Speaker 1: Pushkin. This is Talk Easy. I'm Samforgoso. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: show today. I'm joined by Congresswoman Corey Bush. Back In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, Bush made a history as the first black
Speaker 1: woman elected to represent Missouri's first congressional district. In her
Speaker 1: first term, she's remained true to her campaign slogan, which
Speaker 1: was to do the most the people who have the least,
Speaker 1: fighting to eliminate student debt, advocating for both reproductive rights
Speaker 1: and mental health programs for victims of police violence, not
Speaker 1: to mention leading a protest on the steps of the
Speaker 1: Capitol to raise awareness for a nationwide eviction moratorium. In
Speaker 1: almost all cases, Bush's policies are informed by her lived experiences.
Speaker 1: She's grappled with homelessness, crippling student loans, and the burden
Speaker 1: of having an abortion. She writes about all this and
Speaker 1: more in her new memoir The Forerunner, A Story of
Speaker 1: Pain and Perseverance in America. The book is remarkably bold
Speaker 1: in its vulnerability, as she recounts her years living below
Speaker 1: the poverty line as a single mother and survivor of
Speaker 1: domestic violence. Contrary to most political memoirs, which usually offer
Speaker 1: the illusion of openness, the forerunner is genuinely candid. There
Speaker 1: is no pretense or sidestepping. The same is true in
Speaker 1: conversation with the congresswoman, whether it's around the midterms, the
Speaker 1: state of the Democratic Party, or her childhood in Saint Louis.
Speaker 1: Bush speaks from the heart. After all, in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: she says, who has time for anything else? And so
Speaker 1: if you'd like to learn more about Corey after our talk,
Speaker 1: or if you want to support her bid for a
Speaker 1: second term in Congress this November, be sure to visit
Speaker 1: www dot Cory Bush dot org. That's www dot Cory
Speaker 1: Bush dot org. And now, without further ado, here is
Speaker 1: Congresswoman Corey Bush, Representative Bush. Or should I say Corey?
Speaker 1: What do you prefer? People call me? Congresswoman cb O Cory.
Speaker 1: If you had to do a power ranking, what's your top?
Speaker 1: If it's a power ranking, it's going to be Congresswoman
Speaker 1: you know? Okay, Congresswoman Bush, pleasure to meet you. Thank
Speaker 1: you you too, Sam. It is an honor to have
Speaker 1: you here. We're going to talk a lot about your
Speaker 1: beautiful new book. But I figured since we're here, we
Speaker 1: have to start with the mid terms. Europe for re
Speaker 1: election to represent Missouri's first district. Yes, Now, your race,
Speaker 1: unlike many others vying for seats in Congress, is not
Speaker 1: especially close. I mean, I'm a little superstitious. I don't
Speaker 1: want to jinx it, but I think I may receive
Speaker 1: as many votes as your Republican challenger Andrew Jones. No
Speaker 1: comment on that. Okay, Well, it's well. You know, I
Speaker 1: am very confident that we will do just vine in
Speaker 1: the general election. Sounds exactly like a politician. I love it.
Speaker 1: But more broadly, the midterms historically are a referendum on
Speaker 1: the party in power. Then, to buck that trend, Democrats
Speaker 1: across the country have narrowed their messaging ahead of November,
Speaker 1: positioning themselves as protectors of reproductive rights and stewards of
Speaker 1: a fragile democracy. But as the media has noted, there's
Speaker 1: been very little campaigning around the issues most important to you.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about affordable housing, voting rights, police brutality, immigration reform,
Speaker 1: and so, as you seek a second term in Congress,
Speaker 1: how have you squared away that gap between what you
Speaker 1: prioritize and the Democratic Party seems to be prioritizing. You know,
Speaker 1: November eighth is coming up. And it will be the
Speaker 1: people of Missouri's first district. It will be Saint Louis
Speaker 1: who will show up to vote for me or vote
Speaker 1: for the other person. But either way, it's the people
Speaker 1: who vote. So when I'm reelected, fully re elected to
Speaker 1: this position, those are the people that I have to poritized.
Speaker 1: And so the issues of Missouri's first District have to
Speaker 1: be first, and I have to keep pushing that message.
Speaker 1: As far as repro rights, repro freedom, repro justice, absolutely
Speaker 1: that's a big part of my work. But there are
Speaker 1: other issues my community faces, and so yes, I'm going
Speaker 1: to continue to push for housing. We just had historic
Speaker 1: flooding in our community, and we have so many families
Speaker 1: who are currently displaced. Our affordable housing stock was a
Speaker 1: lot of that was knocked out through this one in
Speaker 1: one thousand year event that happened twice in a week.
