really good starting place because you get introduced to some really good key figures, and it's kind of like, I describe it like a choose your own adventure. Like, okay, can we go into the anti capitalist roots? Or maybe you want to learn about drag kings. So you look into stormy Delarvary and lesbian history or performances and LGBTQ plus clubs.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:19:46 - 00:20:12]
Like, Stonewall was a shithole. It was a mob run bar. And some of the movies that have come out would have you believe that it was, like, the finest establishment that could ever be bestowed upon the gays. And in the movie, actually, in Stonewall, I think it came out in, like, 2018. Some white dude throws a brick.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:20:13 - 00:21:03]
Like, in the movie, not only is it not included in the textbooks, but then we have shit movies that don't tell the story very accurately and then a bunch of homophobes that keep the story from people anyway. So, yeah, definitely check out Stonewall. It's the best place to start because you can go forwards, you can go backwards, and a lot of the issues that are really centralized to those roots of just wanting housing, health care, basic rights to a human life as you are, those conversations are still incredibly relevant today.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:21:05 - 00:21:31]
And to pull this into one of the pet projects or the acts that I like to grind and the way we tell our history is actually incredibly political, because history itself is the creation of a narrative that justifies political actions or the existence of a people. Today, history is not dead. History is not even in the past. It continues to exist. So as you're saying, there's these movies, there's postage stamps.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:21:31 - 00:22:24]
I believe it was made into a memorial by Barack Obama in 2016. There's specific factions that are trying to claim the stone wall history in a specific narrative that suits their purposes. And that's what makes it, like you said, to paraphrase something that is so incredibly obvious, because everybody knows what we're referring to, at least on the most basic level, when we say Stonewall. But no two people are necessarily going to have the same history in mind. Somebody that has only watched that Stonewall movie you mentioned is going to have a completely different set of assumptions as the person that listened to Barack Obama's speech when it was memorialized is going to have a completely different assumption to the individual you said was booed off stage for having an anti capitalist stance.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:22:24 - 00:23:10]
And I'll admit that I listened to your first few closeted history episodes, and Stonewall is covered in that. And I liked in the very first episode, you talked about and correct my pronunciation here. Stormy Delarvi, the larvae, the larvae, you mentioned that they were represented as she him and he or she her and he him, depending on the sources. And that you were going to refer to them as he him because that was the most prominent or that's how they represented themselves. And I think that gets to a core concept that I'm getting at, that people are going to affix something as simple as gender identity on individuals in that story that they're trying to tell because of larger political structures.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:23:10 - 00:23:40]
And to even put it in the most positive sense, there is an argument that there's some progress that's made when the police are attending these parades. But is that the direction we really want to see the movement in the long run? Right, because it's good. It's definitely a positive that we're capable of expressing ourselves on the streets. But what are the confines of that expression when the police are sanctioned at those events?
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:23:41 - 00:23:43]
Well, in progress for who?
Nick (he/him): :
[00:23:44 - 00:23:44]
Exactly.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:23:45 - 00:24:38]
Yeah. And you were saying about Stormy that honestly, that's probably one of the most difficult parts of having this podcast, is that how do you know? All we have to go off of is some interviews, oral history, and that people's homophobia also impacts the recollection of queer history? That because they didn't care about what happened at Stonewall, it wasn't heavily reported on at the, you know, when we have these historical events to look to, it can sort of be difficult to figure out what the truth is. I.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:24:38 - 00:25:04]
I don't know. And some websites did say he him and that that's what Stormi was comfortable with. But then one time I posted on TikTok about Stormi being gender nonconforming and people were very upset that I was erasing lesbian history. And I was like, dude, I'm just sharing what I found. Here's the website, you can check it out, too.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:25:04 - 00:25:08]
It can be really difficult to know what's true.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:25:08 - 00:25:32]
If you don't mind. I'm sorry. I wanted to make another point real quick on Stonewall. I think there's a lot there and to the point that you guys are talking about in terms of actually interpreting history right and actually taking this and utilizing it as a tool, because I think we have to understand it if it is politically motivated and that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:25:32 - 00:25:33]
Right.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:25:33 - 00:26:19]
But from my perspective as a communist organizer trying to look at the history to fight against imperialism, to fight against the system, I think we could look at a really positive outcome of Stonewall as being kind of like, again, the springboard of these revolutionary elements of that movement to connect with other revolutionary struggles. Right? I mean, I think at that point, you could say, look, I think after Stonewall, again, from the people from the gay Liberation Front started to get involved with the young Lords, right? Which was like a revolutionary puerto rican based group, and then the Black Panthers as well, which, again, is one of the most revolutionary groups we've had in the history of America, right? Like one of the most successful revolutionary organizations that we've had.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:26:19 - 00:26:39]
And again, we have to understand what the Black Panthers were. I mean, were they a perfect organization? Absolutely not. But they predicated a lot of their ideology in terms of a revolutionary black nationalism and how they would struggle against the state on the basis of an understanding of a black oppressed nation within this. Right?
