Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and what good of
Speaker 1: Steffan Never Told You proflection of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 1: We are so happy to once again be joined by
Speaker 1: the marvelous, the fantastic, the wonderful Bridget Todd Award winning.
Speaker 3: Award winning and book buying because I just bought your
Speaker 3: new book stuff I've Never told you.
Speaker 4: Because I'm so excited.
Speaker 3: We were talking off Mike about how excited I am
Speaker 3: so add award winning Comma stuff I'm Never told you
Speaker 3: book purchasing to that name.
Speaker 4: Of who I Am.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Yes, it really really reads a lot. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: are so excited to have you on. I just I
Speaker 1: feel like we haven't seen you in forever, even though
Speaker 1: I know it's not true.
Speaker 5: Time flies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it's great. It's very very great to have
Speaker 1: you as always. How have you been, Bridget, what's been
Speaker 1: going on? I know you do have some awards or
Speaker 1: potential case trophy case.
Speaker 5: Just case that sounded like what?
Speaker 1: Sorry?
Speaker 4: Like, do you know anything about my legal.
Speaker 3: I am happy to take home the not the winning award,
Speaker 3: but the second runner up whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 3: Shorty Award for Best Tech and Science Podcast, Major shout
Speaker 3: out star team Joey and Tari.
Speaker 4: And Jonathan and Mike.
Speaker 3: Also, speaking of Joey, I heard Joey on stuff I've
Speaker 3: never told you doing that episode about Kosa, and it
Speaker 3: was a really good episode. So all of y'all yeah
Speaker 3: for that one. Yeah, this summer is winding down, thank god.
Speaker 3: I'm really looking forward to fall. This summer didn't really
Speaker 3: take for me. How has the summer been for y'all?
Speaker 5: You're asking while we're in the middle of like hurricane season. Yeah,
Speaker 5: so we've had a lot of rain, and a lot
Speaker 5: more rain is coming today, especially in this week. So
Speaker 5: I will say though, as a person who does enjoy
Speaker 5: like some of the somber parts of the weather, like
Speaker 5: the like the darkness and the lightning as long as
Speaker 5: I'm not near it, because I do have a small
Speaker 5: fear of that lightning. I am much like my dog.
Speaker 5: But the heat, I'm good about it. But I do
Speaker 5: have a fear of winter in that I don't like
Speaker 5: being cold, so I feel like that's too close to
Speaker 5: So I'm just an unhappy person, you know.
Speaker 4: Any of the seasons like winter, I don't care for it.
Speaker 5: I love fall and spring, but it's so sure that
Speaker 5: I'll forget. Okay, I'm unhappy again.
Speaker 3: I'm ready for like it's it's been so hot in DC.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm so ready to like be contemplative with a
Speaker 3: sweater and like walk around holding a coffee and like,
Speaker 3: you know, all the little all the things that you
Speaker 3: associate with fall.
Speaker 5: I'm ready for right, Well, I am like a my
Speaker 5: personality is Cardigan. Like that's just the personality that I am.
Speaker 5: So I am looking forward to that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, your personality can really shine, It's true.
Speaker 1: And Cardigan, that's my lifestyle.
Speaker 5: Poncho, A good poncho and what I mean poncho, I'm
Speaker 5: talking like you know, the sweater ponchos. I am that girl.
Speaker 5: Don't worry about me. I'll be in the corner with
Speaker 5: my poncho and Cardigans.
Speaker 4: Cozy every day.
Speaker 5: It sounds great, Annie, now you feel about it?
Speaker 1: Uh, I'm ready for it to be over as well.
Speaker 1: I was complaining about my AC unit, my window AC
Speaker 1: unit just now. But I do agree with you, Bridget.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like it it took because I'm still
Speaker 1: I am definitely going out more than I did. But
Speaker 1: when the pandemic was like en fulse thing. But I'm
Speaker 1: still like I don't go out nearly as often, so
Speaker 1: I don't go outside all the time, and so I'm
Speaker 1: just getting like the heat with my sad ac Unit
Speaker 1: and not any of that other stuff. Yeah, so it doesn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just sort of felt like, oh falls coming out, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, bad miss it. Yeah, and I follows my
Speaker 1: favorite month of season, so I'm very very excited for that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it is supposed to rain pretty badly today
Speaker 1: and this there might be thunder. The power my power
Speaker 1: goes out all the time, so we'll see. But I
Speaker 1: feel like it's appropriate for what we're talking.
Speaker 3: About a little bit on the horizon to be aware
Speaker 3: that is a masterful segue.
Speaker 4: You're a real tro.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I have a very specific skill set, and
Speaker 1: it's like bad puns and some interesting segus transitioning perfect.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great transition because we got to be
Speaker 3: aware of all the different Supreme Court legal challenges and
Speaker 3: storms on the horizon, one of which I am talking
Speaker 3: about today, and that's because the man who brought us
Speaker 3: the legal challenge that struck down affirmative earlier this summer
Speaker 3: is back, and this time he is coming for grants
Speaker 3: and the fellowships that support marginalized people. So you all
Speaker 3: probably recall that earlier this summer. Back in June, the
Speaker 3: Supreme Court struck down affirmative action, ruling that race can
Speaker 3: no longer play a part in college admissions. Notably, the
Speaker 3: decision just applied to race. It did not apply to
Speaker 3: gender or things like legacy status or donor status being
Speaker 3: considered in the college admissions process. Separately, some colleges like
Speaker 3: Harvard have signaled that they might start re examining the
Speaker 3: role that things like legacy status plays in college admissions
Speaker 3: in light of that Supreme Court ruling.
Speaker 4: Do you all remember this. I remember when the ruling
Speaker 4: was struck down.
Speaker 3: How big it felt, especially being a big Supreme Court ruling.
Speaker 4: About a year the after row was struck down, it felt.
Speaker 3: Like, you know, one big torrent of rain and then
Speaker 3: another big torrent of rain to continue your METAe.
Speaker 5: For Annie, Yes, good metaphor nicely done.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yeah, no, it definitely did, because that was at
Speaker 1: the end of the Supreme Court session and there had
Speaker 1: just been a lot of I mean, it turned out
Speaker 1: to be true, but a lot of fear around like
Speaker 1: what will they do?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: It just made like all of these any decisions in
Speaker 1: one day.
Speaker 5: In one day. Yeah, you know it's odd because I
Speaker 5: was absolutely alive, and I think, like talking about trying
Speaker 5: to get into school and having this whole conversation when
Speaker 5: I'm a firmative action was coming into debate to begin with,
Speaker 5: and to see it like this, I'm not gonna lie,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna be very transparent here as growing up in
Speaker 5: a white household who are very conservative, not around any
Speaker 5: marginalized groups outside of me who they rescued and put
Speaker 5: that in air quotes out of like a marginalized a
Speaker 5: bad situation. Seeing what they were saying was fed into
Speaker 5: me and being like, yeah, I absolutely agreed that I
Speaker 5: should not get I don't want to be given a
Speaker 5: special spot because of my race. I want to earn it.
Speaker 5: I said that out loud to my family before I
Speaker 5: started college, in any of that, not understanding what it
Speaker 5: really was. And I truly believe my parents believe that.