Speaker 1: My community needs help, and so I'm going to continue
Speaker 1: to prioritize that I'm one of five hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: five people in Congress, one of four hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: five in the House, which means that my work has
Speaker 1: to be to make sure that that district that district,
Speaker 1: because nobody else speaks for that district. My district has
Speaker 1: to be prioritized, and I'm the one that has to
Speaker 1: do that. So that's why I'm going to stand up
Speaker 1: for my people the way you stand up for them.
Speaker 1: I think about this quote where where you say we
Speaker 1: can no longer push communities to the side to be
Speaker 1: able to save Democratic seats for reelection. We have to
Speaker 1: do both at the same time. You save lives and
Speaker 1: you figure out how to communicate to save seats. But
Speaker 1: do you think the Democrats may be ignoring some of
Speaker 1: these communities that have put them in positions of power
Speaker 1: in the first place. I don't know if it's ignoring
Speaker 1: or just not prioritizing them as much, because you know,
Speaker 1: making sure that the money, the investment is going to
Speaker 1: those areas where there is going to be large investment
Speaker 1: against those incumbents that are running. And I'll say this,
Speaker 1: so one thing that really really irritates me is, you know,
Speaker 1: a Republican and Congress can say some wild thing about me,
Speaker 1: can attack me and use my name and raise millions
Speaker 1: of dollars, But if I say something about them because
Speaker 1: they did something to me, we don't raise that same
Speaker 1: type of money. And so folks are donating crazy to
Speaker 1: these Republicans that have these super extremist, far right views,
Speaker 1: and that same thing that we don't have that big
Speaker 1: push financially happening on the Democratic side, not the same way,
Speaker 1: And so I see them pushing that trying to get
Speaker 1: that investment there. But my point is that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that we should be ignored. We need Democrats who care
Speaker 1: about our priorities, that are willing to fight for our priorities.
Speaker 1: Just somebody saying that they're a Democrat is not good enough.
Speaker 1: You know, that's not good enough. We need people who
Speaker 1: are willing to fight because it matters. I remember Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Warren said it matters who's in the seat. It matters,
Speaker 1: And I think about if I was not in the seat,
Speaker 1: that eviction moratorium, you know, that action on the steps
Speaker 1: that we did back in August late July early August
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty one, that helped save millions of people
Speaker 1: who were at risk for eviction at least helped to
Speaker 1: save off what could have been the fate for weeks.
Speaker 1: But it wouldn't have happened if we weren't there. The
Speaker 1: way that we're working on water would not be happening.
Speaker 1: If Rashida Talib was not there, the student owned debt
Speaker 1: really fighting for that and pushing that it would not
Speaker 1: happen the same if representative of Yana Presley wasn't there.
Speaker 1: And so I'm just saying that, you know, it really
Speaker 1: really matters. I understand that I'm in a safe blue seat,
Speaker 1: but that does not mean that we should be ignored.
Speaker 1: The other thing is this, black women raised the least
Speaker 1: amount of money. At least the statistics that came out
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago show the black women raised
Speaker 1: the least amount of money and contributions to their campaigns
Speaker 1: than any other person. So we need help as well.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons you've cultivated such a fervent following
Speaker 1: is because of the thing you just mentioned, which is
Speaker 1: that you have showed up for your community. And this
Speaker 1: new memoir of yours, The Forerunner, is a testament to that,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to dive into it just by quoting
Speaker 1: the prologue in which you write. Growing up in the church,
Speaker 1: I was often reminded of the importance of the figure
Speaker 1: of the forerunner, that person who blazes a clear path
Speaker 1: where there was none before. He takes on whatever lies
Speaker 1: ahead and withstands the pains and pressures of the journey.
Speaker 1: And to understand your journey, we have to start in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, where you're born in Saint Louis, Missouri,
Speaker 1: to a mother that's a computer analyst, a father that's
Speaker 1: a union meat cutter. But you really come of age
Speaker 1: in a suburb right outside the city called Northwoods. Yes,
Speaker 1: every morning before school, starting around the fifth grade, your
Speaker 1: dad would sit you and your brother down to talk
Speaker 1: about responsibility, a subject every fifth grader longs to hear
Speaker 1: about right before class. Right, But really, I'm wondering what
Speaker 1: were those conversations, Like, well, like you just said, it's
Speaker 1: what every fifth grader wants to hear before they go,
Speaker 1: you know, go to class. You know, we would try
Speaker 1: to go take out the trash or like go outside
Speaker 1: to try to get to the car before. You know,
Speaker 1: we didn't want the speech, but he made sure he
Speaker 1: would come back, come back in here, sit down. You
Speaker 1: had to sit down at this kitchen table. It was
Speaker 1: a whole motion responsibility. He would smack his hand with
Speaker 1: the back of his other hand and tell us, you know,
Speaker 1: you have to be accountable for your actions. But responsibility,
Speaker 1: responsibility responsibility the only word to be a good leaders,
Speaker 1: to be a good follower. He would tell us that
Speaker 1: over and over again. And the thing we got to
Speaker 1: the point to where we were like mumbling it with,
Speaker 1: you know, ourselves. We didn't know what that meant at
Speaker 1: the time though he was building something up in us.