Steve (he/him)::
[00:26:39 - 00:27:11]
And then after Stonewall, you have quotes from Huey Newton, and I'm going to reference that post you sent me from a homo communist. And it's apparent in a lot of Huey's quotes here, he was reflecting on some preconceived notions about what he had about the homosexual community in particular, which he's referencing in this quote. And then he says, there's nothing to say that a homosexual cannot also be revolutionary, right? And he says, then maybe I'm now injecting some of my prejudice by saying that even a homosexual can be revolutionary. Quite the contrary.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:27:11 - 00:27:41]
Maybe a homosexual could be the most revolutionary, right? So the point I want to make here is that there's this moment in time where these struggles are starting to get connected on like a revolutionary, anti imperialist, class conscious basis. Those connections still exist for us. The other point that I want to make on this is that not everybody's perfect, right? And oftentimes we get better when we struggle together again to go back to.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:27:41 - 00:27:52]
I'm going to keep going back to who I am. I'm a white dude raised in rural Pennsylvania. You can bet I had some bad views off. I wasn't born perfect. I was raised up within a certain set of conditions.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:27:52 - 00:28:21]
It's not to say that people in there were bad or whatever, but I had some baggage that I had to unpack. But now I'm again organizing on the streets with trans comrades, gay comrades, black comrades, whatever. It's the broad spectrum of american society, and it's like we're all getting better together. And me in particular, I'm getting even much better than what my foundation was on this stuff. So I guess the point is that these kind of moments and these connections can really help us all improve and connect these struggles as well.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:28:21 - 00:28:39]
And it happens again in that real life context. These conversations, I hope, are important to facilitate that kind of progress, even on an individual level that extends out to how we organize. Right. And then I'll just make one more point, because we're talking about Huey Newton here. Right.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:28:39 - 00:29:06]
And I think this is going to lead into your point about. And, you know, I think we could look at a place like. Right. And I think a lot of people will dismiss Cuba and the history of the cuban revolution by condemning some of the. I mean, rightfully condemning at some level, some pretty shitty views on the LGBTQ plus community by Castro and by Che Guevara, again, as, like, leaders of that movement.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:29:06 - 00:29:39]
And again, I'm not going to deny that they had some pretty shitty positions on this early on, but I think the point is that they, as individuals, improved in the country of Cuba, improved on that as well, as a result, to the point that they probably have one of the most progressive family codes that a state can put out in the world right now. So the point is that we need to just educate ourselves and continue to get better. And that often happens through a radical revolutionary struggle. Sorry for the long winded.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:29:39 - 00:30:10]
Yeah, I just have something quick to sort of add to that. So Huey Newton is just this incredibly fascinating figure, but we make this point over and over again that these leaders, while they make these narratives really easy to tell, they're parts of larger movements. There were people within the Black Panthers that really appreciated what he said about queer allyship, and there are people within the Black Panthers that did not appreciate what he had to say about queer. That's really. That's the struggle.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:30:10 - 00:31:23]
And to, I think, link it to a point that you made earlier. Destiny. This idea of telling the history as telling something, appropriating the truth, quote, unquote, there's a lot of different truth that comes out of a movement, because we can't look at one individual and say that their views represent the entire plethora of ideas and realities that people are facing in their day to day life. In 1970, 219 73, any point in history. So while it might be some sort of idealizing of the Black Panther movement to talk about Huey Newton, his support of the queer movement, it's just important to note that those segments did exist, and they are something to embrace in the same way that in Cuba, they had bad positions at certain times, but there were always people within the state of Cuba that were struggling against those positions, and their voices deserve to be told in the same way that in your media, you're trying to take these histories and bring them to light that they're important, even if they're a minority, that doesn't mean that they're always going to be a minority.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:31:23 - 00:31:29]
They might be looked back upon as the history of what ended up being the evolution of the movement.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:31:29 - 00:32:46]