Speaker 5: I don't think my siblings believe that because they're they
Speaker 5: are educated and they understand, but I truly believe that
Speaker 5: because that was what was fed into me. So I
Speaker 5: have this real, like ugh it feeling about this whole
Speaker 5: action because the face of the suit was an Asian
Speaker 5: man who was bitter, bitter little baby that I feel
Speaker 5: like so many ways about it, and then coming into
Speaker 5: college on my own and then understanding what it truly
Speaker 5: was and realizing, oh, yeah, that stuff that I spewed
Speaker 5: out as a kid was actual white supremacy coming out
Speaker 5: of my mouth because I was trying to impress my
Speaker 5: white family, uh and being fed a bunch of lies.
Speaker 5: So it was it felt like so gross to know
Speaker 5: that I was manipulated like that at my young age,
Speaker 5: at my young age. Also that I think, I don't
Speaker 5: know how old the students. I guess he was trying
Speaker 5: to get into college, so I guess maybe around the
Speaker 5: same time. And then coming in to this now that
Speaker 5: I'm like, oh my god, what have we done essentially,
Speaker 5: like with allowing these types of lies to perpetuate and
Speaker 5: not looking at the true statistics behind these actual numbers
Speaker 5: and why affirmative action was and is necessary. But again,
Speaker 5: because of that rhetoric being around, it wasn't surprising that
Speaker 5: it was undone because it was truly hanging on by
Speaker 5: a thread because of those types of lies. But yeah,
Speaker 5: I have like this ache and like mourning in guilt,
Speaker 5: guilt by association, and guilt by like past actions that
Speaker 5: I'm like, oh my god, what is this? Like part
Speaker 5: of what I was spewing is part of the reason
Speaker 5: this is undone. Of course, the bigger picture is again
Speaker 5: white supremacists and their power that they wanted to play
Speaker 5: and the overall arcing like oh who was doing the
Speaker 5: main grab and trying to make sure that what a
Speaker 5: marginalized people stay down and stay unable to get to
Speaker 5: any of these places because they do not have the
Speaker 5: connections essentially just all connections, not even money anymore, so connections,
Speaker 5: and it's just disgusting. So, yeah, I have very strong feelings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I first of all, thank you for sharing that,
Speaker 3: and I can kind of identify, I know how you feel.
Speaker 3: I don't think that you need to have guilt for
Speaker 3: having felt that way, because, first of all, we live
Speaker 3: in a society where it's so easy to pit marginalize
Speaker 3: people against each other in service of upholding white supremacy.
Speaker 3: Like that is a tried and true method that bad
Speaker 3: actors and people interested in upholding white supremacy have engaged
Speaker 3: for a very long time. And so the reason they
Speaker 3: do it is because it's effective, and so it's not
Speaker 3: surprising that it will be effective on you, a young person. Also,
Speaker 3: the way that we talk about it, I think just
Speaker 3: does not set people up to have a full understanding
Speaker 3: of the conversation.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: So we talk so much about affirmative action, and when
Speaker 3: we talk about affirmative action, usually the face of affirmative
Speaker 3: action is a black person, right, And so we're talking
Speaker 3: about like, oh, well, do you think that black people
Speaker 3: should get a leg up in admissions processes?
Speaker 4: Of course people are not gonna agree with that.
Speaker 3: But the reality is is that that is a myth
Speaker 3: because the Department of Labor shows that the primary beneficiaries
Speaker 3: of affirmative action are actually white women. That is not
Speaker 3: what the way that are, the way that we talk
Speaker 3: about it would lead you to believe, right. And so
Speaker 3: another idea is that when we talk about admissions, so
Speaker 3: I would say this is just my opinion, but I
Speaker 3: would say that there is an outsized space given to
Speaker 3: conversations about affirmative action, which, as I said, are sort
Speaker 3: of translated through like oh black people, that there the
Speaker 3: face of it, and so much less space given to
Speaker 3: things like legacy status, which I think I had a
Speaker 3: stat earlier but it's some astronomical amount of kids in
Speaker 3: college get there because they are their parents went to
Speaker 3: that college, or their parents are donors to that.
Speaker 4: College, or some sort of a leg up.
Speaker 3: And essentially what that is is like affirmative action for
Speaker 3: rich people. Yeah, we don't even it's not even part
Speaker 3: of the conversation and certainly has not been part of
Speaker 3: the conversation the way that affirmative action has been.
Speaker 4: So I would argue that, like, you were not.
Speaker 3: Given a clear picture of the issue in order to
Speaker 3: be able to like thoughtfully come up with a critique
Speaker 3: or an opinion about it, right, And I think that
Speaker 3: that has to be by.
Speaker 5: Design, right absolutely. I think in the understanding, as you
Speaker 5: were saying, is the rhetoric I was given was all
Speaker 5: anti black. Like we're going to be very very specific
Speaker 5: in calling it what it was. It wasn't about anything else.
Speaker 5: It wasn't about me being a minority or like being
Speaker 5: Asian and a marginalized woman. Is literally they were trying
Speaker 5: to be anti black. They were staying the quiet part
Speaker 5: out loud because that's all they see. That's the big
Speaker 5: enemy that is built up against white people, which is
Speaker 5: so disgusting and it's very prevalent, Like, that's the real understanding.
Speaker 5: We need to have that whole fact and hold that conversation.
Speaker 5: Is this is an anti black movement, and in that
Speaker 5: it did not it did not actually help the black
Speaker 5: community that much at all. It really did not bring in,
Speaker 5: as you said, statistically, black people into colleges. It was
Speaker 5: again more white women, all white women essentially. And then
Speaker 5: again the legacy people. Those are the people who are
Speaker 5: still remaining and going to colleges and still getting scholarships
Speaker 5: to get into these colleges, and still getting like loans
Speaker 5: at a reasonable interest rate, all of those things. But
Speaker 5: for some reason, they built this boogeyman. Not some reason
Speaker 5: we know why, but they built a boogieyman in order
Speaker 5: to make sure that they put down a specific group
Speaker 5: of people because they're like, hey, this is a battle
Speaker 5: we can win. We've always won with this beat. Let's
Speaker 5: do this.
Speaker 3: Anti blackness is always that is a train that is
Speaker 3: always on time.
Speaker 4: So what's interesting.
Speaker 3: About what you just said is that white women, despite
Speaker 3: being the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action, are also the
Speaker 3: most likely to be against it. So, according to a
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen cooperative Congressional election study, nearly seventy percent of
Speaker 3: the twenty thousand, six hundred and ninety four self identified
Speaker 3: non Hispanic white women surveyed either somewhat or strongly opposed
Speaker 3: affirmative action. Again, I think it's like one of those
Speaker 3: situations where because the way that it is framed is like,
Speaker 3: this is a program that helps black people, and if
Speaker 3: you don't think black people should be getting a leg
Speaker 3: up over you, you should not be into it, you
Speaker 3: should be against it. That rhetoric actually ends up hurting
Speaker 3: all marginalized people, whether you're a white woman, because you know,
Speaker 3: like it's one of those dynamics where the anti blackness
Speaker 3: becomes a way to.
Speaker 4: Get people on board.