Speaker 1: Now I look back and I'm so thankful that he
Speaker 1: did that. So this is the thing, Sam, I'm an introvert.
Speaker 1: Look in high school, I was voted most laid back
Speaker 1: because I didn't talk a lot. I was the quiet one. Me.
Speaker 1: I was the quiet one. Yes, it's most laid back,
Speaker 1: you know. But even still today, I walk into a
Speaker 1: room and people would be, oh, well, she you know,
Speaker 1: she's not talking. It's not because I don't want to.
Speaker 1: It's because I'm a quiet person. When I do speak
Speaker 1: up and all of that, it's me pushing beyond myself
Speaker 1: being uncomfortable to help, you know, to bring out a message.
Speaker 1: You know, your dad said, what makes a good leader
Speaker 1: is someone who knows how to follow. Yeah, what do
Speaker 1: you think he meant by that? I believe what he
Speaker 1: meant is be someone who can listen, someone who can learn,
Speaker 1: someone who can accept criticism and still keep going, someone
Speaker 1: that's willing to grow. But also what he taught us
Speaker 1: with that was always be humble, stay humble. So if
Speaker 1: you can be the one getting the shine, you could
Speaker 1: also be the one mopping the floor to bring out
Speaker 1: the shine, and the floor you could be the one
Speaker 1: taking out the trash. You lead by example, you know,
Speaker 1: But if you haven't gone through anything, then how are
Speaker 1: you able to lead? And then what kind of leader
Speaker 1: do you want to be? Take the time to learn
Speaker 1: from other leaders, like what kind of leader do you
Speaker 1: need to be? Like what is it that you want
Speaker 1: to see happen in your community? And my dad was
Speaker 1: that person. Your father was always politically minded, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean he lined the walls of your home with a
Speaker 1: photo graph of doctor King, a portrait of Jesse Jackson.
Speaker 1: He'd bring home books to teach you about black history,
Speaker 1: books about political figures like Rosa Parks, Shirley Chisholm, Vanny
Speaker 1: lew Hammer, Marcus Garvey. And by the early nineties your
Speaker 1: father had become the city alderman, with you working on
Speaker 1: his campaigns. You said, once I would knock on doors,
Speaker 1: I would answer calls, and by the time I was
Speaker 1: a teenager, I had worked every part of a campaign. Now,
Speaker 1: most teenagers get a job mowing the lawn, working at
Speaker 1: a movie theater, but you went a different route. What
Speaker 1: did those experiences at that formative time in your life,
Speaker 1: what did it teach you about the work of politics. Yeah, so, well,
Speaker 1: one is, we didn't have a choice because my dad,
Speaker 1: he was running in a small municipality in Northwoods and
Speaker 1: there was no money really to have other people help.
Speaker 1: And we really believed in dad. You know, we wanted
Speaker 1: to see Dad success full so you know, we wanted
Speaker 1: to help. He said this is what he needed. So
Speaker 1: you know, we just showed up. He would take us
Speaker 1: off a fast food we would get chicken, and you
Speaker 1: know that was your compensation. That was a compensation because
Speaker 1: you know, back then you didn't get it every single
Speaker 1: day like now people do. It sounds like you and
Speaker 1: your brother needed to form a union, I know, right, so,
Speaker 1: but we were, you know, being able to be there
Speaker 1: for my dad was really really important. And then as
Speaker 1: I started to get older, I started to realize that
Speaker 1: like he was taking attacks, like he was getting criticism,
Speaker 1: and he was trying to help people, but everything wasn't
Speaker 1: coming back at him the same way that he was
Speaker 1: giving it out and so then it turned into me
Speaker 1: wanting to protect him. So now I'm working on these
Speaker 1: campaigns because you know, I'm the security you know. Basically
Speaker 1: I was dispatch on the day of the election, making
Speaker 1: sure that the people that were picking people up to
Speaker 1: take them to the polls knew where they were going.