Yeah, exactly. And I was reading lessons from the 60s by Audra Lord the other day, and she says that revolution is not a one time event, and I'm paraphrasing, but that essentially we have to recognize the small change that's happening all around us, even if it's internalized or it could be external progress, but also that we have to recognize change in ourselves, too. And, Nick, that you shared your background, and even though I identify as part of the LGBTQ plus community, I mean, I definitely have internalized homophobia and things that impacted the way that I thought about myself and how I was able to show up with others, too. And so even if you're part of a marginalized community, doesn't mean that you're still not being oppressive in the way that the systems are set up for you to be. Because here in the imperial core, our social systems are deeply, deeply embedded with white supremacy.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:32:46 - 00:33:31]
And if you've ever seen the twelve tenets of white supremacy, like urgency, perfectionism, there are ways that that is embedded in our life. Like the reason why we feel guilty when we're not doing something productive, the reason why you finally have a moment to rest and you can feel the anxiety in your body. So these things are deeply inside of us. And so I think that the only thing that we can do is just continue to learn and acknowledge where that small change is. But we have to keep digging deeper.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:33:31 - 00:33:57]
Know, as we've discussed here, that history is told by those who control the. Yeah, and so maybe now we can go into Israel Palestine thing. I shared before that I really didn't know anything about Zionism. I didn't know really anything about Judaism either. I identify as an atheist.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:33:57 - 00:34:46]
I grew up southern Baptist, going to my grandparents very racist church, and again in North Carolina. It just wasn't anything that I thought of. And then October 7 happened, and I started following a lot of the press there on the ground in Gaza, and I was completely horrified by what I was seeing. And so I was watching YouTube videos, reading articles, and just trying to learn the history. And I learned about what happened in 1947 and then just kept going from there.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:34:46 - 00:36:12]
And I've been reading the 100 Years War, and that's been very informative. I didn't realize not only the overt violence, but also the systemic ways in which palestinian people were kept from even contributing to where they lived, this disenfranchised palestinian people even further. So how this history is being told also matters. And I think that for people who aren't quite as far left as we are, what I guess the common person knows about Israel and about Zionism is starkly different from what someone who identifies as an anti imperialist or a leftist knows. But it's been really hard to distinguish what the truth is with that also, because there are also so many propaganda accounts on social media, and I'm an educator, we have this conversation all the time about why media literacy is so crucial right now with the world of AI and deep fakes, and it is becoming even more relevant and important.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:36:12 - 00:36:44]
Yeah. And I don't want to say distinguish between real life and the online space because I think those things do interplay, you know what I mean, in terms of how these conversations especially, let's face like a lot of people on the left are active online. I don't want to say categorically so, but I mean, with this conversation with Israel, right. And how we can kind of square it within the context of our conversation tonight, like you mentioned the term, it's like pink washing. Right.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:36:44 - 00:37:23]
And how people understand Israel through kind of the lens of western norms and think, you know, as juxtaposed with Palestine. So just to bring it back to what I was talking about with real life, one of my comrades came up to me and was like, what are we doing about educating in the queer community on this? So just to your point, it's just like, I think there's this assumption that that community is very progressive. And they probably have, and I'm speaking from my personal position here, that community is probably pretty progressive. They probably have a decent, at least understanding of what's going on now.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:37:23 - 00:37:51]
But the comment was like, no, a lot of people just don't want to touch it because they have this impression that Palestinians are like these oppressive people. Obviously it's horrible, but it seems like it's a fight that is just happening between two people. They don't really understand the history and the context. And then this pinkwashing element has kind of just dissuaded them, I guess, at some level from investigating it even further. Now, again, I'm talking about a particular experience here.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:37:51 - 00:38:01]
I don't want to talk about anything categorically so, but it was a microcosm of an experience that I think is why a conversation like this might be important.