Speaker 3: But then that is not an accurate reflection of who
Speaker 3: the beneficiaries of programs like affirmative action actually end up being. Right, So, Annie,
Speaker 3: you were saying how Asian Americans were kind of made
Speaker 3: the face of the sort of victims of affirmative action,
Speaker 3: and that is very much by design because of this
Speaker 3: guy who is a conservativelee again named Edward Blum. I
Speaker 3: call him a litigant because that's like kind of what
Speaker 3: he is, like a professional lawsuit bringer. He is not
Speaker 3: a lawyer himself, but he basically connects potential plaintiffs with
Speaker 3: attorneys who are willing to represent them in test cases,
Speaker 3: which he then uses to try to set legal precedents.
Speaker 3: He is the founder and sole member of an organization
Speaker 3: called Project on Fair Representation, which he found that in
Speaker 3: two thousand and five, which focuses on voting, education, contracting, employment,
Speaker 3: racial quotas, and racial reparations.
Speaker 4: Basically, his whole thing is.
Speaker 3: Bringing legal challenges to strike down laws that I would
Speaker 3: argue protect.
Speaker 4: Non white, non straight, non men.
Speaker 3: More on this later. However, if you were to ask him,
Speaker 3: he would probably say that it's not that he wants
Speaker 3: to elevate like one race over anybody else, but that
Speaker 3: he wants all laws and all like public considerations to
Speaker 3: be race or identity neutral. He has described his ethos
Speaker 3: like this quote, Our history has been tainted tragically by
Speaker 3: the use of race and various public and private arenas.
Speaker 3: Race discrimination is odious, something the founding principles of the
Speaker 3: Civil Rights Movement were designed to eliminate. Personally, I would
Speaker 3: say that I don't know if I buy what he
Speaker 3: is saying. It seems like an awfully convenient way to
Speaker 3: justify the fact that he keeps gutting laws that protect
Speaker 3: marginalized people.
Speaker 4: But there you have it. That is what he says.
Speaker 3: His motivation is he just thinks that everything should be
Speaker 3: race neutral, right. The Guardian describes him as quote a
Speaker 3: human wrecking ball on a mission to destroy the landmark
Speaker 3: achievements of the civil rights era and send the country
Speaker 3: back to a dark age of discrimination and harassment of
Speaker 3: minorities in the workplace and higher education and at the
Speaker 3: ballot box.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, this is the very basis of heading
Speaker 5: that level of if everything was fair from the beginning,
Speaker 5: great great, if everything was equal and everybody had same
Speaker 5: in equity, that would be a beautiful utopia. But as
Speaker 5: we know this land, this country, those countries that have
Speaker 5: been colonized, as not based on that level, and that
Speaker 5: it has never been about equity, has always been about
Speaker 5: who has power and those who have power. Really was like,
Speaker 5: but I love that time. That was the great time.
Speaker 5: Buy can't we have that again? Which is like, hmm,
Speaker 5: you know, we know what you're really saying exactly.
Speaker 3: The affirmative action ruling was now Blump's first rodeo. A
Speaker 3: legal challenge that he brought was what led to the
Speaker 3: gutting of the Voting Rights Act. That was the Shelby
Speaker 3: County Versus Holder case that he sponsored in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 3: and it led to the Supreme Court overturning a key
Speaker 3: provision in the nineteen sixty five Voting Rights Act. That
Speaker 3: legal challenge is when we saw the introduction of things
Speaker 3: like voter ID requirements, cutting back on early voting, eliminating
Speaker 3: same day voter registration.
Speaker 4: All of that was because of him.
Speaker 3: So thank you Edward Blum for ushering that into our landscape.
Speaker 5: He's really the villain in all the story.
Speaker 4: On my podcast, there are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 3: We've referred to him a lot as just like a
Speaker 3: professional hater, Like he's just someone who like just like
Speaker 3: hate hate hate, hate, hate, like go, I don't like
Speaker 3: that hate hate.
Speaker 4: Hate like professional hater.
Speaker 5: Is he does?
Speaker 2: He is?
Speaker 5: He very rich.
Speaker 4: I think he's.
Speaker 3: Wealthy, like I think I think that he I've actually
Speaker 3: looked into him because I'm he's one of those figures.
Speaker 4: That I find so curious.
Speaker 3: He did not come from wealth, but I think that
Speaker 3: he has wealth now and he's just interested in using
Speaker 3: that wealth and influencing those connections into creating these different
Speaker 3: legal precedents that I would say harm us.
Speaker 5: All right, he is that evil genius because we've seen
Speaker 5: that in a lot of conservative think tanks as well
Speaker 5: as essentially right wing groups that have been building up
Speaker 5: the legal system to only help them, putting in uh,
Speaker 5: those in law school that they know that they can
Speaker 5: pull back out and educating them and funding them to
Speaker 5: the full in order to come back out and do
Speaker 5: these types of cases, knowing that if they can do this,
Speaker 5: this is going to be the basis of how they win.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, did you guys, did you all see that
Speaker 3: docuseries on the Duggers on Hulut.
Speaker 4: So that's the whole thing. It's a real like jeeze
Speaker 4: as you might imagine.
Speaker 3: But sure, one of the things they make very clear
Speaker 3: is that it's not just about like this one problematic
Speaker 3: super religious family on TV. It is about this vast
Speaker 3: network of young people who are being like trained and
Speaker 3: educated and ursoll are very well connected to reach the
Speaker 3: highest levels of government and influence to make laws for
Speaker 3: all of us. So it's not enough that like their
Speaker 3: kids are homeschooled or that their kids are live a
Speaker 3: certain way. They are training the next generation of political
Speaker 3: operatives and lawmakers to make sure that all of us
Speaker 3: and all of our kids live the way that they
Speaker 3: think that they should be living. So it's pretty, I
Speaker 3: guess some diabolical.
Speaker 4: It's the word I would use.
Speaker 3: You mentioned earlier, how when you were having conversations about college,
Speaker 3: you remember watching the first wave of the affirmative action
Speaker 3: legal challenge go down. And even if folks weren't following
Speaker 3: affirmative action very closely, they might remember Blum's earlier attempt
Speaker 3: to challenge it. So Blum had been working to challenge
Speaker 3: affirmative action since twenty thirteen, when he worked with this woman,
Speaker 3: Abigail Fisher, who was the daughter of a good friend
Speaker 3: of his, who was a white woman. She you might
Speaker 3: unbreshid red hair. She did not get into University of
Speaker 3: Texas because her GPA was frankly mid. She sued the
Speaker 3: University of Texas at Austin in two thousand and eight
Speaker 3: after it denied her admission. She had a three point
Speaker 3: five to nine GPA as a senior, which put her
Speaker 3: just below the cutoff for a state law requiring ut
Speaker 3: to accept any graduate in the top ten percent of
Speaker 3: their high school class. So like mathematically speaking, she was
Speaker 3: not in the top ten percent of her high school class.
Speaker 3: She felt that she should have still gotten admission because
Speaker 3: of her extracurricular activities combined with her GPA, and that
Speaker 3: she would have gotten into ut if the university had
Speaker 3: not used race as a factor in selecting its freshman class,
Speaker 3: which she argued was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's
Speaker 3: Equal Protection clause.
Speaker 4: Do you all remember this? Like she was like a
Speaker 4: very like memorable.
Speaker 3: Figure, Like I feel like when I when I hear
Speaker 3: about this, I can see this one image of her
Speaker 3: standing at a podium outside of the Supreme Court, which
Speaker 3: is like burned in my mind.