Speaker 1: Whatever he needed. And now though I look back, that
Speaker 1: gave me a foundation into organizing, and it gave me
Speaker 1: a foundation into grass roots organizing because grass rules. You
Speaker 1: gotta do it all. You said you saw your father
Speaker 1: take criticism and stride, but that it weighed on him. Yes,
Speaker 1: what did that look like? It pissed me off a lot.
Speaker 1: Let me just say the way that I saw it
Speaker 1: as a child. It was like, he does not have
Speaker 1: to do this. He has a full time job. It's
Speaker 1: not like that was bringing in money to keep our
Speaker 1: homes stable. He had his job. So I felt like,
Speaker 1: you know, this is in the way of his happiness.
Speaker 1: My dad jumped through hoops to be able to do
Speaker 1: this particular thing, and now he's getting attacked for it.
Speaker 1: You know, I just felt like why. I went for
Speaker 1: years trying to understand the why, didn't get the why
Speaker 1: until years later when I finally ran for office over
Speaker 1: twenty thirty years later. But my dad, he kept his
Speaker 1: head up. That was one thing that my dad taught us.
Speaker 1: When I say, my dad, don't you hold your head down.
Speaker 1: You hold your head up, chin up, shoulders back. You know,
Speaker 1: you stand toe to toe with whoever comes your way.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't let anybody intimidate you, regardless of
Speaker 1: their gender, their color, you know how much money they have.
Speaker 1: That's who my dad was, and he made sure I
Speaker 1: knew that with this dark skin, that I was beautiful
Speaker 1: and I could go toe to toe with anyone. I
Speaker 1: want to go to a moment of intimidation that you
Speaker 1: faced around the age of thirteen fourteen. By that point
Speaker 1: you had moved through middle school as this academically gifted student,
Speaker 1: and as high school rolls around, you take an admissions
Speaker 1: test for mostly white Catholic school. What happened there? So
Speaker 1: I was really excited it was time to go to
Speaker 1: high school. And it was the thing, you know, I
Speaker 1: write about in the book, watching the TV shows like
Speaker 1: Full House and movies like Greece, and you thought it
Speaker 1: would be a musical like Greece, you know right, I
Speaker 1: thought it would be, you know, I just I just
Speaker 1: had this idea of it. And then we had high
Speaker 1: school Night where the students would come from the other
Speaker 1: schools and talk about how great their school were and
Speaker 1: all of this pride, and I thought I was walking
Speaker 1: into that because this particular school had a great cheerleading squad.
Speaker 1: I was a cheerleader. The school had a great volleyball team.
Speaker 1: I played volleyball, and they had great academics, and academics
Speaker 1: were my thing. So I felt like this is the fit.
Speaker 1: But when I started, when they called me to take
Speaker 1: that interest exam, I took it, and I remember being
Speaker 1: told that I needed to come back to take the
Speaker 1: test again. And so when I arrived back at the
Speaker 1: school to take the test again and administrator, I remember
Speaker 1: it was a man looking up at him and he
Speaker 1: looked dead at me, and he said, we believe you cheated.
Speaker 1: We don't believe that you did this well on the
Speaker 1: exam on your own. To paraphrase him. I had just
Speaker 1: turned fourteen. I couldn't believe it, but I didn't understand
Speaker 1: what was going on at the time, and I just
Speaker 1: remember thinking I cheated. I had never cheated on a
Speaker 1: test before. I never even thought about cheating on the
Speaker 1: test before to the test again in and when I
Speaker 1: came out, they told me that I did even better
Speaker 1: on the test than I did the first time. And
Speaker 1: so I started out as the number one incoming freshman.
Speaker 1: And I believe that the parents the students did not
Speaker 1: like the fact that I was only one of a
Speaker 1: few black students and I was the number one incoming student,
Speaker 1: and they didn't like that. And so I went through
Speaker 1: being caught the N word, isolated. No one would talk
Speaker 1: to me. The teachers would ignore me or say hurtful
Speaker 1: things to me. I open my locker one day and
Speaker 1: it was shaving cream all in my locker. It was
Speaker 1: just thing after thing they would People would try to
Speaker 1: trip me in the hallway. It was just a really
Speaker 1: tough time when I thought that I was about to
Speaker 1: embark on this beautiful new journey. When you sat with
Speaker 1: that moment just now and you were thinking back on
Speaker 1: your teenage self taking that test, I felt like you
Speaker 1: had gone to some place that took you back in
Speaker 1: a way. It almost seemed like you could feel it
Speaker 1: all over again. Yeah. Good. So much of the of
Speaker 1: what I write in the book, I can still feel.