Levi (he/him)::
[00:38:03 - 00:38:30]
And you can tie both things that everyone said together, the propaganda side of it, and then the pinkwashing side of it, because as Nick said before this discussion, I ingest a lot of really shitty media. And all you have to do is watch Bill Maher and just have him up on a pedestal saying, if you're in the queer community and you don't support Israel, there's something wrong with you, because they are a liberal.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:38:31 - 00:38:32]
So.
Levi (he/him)::
[00:38:32 - 00:39:04]
And it goes to all the propaganda, not just online, but know, historically, traditionally, what we've learned in school, in a western society, the pro israeli propaganda is everywhere you look. It's not just online. It's our politicians, the schooling, everything. I think, really, it's difficult for a person that doesn't do the work to get past that, I think.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:39:06 - 00:39:26]
Well, and I think that it's a connecting point where people don't even realize that it is that in the same way that history has been whitewashed or very heteronormative, that also history has been very pro Israel.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:39:26 - 00:40:02]
Yeah. And we've done a few episodes on this, specifically with Joe from. Joe wrote and Evan from left of the projector on the israeli version of propaganda that's known broadly as Hazbara. And I think a really good entry into this, if people can look this up. But Tanahazi Coates did numerous interviews across independent media, I think most notably democracy now, where he talked about visiting Israel in November or late October and talking about how he was raised to believe that, you know, quote unquote, the only democracy in the Middle east.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:40:02 - 00:40:41]
And it has all the baggage, the positive concepts that go along with that. But after visiting Israel, seeing the West bank, he understood it as an apartheid in the Middle east. And that really changes the understanding of all of the baggage that's clung to this idea of a liberal democracy where people of a specific ethnicity are actually not permitted to participate. You can say, technically, that's a democracy, but it's a Jim crow democracy as he understood it. It's not something that should actually be taken uncritically.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:40:41 - 00:41:09]
But if you just think about it as this event or this conflict that's happening out of sight, and you just take the propaganda, the hazbara, the ideas that you have of this history, for really, you can't see past that obfuscation, because the way that narrative has been built in popular media intentionally creates this idea of the only democracy in the Middle east. And are you really going to be opposed to democracy?
Steve (he/him)::
[00:41:10 - 00:41:37]
Yeah. What does that word actually mean, though, at some level another lens that I think may be helpful for folks to assess this situation through, especially for the purposes of this show. And this is, I'm not going to claim to be an expert, I was recently turned onto this term by one of my comrades. But homo nationalism, and it comes from this book called Terrorist Assemblages, homo nationalism in Queer Times by Jesper K. Poir.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:41:37 - 00:42:17]
And just for right now, I think a good way to understand this term is, quote, how acceptance and tolerance for gay and lesbian subjects have become a barometer by which the right to and capacity for national sovereignty is evaluated. Right. So again, in this conversation, to really put it into layman's terms, you can look at the IOF and they can say, oh, gays can serve in the military. Right? And then on the other hand, we understand through the lens of media propaganda and just kind of inherent orientalism and racism that Palestinians must be an oppressive society run by sharia law.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:42:17 - 00:42:41]
I mean, again, I'm just trying to think about what the basic understanding of an american might be just approaching this. Right. So you have this juxtaposition, right? But within that definition there, it's like you have to ask yourself, who is making that evaluation for fitness, for self governance and national sovereignty, right. And it's the west.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:42:41 - 00:42:41]
Right.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:42:41 - 00:43:05]
And then this other place that appears to align with our values must be our friend and they must be doing it better than this other group that I have kind of like this marred understanding of that I don't even realize I have this marred understanding of because of all the propaganda and the layers of, again, atrocity propaganda and history, quote unquote, history that are already kind of existent in our minds.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:43:06 - 00:43:11]