Speaker 5: I do remember this because I remember thinking, this is
Speaker 5: the dumbest argument I've ever seen, because I'm like, girl,
Speaker 5: you didn't make it, Like even without a firma diviction,
Speaker 5: you wouldn't have You wouldn't have made it. Do you
Speaker 5: not understand how many people are struggling to get into
Speaker 5: college today because a little more access has happened, not
Speaker 5: just because of a firma divection, but like if the
Speaker 5: lottery and all of those things, would we have more scholarships.
Speaker 5: I was just like, why are people listening to her?
Speaker 5: I think that was the biggest question in my head.
Speaker 5: I was like, why are we paying attention to this?
Speaker 5: Like she has no case, I think I thought.
Speaker 1: I remember thinking like is this an onion headblow? She
Speaker 1: didn't just the grades are bad and now she's I.
Speaker 5: Think that was the beginning of like, oh, this is
Speaker 5: a Becky Sorry, Becky's in the world. That's really just
Speaker 5: whining because she couldn't get her away like that. I
Speaker 5: remember like that was the beginning of that of like, oh,
Speaker 5: sorority girl was again, no, no, no, no hate to
Speaker 5: sorority people. I'm so sorry, but you know that level
Speaker 5: like stereotype in that my daddy said that I could
Speaker 5: get in and now I'm not in.
Speaker 3: Why so the way that y'all are reacting is exactly
Speaker 3: how I'm this is validating because I remember her being
Speaker 3: treated like kind of a joke, like her GP was
Speaker 3: like fine, but certainly at three point like guess it
Speaker 3: was a lot higher than my GP was when I
Speaker 3: was in high school. So like I'll own that, but
Speaker 3: like you know, it's not three point five nine is
Speaker 3: not an automatic entrance to wherever you want to go
Speaker 3: to college. It's like a fine GPA, And so I
Speaker 3: remember people calling her becky with the bad grades and
Speaker 3: the vibe around her. Was it like she was just
Speaker 3: salty that she didn't get in and so she was
Speaker 3: like blaming black people, And so obviously she was not
Speaker 3: a very I guess sympathetic legal challenge to affirmative action.
Speaker 4: And so obviously Abigail's legal challenge did not work.
Speaker 3: So bum regrouped and made the strategic choice to make
Speaker 3: the face of affirmative action or the people being harmed
Speaker 3: by affirmative action, according to him, Asian Americans. According to
Speaker 3: an NPR article he told a gathering of the Houston
Speaker 3: Chinese Alliance in twenty fifteen, quote I needed plaintiffs.
Speaker 4: I needed Asian plaintiffs.
Speaker 3: MPR spoke to Hannay Lopez, a race and constitutional law
Speaker 3: scholar at Berkeley, who described this as a deliberate switch
Speaker 3: in strategy and that the argument was no longer centered
Speaker 3: on how affirmative action impacts white people. Instead quote, there's
Speaker 3: this move to strengthen the surface argument that this is
Speaker 3: racism against minorities.
Speaker 4: I think it's part of the appeal.
Speaker 3: And so I've read like Asian American activists and advocates
Speaker 3: saying that like what he was doing, was this intentional
Speaker 3: shift to make Asian Americans like a like a proxy
Speaker 3: stand in for white people to be like, oh no,
Speaker 3: like I this can't be about racial animists because I
Speaker 3: am trying to advocate for Asian Americans. And again, I
Speaker 3: think it's a really great example of how effective a
Speaker 3: strategy it is to pit marginalized groups against one another
Speaker 3: in service of white supremacy, because in the end, it's
Speaker 3: not like I think, since affirmative action has been struck down,
Speaker 3: we've already seen data trickle in that wasn't that long ago,
Speaker 3: but already we've seen data trickle in that suggests that like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's white people with connections, it's white legacy students
Speaker 3: who are continuing to get more slots in admissions. It's
Speaker 3: not you know, it's it's certainly not helping the Asian
Speaker 3: Americans who were who brought this challenge, and it's actually
Speaker 3: just opening up more slots for more rich white people,
Speaker 3: because that's how college works in the United States, right.
Speaker 5: And of course his play is being used by other
Speaker 5: places such as Florida do doing the Asian American history
Speaker 5: instead but blacklisting African American history, and we know what
Speaker 5: that play is, that that's the same type of narrative.
Speaker 5: They're like, Oh, this is working, let's try this, let's
Speaker 5: keep this going exactly.
Speaker 4: So I really wanted to talk about.
Speaker 3: So, after on the heels of successfully getting the Supreme
Speaker 3: Court to strike down affirmative Action, what is Blum's next move?
Speaker 4: Well, he is.
Speaker 3: Back after gutting affirmative Action. His next move is going
Speaker 3: after fellowships and grant programs that support marginalized people. He's
Speaker 3: assuming two corporate law firms on the grounds that they're
Speaker 3: fellowship programs that are aimed at students of color, those
Speaker 3: who identify as LGBTQ plus, and students with disabilities, exclude
Speaker 3: applicants based on race, and he is demanding that those
Speaker 3: programs be shut down. He is also suing a black
Speaker 3: venture capital firm called the Fearless Fund. So this is
Speaker 3: kind of the meat of why I wanted to bring
Speaker 3: this conversation to the table today, because he is alleging
Speaker 3: that the Fearless Fund is practicing unlawful racial discrimination. Blum
Speaker 3: claims the Fearless Fund is engaged in explicit racial exclusion
Speaker 3: by operating a grant program quote only open to black females.
Speaker 3: According to The Washington Post, the lawsuit is asked to
Speaker 3: prevent the fund from selecting its next round of grant winners.
Speaker 3: The claim states that the firm is quote violating Section
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty one of the Civil Rights Act of eighteen
Speaker 3: sixty six, a US law barring racial bias in private contracts,
Speaker 3: by making only black women eligible in the grant competition.
Speaker 3: So yeah, he's just like coming after anything that he
Speaker 3: sees as supporting non white people. The Fearless Fund was
Speaker 3: launched in twenty nineteen by three prominent black women, Keisha
Speaker 3: Knight Pullman who you might remember as Rudy Huxtable on
Speaker 3: The Cosby Show, entrepreneur arian Simone, and corporate executive Ayana Parsons.
Speaker 3: They have a strong and impressive list of investors like
Speaker 3: Bank of America, Costco, General Mills, MasterCard, JP Morgan. They've
Speaker 3: invested in over forty businesses in the past four years,
Speaker 3: including Atlanta favorite The Slutty Vegan.
Speaker 4: Have y'all eaten there?
Speaker 5: Oh? Yeah, it was near my house that I lived.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Samantha was smart and went during the Super Bowl,
Speaker 1: so there was no one there.
Speaker 5: So they stay open till two am and so when
Speaker 5: the Super bowls, because it's always packed out, and we
Speaker 5: went at it still took forever. They made good food.
Speaker 5: It takes a while, but yeah, we went. I think
Speaker 5: they only been once though I don't stand in lines.
Speaker 1: It was a long line. I've never been.
Speaker 5: But and she has expanded that business everywhere, especially in
Speaker 5: Atlanta and then Georgia. So good on her and owns
Speaker 5: a lot of property.