Speaker 1: I can visualize those moments, you know. But what I
Speaker 1: was thinking about, uh, when I was when I first
Speaker 1: started to tell that story, is looking up and seeing
Speaker 1: this older white man looking down at me, telling me
Speaker 1: that I cheated on that test, and just thinking about
Speaker 1: how many other black girls go through that, you know, how,
Speaker 1: how what that looks like? How many more have gone
Speaker 1: through that, um and how many more will go through that?
Speaker 1: How as a society, you know, um, are we protecting
Speaker 1: you know? How are we protecting our our girls? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It's hard. It's that young girl that looked up at
Speaker 1: that man who insisted that she was cheating, who went
Speaker 1: into that strange new high school and was bullied. That
Speaker 1: same young girl left after one semester and transferred to
Speaker 1: Cardinal Ritter High School. But by then, you write, your
Speaker 1: self confidence and motivation was shattered. Whatever it was that
Speaker 1: had given me self determined passion for learning had died.
Speaker 1: What did that kind of death of self feel like?
Speaker 1: Avoid I used to be excited to read books and
Speaker 1: to just take in knowledge like I just I had
Speaker 1: this thirst for more knowledge. But after that situation happened,
Speaker 1: I I didn't want to learn anymore. I didn't I
Speaker 1: didn't want people to find out that I was smart,
Speaker 1: because I didn't want to be attacked for being smart.
Speaker 1: I didn't trust that I would be safe if I did. Plus,
Speaker 1: I felt that maybe being smart was a bad thing.
Speaker 1: And then as you grow, you know, the more information
Speaker 1: that you take in and the more that you do
Speaker 1: with it, the more that you will be attacked. And
Speaker 1: so I think I just went into the shell and myself.
Speaker 1: Even though Cardiner Ritter is a school where they teach
Speaker 1: black excellence, where they teach you that it's great to
Speaker 1: be smart and it's even greater to use it. They
Speaker 1: you know, they really push you to be whole. So
Speaker 1: those seeds that were sown, you know, have blossomed and
Speaker 1: are continuing to blossom, you know even now, Well, it's
Speaker 1: clear that you took that lifeline and by the end
Speaker 1: of your time in high school got accepted into Tuskegee University, Yes,
Speaker 1: where you plan to attend in the fall of nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: But six weeks before the first half classes, you found
Speaker 1: out that you were pregnant. How did you, as an
Speaker 1: eighteen year old woman, grapple with that experience. I didn't
Speaker 1: understand it. I took a pregnancy test just because that's
Speaker 1: what we were told you do if you missed your period,
Speaker 1: you know. And I knew that it had been seven
Speaker 1: days and my period was regular, so I took a test.
Speaker 1: I didn't actually think that I could be pregnant, and
Speaker 1: when I saw that I was, I didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do. I wanted to make my parents proud, because
Speaker 1: I felt like my parents were so just so disappointed,
Speaker 1: you know, in me, because I went from being this
Speaker 1: on a roll student. I think I graduated with maybe
Speaker 1: a two point five or something like that. My parents
Speaker 1: had banked on me getting full scholarships to Howard University.
Speaker 1: They banked on me having a full scholarship to Howard
Speaker 1: Universe and then getting offers, you know, from from so
Speaker 1: many other schools. And I was now in a position
Speaker 1: to where, yeah, I could get into Tuskegee, but they
Speaker 1: would have to, you know, we would have to pay
Speaker 1: for it, and my parents, I didn't They didn't have
Speaker 1: the money for that. So I was I felt like
Speaker 1: this huge disappointment. And so to add, Okay, now I'm pregnant,
Speaker 1: So either I can't go to school, or I'll go
Speaker 1: to school and maybe waste their money because I would
Speaker 1: have to leave at some point to be able to
Speaker 1: have the child, and so I just um. I knew
Speaker 1: that I was not in a position to be able
Speaker 1: to handle that. Plus I wasn't okay. I was not okay.
Speaker 1: I didn't love myself. I was skating by through life
Speaker 1: simply because the next day came. That's how I got
Speaker 1: through many years. The next day just started without my help,
Speaker 1: you wrote in the book. I went through the motions,
Speaker 1: but I was a shell of for herself. I wanted
Speaker 1: to disappear. I stopped believing that I'd lived past the
Speaker 1: age of twenty one. I was numb. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I had friends dying to gun violence all the time.
Speaker 1: I had male friends who were dying to gun violence
Speaker 1: over and over, and it was like every week somebody
Speaker 1: else was murdered. I had girlfriends who were overdosing on heroin.
Speaker 1: I had friends who were in domestic violence situations. And
Speaker 1: so I didn't I didn't believe that I would live
Speaker 1: past twenty one because I didn't see the worth of
Speaker 1: my life past that point. I had gotten into just
Speaker 1: so many things that were putting my life in danger
Speaker 1: by that time, and I didn't care about my life.