Yeah, I think that it's just islamophobia, like cloak.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:43:12 - 00:43:12]
Absolutely.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:43:13 - 00:43:44]
As something else. And maybe I have too much faith in people, but I think that homophobia is typically learned and conditioned. And I think that people can unlearn and deprogram themselves a little bit. So I don't think that not being homophobic is a threshold for deserving to.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:43:48 - 00:44:03]
Mean through that lens. We're at the most heinous stage of this. Right, where it's like this society is oppressive anyway, right? And now Israel's got carte blanche to commit genocide, essentially. Again, from the US state perspective.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:44:04 - 00:44:34]
And these ideas of pink washing, I think, either lead a lot of people in our society to just like, and again, I'm not saying this is like the end all, be all of what it is. It's just a part of the overall right in terms of what actually leads into mass support in the US for Israel. But again, this cog and this propaganda machine has really led us to a point where some segments of the population are just like, yeah, kill them. Mean, because that's what's going on. Right?
Steve (he/him)::
[00:44:35 - 00:44:40]
State. We're in a late stage of a genocide perpetrated by Israel.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:44:40 - 00:45:31]
And I think to destiny's point, though, about faith in humanity, when you say that most. I don't know that you actually said the phrase most people are supporting this, but it's definitely. Most politicians are supporting it. But I would argue that most people are really not supporting the genocide in Palestine, that people are resistant to the idea of extermination of human beings in order to even support the concept of pinkwashing. And I think that speaks to the larger issue that when people are given the information and seeing how these things can be abused when they are looking on YouTube or looking at direct video coming from Gaza, they're not going to fall for these sort of little tricks about how gay women can serve in the IOF.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:45:31 - 00:45:41]
They're more concerned about children being murdered in their homes than they are the rights of a gay man to murder a child in their home.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:45:41 - 00:46:03]
Yeah. No, and I want to be clear, I hope I corrected myself, but segments, if you just look at the polls, I think it's like 70% to 80% of self identified Democrats support a ceasefire. And even a majority of Republicans. So we're at like a supermajority of the population as a whole that supports at least a ceasefire. Yeah.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:46:04 - 00:46:05]
That's an important clarification.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:46:06 - 00:46:09]
Yeah. Even though we just vetoed for the third time.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:46:09 - 00:46:12]
And that's why we don't live in a democracy, folks.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:46:12 - 00:46:19]
I was going to say the UN, that's the only democracy in the world because the US gets to determine what's right.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:46:19 - 00:46:44]
Or right. Right. Well, and so really we are like up against state sanctioned violence that is then not questioned by mean. You know, Levi, I'm with you. I think that most people don't condone that.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:46:44 - 00:47:48]
But it's very strange because know that, like, Nick, you're an organizer and Levi, you have an academic background and at least, at mean, again, I'm in North Carolina, but no one is talking about like, there are literally two people at work who I have talked to about it. And I mean, some people are on the other side and say that it's justified and then other people just aren't talking about it at all. But it kind of feels like we're in this weird limbo stage where people are aware, but nothing's happening. The ceasefire is not happening. I mean, there are protests happening and great action on the ground, but at least where I'm standing here in North Carolina as a very privileged westerner, that it doesn't feel like.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:47:49 - 00:48:18]
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, my response there is that to be able to kind of do more, like, we have to be more organized. And I know that's like the trite point. The communist is on the podcast telling you to get organized, but I mean, it very really. Whereas if people want to organize mass strikes, that means you have to do the hard work of actually building a relationship with labor unions and things like that and getting those workers to trust you and actually setting up infrastructure to support a strike front potentially.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:48:19 - 00:48:23]
Can you have unions in Pennsylvania?