Speaker 3: That wouldn't be possible without the Fearless Fun. And so
Speaker 3: the lawsuit that Blum is bringing centers on the Fearless
Speaker 3: Funds Fearless Strivers Grant contest, which awards black women who
Speaker 3: own small businesses twenty thousand dollars in grants and digital
Speaker 3: tools to help them grow their businesses and mentorship opportunities.
Speaker 3: So interestingly enough, Blama did not seek out the Fearless
Speaker 3: Fund to sue, but rather, he says that a non
Speaker 3: black woman who runs a business reached out to him
Speaker 3: via email and flagged like, do you know that these
Speaker 3: black women are running a grant program that I can't
Speaker 3: be part of? And so the Washington Post reports, but
Speaker 3: the lawsuit sites three female business owners, one from New
Speaker 3: York and two from Virginia, who argue that they could
Speaker 3: have benefited from the Fearless Funds grant program, but they
Speaker 3: were ineligible because they are not black. So yeah, these
Speaker 3: non black women basically just felt like they should be
Speaker 3: entitled to this grant program that black women established for
Speaker 3: themselves to support black women.
Speaker 4: They were like, we should have a piece of that.
Speaker 5: That's such an interesting take because I'm like, well, you
Speaker 5: also didn't get it from every other business grant ever,
Speaker 5: so why are you choosing this like you want did
Speaker 5: you try for it? This just seems like a lazy
Speaker 5: part of like I want this one thing, I couldn't
Speaker 5: get it.
Speaker 4: I quit.
Speaker 2: They're biased, Like yeah, I mean this is just my opinion,
Speaker 2: and but like it's so hard to not see this
Speaker 2: as like just hater vibes, like everything has to be
Speaker 2: for you, and if it's not for you, you have
Speaker 2: to shut it down.
Speaker 3: I think it goes back to what we were saying
Speaker 3: earlier about the women who benefit from affirmative action are
Speaker 3: also the ones who are the most likely to be
Speaker 3: against it.
Speaker 4: I firmly believe that there is enough.
Speaker 3: Out there for all of us. And I'm an entrepreneur, right,
Speaker 3: so I know how hard the funding spaces for women,
Speaker 3: all women, and but I know how hard it is
Speaker 3: for black womenicular as a black woman.
Speaker 4: We'll get into some of the stats in just a moment.
Speaker 3: But I believe that despite that, there is enough for everyone.
Speaker 3: Everyone will find their lane, everyone will find their people,
Speaker 3: everyone will find what they need to make what they
Speaker 3: want happen. I believe that as like a like a
Speaker 3: meditation that keeps me in this work and keeps me
Speaker 3: being an entrepreneur.
Speaker 4: But I feel like the dynamic that.
Speaker 3: Says that women need to be pit against each other,
Speaker 3: that if you're a white woman, you need to be
Speaker 3: trying to shut down a grant that is for black women,
Speaker 3: that's not a dynamic that helps anybody, right, And so
Speaker 3: I think that.
Speaker 4: We all have our place, we all have our niche.
Speaker 4: There's enough for all of us.
Speaker 3: But that dynamic that we are enemies only serve that
Speaker 3: does not serve anybody. It doesn't serve me, it doesn't
Speaker 3: serve it. It ultimately won't serve them as either. It
Speaker 3: just keeps us pit against each other as opposed to
Speaker 3: these larger systems that are actually holding us all down.
Speaker 5: It's such a mind play that they have to people
Speaker 5: have to go through to be like, Okay, I can't
Speaker 5: get this one thing because they say I can't have it,
Speaker 5: so that means no one should have it because I'm
Speaker 5: gonna be miserable, and so are you. Misery loves Company.
Speaker 5: We're going to keep this mentality going and then also
Speaker 5: not look at the like here's the small thing versus
Speaker 5: the giant amount of stuff that you also can't get
Speaker 5: because you're not a rich white man, but you don't
Speaker 5: care about that thing, Like that's the one thing that's
Speaker 5: a little bit more accessible to tear someone down who
Speaker 5: other people will help you tear down with, instead of
Speaker 5: this big giant amount of cash that's just sitting here
Speaker 5: for the white man. Like it's just I said, for
Speaker 5: the white man, like I'm a native, but like that,
Speaker 5: you know, that's just like mind level of like how
Speaker 5: much you're willing to ignore to be like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 5: at the bottom. Who can I make lesser than me?
Speaker 5: Who can I push down further than me? So at
Speaker 5: the very least I'm not at the very bottom. Oh
Speaker 5: my god, that's just such a mind trick.
Speaker 3: This reminds me of when I was a little kid
Speaker 3: and my brother had this like free coupon for an
Speaker 3: ice cream from McDonald's that he got from school. So
Speaker 3: he met to McDonald's together and he got one ice cream,
Speaker 3: and I didn't have any money because he were little kids,
Speaker 3: and so they gave him his ice cream, and I
Speaker 3: got very jealous, and so I smacked it out of
Speaker 3: his hand onto the ground, and he was.
Speaker 4: Like, I was going to give you a bite.
Speaker 3: That's like because I was like, I don't want him
Speaker 3: to get something that I can't have.
Speaker 4: It's got a flattering story.
Speaker 3: But I was like seven years old, right, because it's
Speaker 3: like he was going to give me a bite, so
Speaker 3: I missed out. I'm getting my bite because I could
Speaker 3: not just let him have something that I wanted and
Speaker 3: felt entitled.
Speaker 5: To you immediately and probably earned. I'm thinking of an
Speaker 5: accelerated reader.
Speaker 4: What it was like.
Speaker 3: It was like a if you read X amount of books,
Speaker 3: you get an ice an ice cream coupon or something.
Speaker 5: I weren't for this, but yeah, I think this is
Speaker 5: so interesting. And the fact that he, of course Blum
Speaker 5: had to pounce on this, I'm sure it was like
Speaker 5: a gift for him. I must take this.
Speaker 3: He was like, ooh, I was looking for a way
Speaker 3: to spread my hater vibes, and yeah, after that Supreme
Speaker 3: Court ruling, and now this lands, this gift, lands in
Speaker 3: my inbox.
Speaker 5: And also makes me stronger, stronger than the woman who's complaining.
Speaker 4: Because exactly.
Speaker 3: So, Blum is using what he is called quote the
Speaker 3: shoe on the other foot test. The rhetorical strategy that
Speaker 3: he asks himself is if a grant program funded white
Speaker 3: male business owners wouldn't be considered fair. But that test,
Speaker 3: like you were saying, Sam, really assumes that we are
Speaker 3: all equal and all have equal access, which the data
Speaker 3: could not paint a clearer picture about the fact that
Speaker 3: that is not happening. Black women are the fastest rising
Speaker 3: group of entrepreneurs in the country. According to the Harvard
Speaker 3: Business Review In the US, an astounding seventeen percent of
Speaker 3: Black women are in the process of starting or running
Speaker 3: a new business. That's compared to just ten percent of
Speaker 3: white women and fifteen percent of white men. Yet despite
Speaker 3: this lead, only three percent of women are running mature businesses.