Speaker 1: What were those things. I was hanging out with people
Speaker 1: who you know, spent their time in the streets, and
Speaker 1: there were times when you know, being at home in
Speaker 1: the house would get shot up. You know. Then I
Speaker 1: got to the point where it was like nine lives,
Speaker 1: you know, like it was like, oh, that happened, I
Speaker 1: didn't die. Oh that happened. I didn't die that. I
Speaker 1: didn't die this time. And then it, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of became like a game. I guess, Yeah, you said
Speaker 1: that thing earlier that I have to tell you, as
Speaker 1: you could probably tell, it broke my heart when you said,
Speaker 1: um that each day just kind of kept coming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in that line, I stopped believing that I lived past
Speaker 1: the age of twenty one. The weight of all of this,
Speaker 1: under most circumstances would weigh someone down so much that
Speaker 1: they could not get up, that they could not move forward.
Speaker 1: And yet you did. And I guess I want to
Speaker 1: ask you, how the hell did you do that? There
Speaker 1: were people who continued to pray for me. There were
Speaker 1: people who continued to speak life into me even though
Speaker 1: I wasn't listening. There were people who would tell me
Speaker 1: you deserve joy, You're going to do great things. I
Speaker 1: remember being eighteen, nineteen twenty, and I speak about Allen
Speaker 1: in the book. She would always she would just come
Speaker 1: up to me, just at random times. God loves you,
Speaker 1: or You're gonna do amazing things for this world. The
Speaker 1: best is yet to come. Like she would just say
Speaker 1: these things to me, and I remember thinking, like, what
Speaker 1: did you leave me alone? Lady? You know, but she
Speaker 1: was dropping these seeds, she was planting something. So that
Speaker 1: is how you know. It was that other people were
Speaker 1: carrying me and holding me up, you know, through those times,
Speaker 1: because day kept coming again. You know. Eventually I started
Speaker 1: to come out of situations. But my story shows that
Speaker 1: I would come out of situations and then something else,
Speaker 1: and then I would come out and then something else,
Speaker 1: or I would start to move and then something else.
Speaker 1: But later I hit my rock bottom. That was after
Speaker 1: when I almost lost my life to an intimate partner,
Speaker 1: and I write about it in the book, when I
Speaker 1: finally realized that I would never get away from him alive.
Speaker 1: I just remember my parents were so upset with me
Speaker 1: because I would not leave that that person. And I
Speaker 1: was sleeping on my friends air mattress in her living
Speaker 1: room and came home. I was sick. You know, and
Speaker 1: I just remember right after that moment, turning on the radio,
Speaker 1: just hearing that I needed to turn on the radio
Speaker 1: to this gospel station that I used to listen to,
Speaker 1: that I would listen to at work, and when I
Speaker 1: turned it on, the song was speaking directly to my situation.
Speaker 1: And I gave my life to the Lord in that moment.
Speaker 1: And then I made the decision to start going back
Speaker 1: to church. And from that moment on, I just knew
Speaker 1: that there had to be more to my life, and
Speaker 1: things really started to change for me. Hard time still came,
Speaker 1: but things at that point really really started to change,
Speaker 1: and I started going to church, hearing that I was
Speaker 1: worth love and that I am a conqueror, and just
Speaker 1: hearing those things. Sometimes it's the worst, like those daily affirmations.
Speaker 1: I know. Sometimes people are like, oh, I don't do those,
Speaker 1: like those those don't work, but they absolutely do. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're telling yourself something that you don't believe, and
Speaker 1: you build yourself up, you begin to believe that the
Speaker 1: same way if somebody turns on a commercial. You may
Speaker 1: not have been there thinking about a Hamburger, but now
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you're thinking about a Hamburger because
Speaker 1: you saw a commercial in the same way like that.
Speaker 1: That's what really really helped me to at least get
Speaker 1: started on the road to to help. You know, I
Speaker 1: was really with you until you brought up those ads
Speaker 1: for Wendy's because they have never made me want to
Speaker 1: have a hamburger. I didn't say, wait, I was thinking
Speaker 1: white castles. I'm sorry. From the moment I see the
Speaker 1: white Castle ad, I just think of like the stomach
Speaker 1: ache and the pain that will follow if I embark
Speaker 1: on that journey. It's a harrowing mission. I'm sorry to
Speaker 1: follow up your very sincere answer with a white castle joke.