Steve (he/him)::
[00:48:23 - 00:48:31]
Well, that's another thing. We have to fight to rebuild the union struggle and the radical union struggle. But, yeah, I mean, the south is a whole different work.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:48:32 - 00:48:36]
Like, oh, that's cute. We can't have those. We're right to work.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:48:37 - 00:49:12]
It's going to take a lot of work and we have to build organizational power. And I think part of that is trying to get back to some of these radical roots of. Because again, the oppressed groupings within this nation have the most revolutionary potential. Some of them may not know it, but the most oppressed, I mean, throughout history, that has shown that these are the groups that have revolutionary potential. And I think that there's like a conscious effort to pull these groups with this revolutionary potential into kind of like acceptable society.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:49:12 - 00:49:23]
You know what I mean? Or just within. To operate within, again, the structures that the powers that be have deemed to be acceptable. Right. So we have to build on a multiple fronts.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:49:23 - 00:49:49]
We need to reconnect the radical black movement, the radical black nationalist movement, like the LGBTQ plus radical struggle. Right. And pull more people into that and then pull that into labor and then to be able to do the actions that we actually need to do to stop a genocide. And it kind of sounds like powerless at the moment because I know we all want to do more, but as individuals, we really can't do all that much.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:49:49 - 00:50:01]
Yeah. And I don't want to distract from the larger point that Nick is making. But you mentioned the university and the sort of crickets that you're getting there and you're at a university, correct? This isn't like a secondary.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:50:01 - 00:50:05]
Oh, no, I'm in a public high.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:50:05 - 00:50:29]
Oh, ok. Well, my point still kind of stands, but education is not really the place where a lot of radical organization takes place in the United States historically. I mean, if the question is asked, what is the oldest corporation in the western hemisphere? The answer is Harvard. And they didn't have a student union organized until 2019.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:50:30 - 00:51:01]
They are a corporation organized to make the most amount of profit off of their students and their product as possible. If that meant investing in slavery, which they did, that's what they would do. Their interest is not in necessarily the quote, unquote, truth of the narrative that we were talking about earlier. It's in appeasing joint stockholders. That's why you might hear crickets at an academic institution is because they're not beholden to the concept of truth, no matter what their website says.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:51:01 - 00:51:05]
They're beholden to the people that allow them to continue to make a profit.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:51:05 - 00:51:18]
Regardless of the land. Acknowledgment that they do in the beginning of their meetings, they're not necessarily as invested in progress. Yeah.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:51:19 - 00:51:24]
If anything, they were more invested in westward expansion than they were in land. Acknowledgements.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:51:25 - 00:51:27]
You don't say.
Levi (he/him)::
[00:51:28 - 00:51:41]
I would also assume that schools are, like, with effectively, this war on education that the right is waging right now. I would assume schools teachers are just petrified to have any kind of opinions about things right now as well.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:51:41 - 00:52:20]
Well, it's definitely complicated. I think that there are a number of things that go into, like, we just recently had a don't say gay bill come to North Carolina. There's the infamous one in Florida, and there have been tons of ones across the nation. And I think actually, in 2023, there were over 500 anti LGBTQ plus bills filed in the United States. And recently, there was a non binary teenager who was part of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma City that was murdered at school.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:52:21 - 00:53:19]
So I think that there are a lot of things that are going on that, like you said, steve, that teachers definitely are afraid to speak out and to make inclusive curriculum inclusive in every sense of the word. And going back to what we were talking about with intersectionality, but there was one point that, Levi, you said that historically that teachers education hasn't really been like a place for progress. And it's sad because. Yes, and actually, there's this book, it's called out in the union, and the Federal Teachers association was actually the very first union to acknowledge or to bring in LGBTQ plus inclusiveness within the workplace. It was the first time that that happened within a union.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:53:20 - 00:53:39]
But then also, education is also dominated by white women, and there's a lot of white feminism that exists, and that, unfortunately, excludes a lot of marginalized communities that we could be in unison with, but we're not.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:53:39 - 00:54:33]
Yeah. And just to clarify that or complicate it even further, when I said education, I'm more talking about the white male superstructure of academic Harvard, Ivy League, high level institutions, because, of course, there's HBCUs and predominantly black school districts where you're going to hear that kind of language or that kind of inclusivity with all the caveats that might come with. With time and place. But when we're talking about larger structures, the superstructure of the way the nation reproduces history, memory, ideology, what goes on WQED or national public broadcasting or CNN, it's not coming from the radical leftist teachers union. It's most likely coming from the stodgy, white, million year old that's the head of the history department at Yale who.