Speaker 3: Why well, One big reason is access to capital. Harvard
Speaker 3: Business Reviews research found that sixty one percent of black
Speaker 3: women self fund their total startup capital. This is in
Speaker 3: spite of the fact that, in their finding, only twenty
Speaker 3: nine percent of black women entrepreneurs live in households with
Speaker 3: incomes over seventy five thousand dollars, compared to fifty two
Speaker 3: percent of white men. This data is also combined with
Speaker 3: data suggesting that black women are less likely to own
Speaker 3: our own homes, take on a higher level of debt
Speaker 3: to do things like go to college, and are often
Speaker 3: like saddled with debt to go to college right, And
Speaker 3: so ultimately that leaves us saddled with more debt and
Speaker 3: having fewer personal resources and low collateral. Black entrepreneurs typically
Speaker 3: receive less than two percent of all venture capital dollars
Speaker 3: each year, while companies led by black women receive less
Speaker 3: than one percent of all funding.
Speaker 4: This is according to crunch Base.
Speaker 3: So yeah, the funding landscape is not great for black women.
Speaker 3: Less than one percent of funding goes to us. And
Speaker 3: so the fact that we already don't get that much,
Speaker 3: that there are grants and investment funds specifically aimed at
Speaker 3: shifting those numbers just a tiny bit, like the Fearless Fund,
Speaker 3: and that people are saying, no, we need to go
Speaker 3: for that too. That less than one percent that goes
Speaker 3: to y'all that needs to go to us now. In
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, Pew found that just three percent of US
Speaker 3: businesses were black owned, while eighty six percent were white owned.
Speaker 4: And so, yeah, as I said, like, as.
Speaker 3: An entrepreneur, these kind of dismal numbers completely aligned with
Speaker 3: my own experiences trying to raise money for projects that
Speaker 3: I want to do.
Speaker 4: There's just not a lot out there, and.
Speaker 3: You really have to stay focused and stay positive and
Speaker 3: not really let the sort of numbers around how dismal
Speaker 3: things can be kind.
Speaker 4: Of get in your head.
Speaker 3: But then on top of it, when you have people
Speaker 3: like Blum and these women that he's representing in this case,
Speaker 3: to challenge these funds, to challenge what little.
Speaker 4: Is out there for black entrepreneurs.
Speaker 3: Who are women, it's hard to internalize that as anything
Speaker 3: other than they don't want us here, They don't want
Speaker 3: us to have anything.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And it's so frustrating too, because a lot
Speaker 1: of companies like to act like they are supporting marginalized people,
Speaker 1: they are supporting black people, and they make these like
Speaker 1: outward promises and then just don't really follow through with them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, y'all might remember or be thinking like I thought
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty, like, after all the racial justice uprisings,
Speaker 3: I'm the wake of the murder of George Floyd. I
Speaker 3: thought that all these businesses and funds and grants were
Speaker 3: like going to start funding more diverse people and like
Speaker 3: having a more inclusive portfolio. Well, I remember all those
Speaker 3: promises too. Business has committed three hundred and forty billion
Speaker 3: dollars between May twenty twenty and October twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: according to McKenzie, and The Post also reports that investments
Speaker 3: swelled in the startup world. A record five point one
Speaker 3: billion dollars in funding was allocated to black founded startups
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one. That sounds like a lot. However,
Speaker 3: all of that interest and excitement and commitment pretty much
Speaker 3: eroded very quickly, with funding for black founded startups plunging
Speaker 3: fifty percent in twenty twenty two. So remember this is
Speaker 3: all happening against the pendulum kind of swinging back the
Speaker 3: other way where all of these corporate diversity efforts became
Speaker 3: a political lightning rod, and these employers just sort of backpedaled, right,
Speaker 3: And so I think that.
Speaker 4: That's where we're at now.
Speaker 3: Where in twenty twenty people talked a lot of big
Speaker 3: games about money they were going to give and funds
Speaker 3: they were going to give, and how they were going to.
Speaker 4: You know, support inclusive people.
Speaker 3: And startups and YadA, YadA, YadA, and all of those
Speaker 3: promises just fizzled out, right, And I think that we're
Speaker 3: sort of seeing I would argue, like a backlash to
Speaker 3: that now where diversity and inclusion staffers are being let go.
Speaker 3: I think like recently Chick fil A just like happened
Speaker 3: to have a diversity and inclusion person on their staff,
Speaker 3: and like there was a worry of like online protests
Speaker 3: because of that, Like just having somebody thinking about that
Speaker 3: on staff is now a lightning rod. And so obviously
Speaker 3: in that kind of climate, these organizations are not going
Speaker 3: to be funding black women, even though they committed to it,
Speaker 3: even though it seemed like that was there was a
Speaker 3: lot of excitement around that. Like yeah, I just think
Speaker 3: that we're in a completely different landscape than we were
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty.
Speaker 5: I mean, this is definitely that whole level of they
Speaker 5: want good publicity, but they're not going to follow through.
Speaker 5: Is the black square. Let me pretend like I care,
Speaker 5: and at the very least I'll be like Hey, let's
Speaker 5: tell the black people in the story. Like that's as
Speaker 5: far as their actual actions went. Was putting something on
Speaker 5: Instagram that they obviously deleted soon after because they wanted
Speaker 5: to look okay for one group of people. And I
Speaker 5: found that interesting that people are met at Chick fil
Speaker 5: A because it's like they're anti LGBTQ plus. So that's
Speaker 5: not enough for you. They need to be racist all
Speaker 5: of these things. For us to support you, you better
Speaker 5: be super super racist and super super homophobic in order
Speaker 5: for the conservatives, you can hate everyone except for white
Speaker 5: as people. Yeah, if not, we're not gonna support you,
Speaker 5: even if your chicken is okay.
Speaker 3: So it and like this is a little like unrelated,
Speaker 3: but like I think that with a lot of these people.
Speaker 4: The Chick fil A example that you just gave is
Speaker 4: a great example.
Speaker 3: A lot of these people like just they'll find anything
Speaker 3: to be aggrieved about. Like you know, I saw like
Speaker 3: Cracker Barrel was adding plant based sausage to their menu
Speaker 3: and people were like plant baited sausage. I'm not gonna
Speaker 3: shop at Cracker Barrel and I'm never gonna go to
Speaker 3: Cracker Barrel again. And it's like they're not taking regular
Speaker 3: sausage off the menu. You don't have to order it
Speaker 3: just because they're putting food on the menu that like
Speaker 3: someone else might like, that's not you, that's cause for
Speaker 3: for upset. And so another thing I wanted to say
Speaker 3: about your point, Sam, is that there's a makeup company, Tart.
Speaker 3: They got in hot water early this year because they
Speaker 3: were doing these brand trips that looked as if they
Speaker 3: were not being inclusive of black influencers. That they were
Speaker 3: asking black influencers like after the fact to come and
Speaker 3: like giving them substandard accommodations and all of that. And
Speaker 3: somebody found that in twenty twenty, you know, they when
Speaker 3: they posted their Black Square, this company was like, we
Speaker 3: pledged that we're going to be more inclusive and give more,
Speaker 3: do more partnerships with black and.
Speaker 4: Brown models, and blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: And then they quietly removed that from their website, but
Speaker 3: somebody found it on the wayback machine. It was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: let's get to update on all of these like very
Speaker 3: specific commitments that you made. And it turns out that
Speaker 3: they basically just like didn't do any of that stuff.
Speaker 3: But the thing is, nobody put a gun to your
Speaker 3: head and forced you to make these commitments. You made
Speaker 3: these commitments and just to quietly be like, M just kidding,
Speaker 3: Like that doesn't sit right with me, Like nobody told
Speaker 3: you to do this, Nobody told you to post a
Speaker 3: black square.