Speaker 1: It's okay. You know, in the aftermath of all this,
Speaker 1: as you hear those words of affirmation, you have two kids,
Speaker 1: an Angel and Zion. Yes, you start working as a
Speaker 1: teacher at Lighthouse Preschool, sometimes having a grapple with bouts
Speaker 1: of homelessness. You're writing the book. No one at my
Speaker 1: job understood that I was unhoused living out of a
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six forward explorer, and I put on a
Speaker 1: brave face every day. When you're looking back on that
Speaker 1: period of your life, a moment where you're making progress
Speaker 1: you're in repair, but still figuring it out. What do
Speaker 1: you see? I see that. I didn't think that I
Speaker 1: would ever come out of that. I felt like I
Speaker 1: would be in this spiral over and over again where
Speaker 1: I would start to things would start to look up,
Speaker 1: and then I'd end up three steps backward, and you know,
Speaker 1: over and over this cycle. That's what I saw. I
Speaker 1: saw that I just couldn't figure out how I could
Speaker 1: get off of that wheel and going to work every
Speaker 1: day and nobody, nobody ever suspected that I was living
Speaker 1: in my car with my kids. I would go into
Speaker 1: the bathroom even though I will try to get cleaned
Speaker 1: up at you know whatever, McDonald's we passed because they
Speaker 1: had that open bathroom where you didn't need the key,
Speaker 1: and then I would go into the bathroom at work
Speaker 1: and like finish getting you know, getting myself together. Just
Speaker 1: nobody knew. That's still the situation with so many people
Speaker 1: today in our communities. There are people who least expect
Speaker 1: who are unhoused, and we just we allow it because
Speaker 1: we won't prioritize housing for all. We allow it because
Speaker 1: we allow people to be evicted from homes, even in
Speaker 1: a deadly pandemic. We allow it because we care more
Speaker 1: about beautifying our communities on the outside when there is
Speaker 1: so much darkness and ugly on the inside. What I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's as old as this country, you know, actually
Speaker 1: old as old as time. People people being marginalized and neglected, overlooked, underrepresented,
Speaker 1: and it is it's part of our society, and it's
Speaker 1: it has been an okay part to society, you know,
Speaker 1: because white supremacy still reigns in this country. White supremacy,
Speaker 1: white patriarchy still reigns in every system in this country.
Speaker 1: People living on the streets should not be acceptable in
Speaker 1: these United States of America, but it is. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back after a quick break. Coming back. You were
Speaker 1: talking about how white supremacy continues to reign in this country,
Speaker 1: and yet, oddly enough, it's that same white supremacy that
Speaker 1: propelled you into this fight back in twenty fourteen. Yes,
Speaker 1: for context, at that point, you had been working as
Speaker 1: a nurse at a hospital for a few years, and
Speaker 1: on the night of Saturday, August nine, you find yourself
Speaker 1: coming back home from a date, scrolling on Facebook, and
Speaker 1: you see something that makes you go, I need to
Speaker 1: get out of here walk me through that evening. So
Speaker 1: I just remember after the church service, the church service
Speaker 1: earlier that day, and in the afternoon, I just remember
Speaker 1: scrolling on Facebook and I saw this image of this
Speaker 1: person's body laying on the ground uncovered. At first, I
Speaker 1: thought it was fake, like I just you know, I
Speaker 1: just I saw it and kept going. I didn't think
Speaker 1: that it was a real photo. And I just remember
Speaker 1: later on looking on Facebook, saw it again on my timeline,
Speaker 1: looked at looked again, saw it again, and just like,
Speaker 1: what is happening? But I still didn't really look into it.
Speaker 1: Went on a date. I was sitting at the restaurant
Speaker 1: eating some dessert. Check my Facebook page because that's how
Speaker 1: interesting the date was. You two got married, right, No,
Speaker 1: we did not. He really had my attention. And so
Speaker 1: I saw that image again when I opened up Facebook,
Speaker 1: and it was so it was like, okay, it's been
Speaker 1: like half of a day, now what is happening. So
Speaker 1: I remember that I started clicking on the images and
Speaker 1: then I started seeing people like out in the street.
Speaker 1: Then I realized, Okay, something is happening. It took me
Speaker 1: a while to realize that that had happened in St. Louis,
Speaker 1: and not only in St. Louis, but also in the
Speaker 1: community that I frequented that was only six minutes from
Speaker 1: my home, And by the next day, people were still
Speaker 1: out there on the streets. So I decided I wanted
Speaker 1: to go out and be you know, go out and
Speaker 1: see what was going on and lend a hand however
Speaker 1: I could. But I remember the next day I went
Speaker 1: into work. I told my supervisor like, Hey, this is
Speaker 1: happening on the street in the community. We need to
Speaker 1: be out there. What can we do? I said, I
Speaker 1: want to go out there, And so she called me
Speaker 1: back and said, hey, we're going to put a crisis
Speaker 1: response van out there on the ground. You know, we
Speaker 1: want you to be the nurse on the van. We
Speaker 1: have a doctor, we have therapists, we want you to
Speaker 1: be the nurse. Go out there. So from that day
Speaker 1: we were out and we were there for five weeks.