Nick (he/him): :
[00:54:35 - 00:54:42]
Yeah. Fragrance. There's only a slight difference between the two in some ways, but, yeah.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:54:42 - 00:55:19]
And also, each community has its own version of, you know, their capital t. Truth excludes some versions, too. Like, for instance, one time I did an episode on George Washington Carver because I was talking about LGBTQ plus people in STEM, and it's rumored that he was bisexual and that he sometimes enjoyed the company of men at Tuskegee University. And he had a partner. You know, on some websites, it's.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:55:19 - 00:55:33]
No. You know, he just was a great mentor, and they were best friends. And then on other websites, it's like, oh, no, they were. And, like, that's just how it.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:55:34 - 00:55:36]
That some Alexander. The.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:55:38 - 00:56:11]
There's. There's homophobia within different communities, and, like, what is tolerable is different for each community. And you said it's not coming from the very radical leftist teachers union, because even Bayard Rustin. I told you that he was a communist, but I had to dig for that one. It's not just common knowledge that he was a communist, because that's very hidden history.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:56:11 - 00:56:25]
Yeah. One thing to go back to the point about, I guess, this grassroots efforts to change curriculum. Grassroots in quotes, because they're actually funded by these big institutions. I mean, we mentioned Prageru. Right?
Steve (he/him)::
[00:56:25 - 00:56:50]
But there's a lot of these efforts to basically make school boards transphobic. Right. And eliminate critical race theory type kind of learning in high schools, in primary schools. I mean, these people are really nuts. And I'm thinking about this as we're talking about, essentially, I just want to be careful because it's not like we're coming and saying that it's not good that gay people can get married.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:56:50 - 00:57:19]
That is a good thing. That's something that we still have to fight for. And that's something that, again, radicals have been to the earlier point, I think, that Steve or Levi made, or I think we've all probably made at some level at this point that the radicals have been the leading edge in the fight for those kind of things, right? And then it later gets told differently that, oh, these liberal heroes actually got this, or some great liberal hero, some great man on high came down and bestowed this upon the people, ignoring the mass movements, right? We still have to be fighting for that stuff.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:57:19 - 00:57:56]
And I think we have to really look at it right now as like a multifront fight where it's like, we need to change this system in its totality, right? And I think we need to, one, move people away from this idea that these progressive, individualistic wins are enough and get people back to their radical roots. But then we also have to fight these retrograde forces on the other side, right? Because I think this comes up a lot, especially these online spaces that are talking about anti imperialism. It's like they want to forsake some of these social struggles for the sake of the decline of empire.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:57:57 - 00:58:27]
And it's like, no, we can't do that. You know what I mean? Because things like fascism and the decline of empires are very much interrelated, right? So as the empire falls on the world stage and conditions deteriorate here, we're going to see a rise in fascistic elements in our domestic front as well. And they're already laying the groundwork for scapegoating the most oppressed people by these efforts to demonize trans kids, as an example.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:58:27 - 00:58:48]
So we have to be serious about fighting on all these different fronts. And we can't capitulate to reactionarism on anything. We know better now. We know better. We're living in 2024 and we need to build comradeship with the most depressed people and again, educate people that this is a domestic fight, it's a global fight, and we all need to get together for it.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:58:48 - 00:58:50]
No war, but class war.
Steve (he/him)::
[00:58:51 - 00:58:52]
Yeah.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:58:54 - 00:59:57]
I think that there kind of has been like a social consciousness that things have been changing, especially since post lockdown period of the pandemic. That, at least for me, if you knew me before the pandemic, you didn't know me because I found out that I have ADHD at 27 years old, and now I'm 31 and I feel like a totally different person. And I didn't know before the pandemic, at least like before the lockdown. And so the lockdown happened and disabled folks were left behind that now we see a resurgence in anti LGBTQ plus rhetoric and people are getting hurt and being left behind. And that I think in 2020, hopefully, a lot of people really became more aware of systemic racism.