Speaker 4: You did it, You volunteered to do it.
Speaker 3: So when people expect a little follow through, that should
Speaker 3: be that should be a given.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I I think about this a lot too.
Speaker 1: We talked about this with a lot of the like
Speaker 1: what happened with blud Light, what happened with Target? And
Speaker 1: you know, then they just backtrack and make everyone angry.
Speaker 1: But is I feel like there's a fundamental misunderstanding of
Speaker 1: in this case, what it's like to be a trans person,
Speaker 1: and then when they get like a little taste of
Speaker 1: that the company, it's like, oh my god, oh never mind,
Speaker 1: Like they can't even just for that one second, like
Speaker 1: if they get this online hate that the cause, the person,
Speaker 1: the community they're saying they support gets they get it,
Speaker 1: and then they're like never mind, Actually, can they have
Speaker 1: that privilege that rite, that ability to step out and
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, I don't want to deal with this anymore,
Speaker 1: which I think is just very telling of ignorance and
Speaker 1: just like a oh, sure, let's do this, and then
Speaker 1: they get that hate and they're like, oh, oh never mind. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Backtracking the Dylan Mulvaney thing that you just mentioned, the
Speaker 3: thing that I will never be over is that Dylan Mulvaney,
Speaker 3: when she left social media at the height of all
Speaker 3: of this and came back and made that video, said
Speaker 3: that nobody at bud Light even called her to be like, hey,
Speaker 3: are you all right? Like I'm seeing what's going on.
Speaker 3: I that is something that will stick with me forever.
Speaker 3: That this brand, because she said happened to say yes
Speaker 3: when asked to do a brand collaboration with bud Light,
Speaker 3: she was had to go dark, had to probably go
Speaker 3: into hiding, like was the target of very severe attacks,
Speaker 3: and that bud Light, the company who came to her
Speaker 3: to bring her into this, couldn't even follow up with
Speaker 3: an email when they saw of this happening, how quickly
Speaker 3: they abandoned her.
Speaker 4: And I feel like, if you are a brand or.
Speaker 3: An institution who is working with marginalized people, if you're
Speaker 3: not going to stand by them when this stuf kind
Speaker 3: of stuff happens and when they get into situations that
Speaker 3: really like you have put them in but by offering
Speaker 3: them this, you know, these partnerships, that's just not how
Speaker 3: you engage people like that. Like at a certain point,
Speaker 3: it's like, I understand that bud Light is a corporation,
Speaker 3: and I don't expect corporations to like care about any
Speaker 3: of us, certainly not marginalized people. But the people who
Speaker 3: run bud lights marketing or influencer partnerships should really be
Speaker 3: taking a good hard look in the mirror because that's
Speaker 3: just like a failure of like how to be a
Speaker 3: human to each other.
Speaker 4: Like, I like that just sticks with me.
Speaker 3: I could not believe that she said that that nobody
Speaker 3: even ever reached out to her after they just like
Speaker 3: dropped her and never ever followed up again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's going back to your point. You know,
Speaker 1: companies are not big companies especially not are not allies,
Speaker 1: and we shouldn't think of them that way.
Speaker 2: But they.
Speaker 1: If they post the black square, if they take these stands,
Speaker 1: if they say they're going to do something, then yeah,
Speaker 1: they should absolutely be held accountable. That's just backing away
Speaker 1: and causing real harm. We were telling you a story
Speaker 1: before we started this out of nowhere, someone bought that
Speaker 1: up and like making these things so politicized that just
Speaker 1: to have a diversity inclusion person at your company becomes
Speaker 1: oh well then hate, like all of this hate, like
Speaker 1: you keep saying, it's irresponsible and it's not taking into
Speaker 1: account like the reality of working with these groups.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's ultimately what these people want. I
Speaker 3: think that they want just working with a trans woman
Speaker 3: to be a lightning rod.
Speaker 4: She's not saying anything untoward, she's not doing anything untoward.
Speaker 3: She just is because her existence is a lightning rod.
Speaker 3: Her existence is politicized. I think just having a DEI person,
Speaker 3: just providing a grant for black women, they want that
Speaker 3: to be toxic. They want people to know that if
Speaker 3: you do that, you might be in court, you might
Speaker 3: you know, be targeted for a hate campaign, and so
Speaker 3: to just make it not something that anybody would want
Speaker 3: to risk. And these companies are so spineless that they're
Speaker 3: going along with it. It is that they're being held hostage,
Speaker 3: and they're just like, Okay, well, they don't want us
Speaker 3: to have the chicken sausage. They don't want anybody who
Speaker 3: doesn't eat sausage to be fed at our restaurants, So okay,
Speaker 3: we'll drop Actually Krecker Barrel did stand by their sausage choices,
Speaker 3: I will say that, but it's like I have been
Speaker 3: surprised by how these big, huge corporations just cowtow to
Speaker 3: people who are not serious, people who are just interested
Speaker 3: in and flexing their power, their political power, for no
Speaker 3: real reason.
Speaker 5: I mean absolutely, we see all of these things actually
Speaker 5: hurting people. They don't even want to be the face
Speaker 5: of anything. They just want to exist. Funds like Fearless
Speaker 5: fund is to exist and to help and lift up
Speaker 5: people that they know need lifting up. The same thing
Speaker 5: with Target when they had the small businesses with the
Speaker 5: LGBTQ queer content and then taking them off the shelf.
Speaker 5: We were just existing and feeling like we wanted to
Speaker 5: be the representation that no one else is willing to
Speaker 5: look at or see or stand behind. And you literally
Speaker 5: came after them, taking away their money, taking away their existence,
Speaker 5: causing harm because again the mulvany thing, she was just
Speaker 5: holding a beer. Yeah, she said, I like bud light, simple,
Speaker 5: why can't she choose to do that? And that ended
Speaker 5: up being a thing of like, well, she is hurting
Speaker 5: the beer industry, she is doing these things. No, she's
Speaker 5: just existing with a product that they sent her. They're
Speaker 5: not like giving her fifty percent of the shares of
Speaker 5: bud Light. Like that's what is happening, Like this whole
Speaker 5: level of like what people are shoving to do and
Speaker 5: they're having to come back and being like, instead of existing,
Speaker 5: we have to fight for our place to exist, and
Speaker 5: that's such an absurd ideal, like the fact that this
Speaker 5: has to be done.
Speaker 3: So this is what Tony Morrison says about racism, and
Speaker 3: I think it fits to all of what you're saying.
Speaker 3: The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction.
Speaker 3: It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you
Speaker 3: explaining over and over again your reason for being. Somebody
Speaker 3: says you have no language, and you spend twenty years
Speaker 3: trying to prove that you do. Somebody says your head
Speaker 3: isn't shaped properly, so you have scientists working on the
Speaker 3: fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art,
Speaker 3: so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdom,
Speaker 3: so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary.
Speaker 3: There will always be one more thing. So like that
Speaker 3: quote really speaks to what I think is happening. You know,
Speaker 3: the Fearless Fund. The stats that I just read about
Speaker 3: black women entrepreneurs and how little of the funding we get.
Speaker 3: It shows that the women who are running the Fearless Fund,
Speaker 3: they have work to do.
Speaker 4: They have serious work to do to right the.