Destiny (she/they)::
[00:59:57 - 01:00:20]
But even then, what has changed as far as police brutality? That folks are being left behind. So, like you said, we live in 2024. It is time for us to have that comradeship and just really work together regardless of what our backgrounds look like, because we all do have the same radical roots.
Levi (he/him)::
[01:00:20 - 01:00:22]
Yeah. And the right have a playbook.
Nick (he/him): :
[01:00:22 - 01:00:22]
Right.
Levi (he/him)::
[01:00:22 - 01:00:49]
For all this stuff they have for what they're doing to the LGBTQ plus community now is exactly what they did during the civil rights movement to the african american and the black communities. But the left has one as well. We can look back at the radical movements in the past and improve where we need to. As Nick has said, nothing is perfect. So obviously, we have to make improvements, but we are going to have to do that to push back against these people.
Levi (he/him)::
[01:00:49 - 01:01:19]
Because, again, maybe it's just because I listen to this garbage a lot. I don't know. Like Nick said, I don't know why, but I guess I do it for podcast research, but they're very loud. We make him do it, and they're very loud and infiltrating school boards and doing all this stuff that these plans that they have and they're enacting on. You just have to be ready and organized together to fight back against that.
Nick (he/him): :
[01:01:19 - 01:01:36]
Yeah. Maybe as a sort of concluding remark to pull on what Nick was saying. This reactionary aspect is largely astroturfed. It's heavily funded. There's a lot of money going into those right wing podcasts.
Nick (he/him): :
[01:01:36 - 01:02:05]
I swear to you, listeners, we are not getting any money from coke industries. But I love going back to that quotation. I think we've done it at least three times before by Joe and Lai, talking about the French Revolution, where he's asked by Henry Kissinger in the 1970s about his opinion on the conclusion of that. And he, 200 years after the fact, said that it's too early to tell, and that's where we're at right now. Like you said, 2020 was a watershed moment.
Nick (he/him): :
[01:02:05 - 01:02:23]
There's been watershed moments since 1969 with the Stonewall rebellion. These things are constantly developing and percolating over time. While 1969. Let's do some quick math here. That would be 65 years ago.
Nick (he/him): :
[01:02:24 - 01:02:27]
75 years ago. I'm not a math 55.
Steve (he/him)::
[01:02:27 - 01:02:28]
You're going the wrong way.
Nick (he/him): :
[01:02:28 - 01:02:40]
Oh, man. See, I'm a history doctorate. I'm not a math guy. But that's a relatively short amount of time in terms of human history. These things are constantly changing.
Nick (he/him): :
[01:02:41 - 01:03:09]
And as we said earlier, the population is against the genocide. They want, at the very least, a ceasefire. It's the people that are in charge that are really holding this up so things can change. And that's the positive thing that I always try to hold on to when we have these conversations, is that the people are on our side, even if they don't know it yet. They support the basic concepts, even if they don't have the $4, the $5 words that we might have to say it.
Nick (he/him): :
[01:03:09 - 01:03:17]
And I would trade in all the $5 words if it would mean that we just get to that next level and we all have a more equitable society.
Destiny (she/they)::
[01:03:17 - 01:03:38]
Well, maybe we can close off here for now. Thanks so much for joining me, and thank you for your beautifully said concluding sentence. Levi, thanks for having me on your show and being on my show and just being my comrades. I appreciate you.
Steve (he/him)::
[01:03:39 - 01:03:48]
This was a lot of fun. I was glad that we were able to connect. I think this was a good collab, and I think it's the basis for us to do some more cool stuff together. So thank you.
Nick (he/him): :
[01:03:48 - 01:03:48]
Second that.
Levi (he/him)::
[01:03:48 - 01:03:49]
That'd be good. Thanks very much.