Speaker 3: Wrong and to bake a little more equity into the
Speaker 3: funding landscape. So they don't really have time to play
Speaker 3: around with these legal challenges. But yet here they are
Speaker 3: having to spend their money, money that could go to
Speaker 3: the funding landscape, staffing up a legal team, holding press conferences,
Speaker 3: all of this. It is such a distraction at a
Speaker 3: time when marginalized people have real work to be doing.
Speaker 3: Fearless Fund is fighting back.
Speaker 4: They have a.
Speaker 3: Beefy legal team including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Gibson Dunn, Crutcher,
Speaker 3: and Ben Crump, the attorney who represented families of George
Speaker 3: Floyd and Tyree Nichols in their civil suits over the
Speaker 3: men's killing up the hands of the police.
Speaker 4: And I feel confident like these women are like bad
Speaker 4: as women. They are not going down without a fight.
Speaker 3: But also they shouldn't have to write like they should
Speaker 3: be able to just do their work and focus on
Speaker 3: that work, and they should not have to be spending
Speaker 3: their money on these fogus legal challenges just because they
Speaker 3: want to exist, just because they want to support other
Speaker 3: black women.
Speaker 5: And I find that again we're in this situation that
Speaker 5: black women are the ones that have to be the
Speaker 5: ones to fight, like they don't want to. They're tired,
Speaker 5: they've been doing this, and now we're back again because
Speaker 5: we know there's a lot and I know there's a
Speaker 5: lot of fun specifically to women, like point blank women,
Speaker 5: and they surely didn't have to go after them. And
Speaker 5: I bet they were denied some of those and they're
Speaker 5: probably better at that. But yet if they didn't, that
Speaker 5: seems silly, and that seems very targeted. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 5: very telling. But like it again, it has to be
Speaker 5: the black women that has to put up this fight
Speaker 5: in order to get anything done.
Speaker 3: I mean, tail as old as time, right, and I
Speaker 3: think right. I'm worried about this for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 3: One is that I think that if these grants and
Speaker 3: funds that specifically are meant to boost black women entrepreneurs
Speaker 3: are deemed unconstitutional, I really don't know what the landscape
Speaker 3: is going to look like because, as I said, like already,
Speaker 3: so little of that funding goes to us in.
Speaker 4: The first place.
Speaker 3: But further, one of the reasons I wanted to talk
Speaker 3: about it on the show today is that I don't
Speaker 3: think it's getting near the same amount of traction and
Speaker 3: attention that Blum's affirmative action challenges did. And I really
Speaker 3: think that we need to see white male and white
Speaker 3: women and really everybody in the startup space. We need
Speaker 3: to see vcs and entrepreneurs speaking up about this, because
Speaker 3: Blum is essentially arguing that the startup space should basically
Speaker 3: just be for white people, and I think it's up
Speaker 3: to everybody in the space to push back and say, like,
Speaker 3: that is not the kind of funding space that we want,
Speaker 3: That is not the kind of startup space that we want,
Speaker 3: and to really make that really clear, like what kind
Speaker 3: of a space do we want to have for the
Speaker 3: next generation of entrepreneurs. We want to tell them that
Speaker 3: the tiny little bit that they that might go to
Speaker 3: them isn't even for them anymore. I don't I don't
Speaker 3: think that's the space that we want.
Speaker 5: Right and absolutely in the same space, again, this is
Speaker 5: gonna hurt white women as well and the like if
Speaker 5: we're saying that all of this is too specific and
Speaker 5: it leads out other people of race. It's gonna hurt
Speaker 5: gender as well. So this is not even just for
Speaker 5: white people. It's gonna be for white men. We're gonna
Speaker 5: have more elon musks running running programs into the ground.
Speaker 4: That's what we're gonna been thousand percent.
Speaker 3: And I mean kind of like what you were alluding
Speaker 3: to before, time and time again in tech, particularly when
Speaker 3: black women challenge things or do things or start things,
Speaker 3: they uplift all women. And so even if that specific
Speaker 3: program is for black women owned businesses, you're gonna tell
Speaker 3: me that that a black woman who is financially supported
Speaker 3: is not going to go on to do something that's
Speaker 3: going to lift up all women and all marginalized people.
Speaker 3: Time and time again we see that that's how it
Speaker 3: goes with black women. And so yeah, I just think
Speaker 3: that this is just this is me smacking that ice
Speaker 3: cream out of my brother's hand when I could have
Speaker 3: gotten a bite instead.
Speaker 5: I mean, we already know that people like to still
Speaker 5: white women's products because it's that good, So why not
Speaker 5: let us have it, Like, yeah, we're gonna get the
Speaker 5: good stop this.
Speaker 4: So I hope this is something that we I'm going
Speaker 4: to be following it.
Speaker 3: I'll give folks updates as they come, but I really
Speaker 3: want to see more folks in the space speaking up
Speaker 3: about this because what the Fearless Fund has done has
Speaker 3: been really great, and it's they're really.
Speaker 4: Like a good.
Speaker 3: Force in the space and I think the day we
Speaker 3: need them, frankly, we need them, we do.
Speaker 5: And it's it's a drop in the bucket, let's just
Speaker 5: be real honest, like it's it's nothing in comparison to
Speaker 5: what other people get, essentially, and it's like, wow, you
Speaker 5: really are going after the little groups for nothing, just
Speaker 5: just to make a point, and obviously to keep that
Speaker 5: little bit, as you were saying, in your pocket instead
Speaker 5: of seeing what this is actually could do for the
Speaker 5: entire humanity. Humanity is lost. I'm sorry what Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean this is very important too because
Speaker 1: obviously professional litigant blow here like it's going to keep
Speaker 1: trying and if this succeeds, then it's going to make
Speaker 1: things worse for everyone except for certain people and then
Speaker 1: easier for him to win the next thing and the
Speaker 1: next thing. So yes, this is really really important and
Speaker 1: thank you as always Bridget for bringing it to us.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you for having me. Everyone who's listening should
Speaker 3: go out and buy stuff. I've never told you the book.
Speaker 4: I'd have bought it. Let's read it together.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, we're hoping to do a little crossover. We'll
Speaker 1: get to go on your show. Yes. Oh, I'm so excited.
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, Bridget, where can the good listener
Speaker 1: find you?
Speaker 4: You can listen to my podcast there are no girls
Speaker 4: on the internet.
Speaker 3: You can find me on Instagram at Bridget Marie and
Speaker 3: DC or on Twitter at Bridget Marie. And you can
Speaker 3: find me on TikTok at Bridget makes Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Yes, and we really do. You appreciate your support with
Speaker 1: the book. We love it so much. Thank you, Thank
Speaker 1: you having you on. As always, feeling is so mutual,
Speaker 1: so listeners, if you would like to contact us, you
Speaker 1: can our emails Stephania mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast
Speaker 1: or on Instagram at TikTok at stuff. I never told you.
Speaker 1: We have a tea public store and we yeah, we
Speaker 1: have a book, a book, get it stuff. We should
Speaker 1: read books dot com. Thanks as always to our super producer,
Speaker 1: Christina Executive producer Maya and our contributor Joey. Thank you
Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening stuff on your pertilows
Speaker 1: direction of I Heeart Radio. For more podcasts on my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, you can check out the heart radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast or if you listen to your favorite shows,
Speaker 1: h