Speaker 1: But also from that day, so much has been written
Speaker 1: about Ferguson. Yes, there's been a lot of discussion around
Speaker 1: the protests and all that came after, But in the
Speaker 1: intervening eight years, what do you wish people understood about
Speaker 1: the movement that perhaps they don't understand We were mostly
Speaker 1: people who did not know each other before the protests.
Speaker 1: Most of us met out there on the streets. So
Speaker 1: we showed up because we were outraged. Folks have called it, oh,
Speaker 1: it was reactionary. Well it absolutely was. You know, we
Speaker 1: were angry. We spent more than four hundred days, four
Speaker 1: hundred consecutive days out there on the streets, rains, Lely
Speaker 1: Hill Snow, hell, no, we won't go. And those folks
Speaker 1: became my family. Why each other get brutalized by the police,
Speaker 1: get arrested. I remember going There was a nearby subway
Speaker 1: sandwich shop by where we would protest a lot. We
Speaker 1: would go in there and buy a sub sandwich and
Speaker 1: cut it up and give it out to people so
Speaker 1: that we could eat because we didn't have money. People
Speaker 1: have said, oh, well they had all of this money.
Speaker 1: There's all of this talk about us not protesting the
Speaker 1: right way, that we were a leader less movement when
Speaker 1: we were actually leader full. We were a leader full
Speaker 1: movement because you couldn't take out one of us and
Speaker 1: then the whole movement falls apart. We lost lives out there.
Speaker 1: There are protesters who are no longer here. We lift
Speaker 1: them up their memories. We banned it together. We Saint
Speaker 1: Louis was a very divided place. We lived in our silos,
Speaker 1: you know, but out there on the ground, our Palestinian
Speaker 1: community showed up for us, and they did not have to.
Speaker 1: So we banned it together. Our Jewish community showed up
Speaker 1: and they did not have to. We banned it together.
Speaker 1: Our Latino community showed up. And I say Latino because
Speaker 1: people say, please, don't say Latin X. That's the only
Speaker 1: reason why I said it, because I keep getting attacked
Speaker 1: for that. So you know, can I say, as part
Speaker 1: of Latino community, we thank you, thank you, Okay, But
Speaker 1: but you know, we had so many folks out on
Speaker 1: the streets with us that did not have to show
Speaker 1: up for us, and so we banned it together and
Speaker 1: had this just formed this community and we are still
Speaker 1: such a great community to this day. We still organized together.
Speaker 1: Ferguson frontline, we just stood how we stood, and still
Speaker 1: today there are ferguson frontline protesters who most people will
Speaker 1: never know their names. Some of them us never received
Speaker 1: therapy for what we went through. Nobody offered us any
Speaker 1: type of healthcare services or anything like that. On the ground,
Speaker 1: many lost jobs, some lost career choices because of their
Speaker 1: connections to the protests. Some of us were evicted from
Speaker 1: homes because of the protest. So I just want people
Speaker 1: to know that it's not what they saw and not
Speaker 1: what they hear in the media. You know, in those
Speaker 1: four hundred days of protesting, there's one scene that I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure people are not aware of. It comes in
Speaker 1: the spring of twenty fifteen, as Ferguson activists are obviously
Speaker 1: fatigued and worn down by this fight. To boost morale,
Speaker 1: you reach out to doctor Angela Davis to come to
Speaker 1: Ferguson and speak. She agrees, and I just want to
Speaker 1: sit with that scene as Davis enters the auditorium at
Speaker 1: Cardinal Ritter High School. Could you read that passage from
Speaker 1: the book? Yeah. First of all, I couldn't believe that
Speaker 1: she is that she agreed to do this for us,
Speaker 1: But so she said, this movement is worldwide, she said,
Speaker 1: she continued, for me as well as for people throughout
Speaker 1: the world. The very mention of Ferguson evokes struggle, perseverance, courage,
Speaker 1: and a collective vision of the future. I want to
Speaker 1: thank you Ferguson activists who refused who refused to put
Speaker 1: down the torch of struggle, who made Ferguson a worldwide
Speaker 1: symbol of resistance, and who did this at a time
Speaker 1: when we were urged to search for easy solutions, for
Speaker 1: fast answers, for formulated resolutions. Ferguson protesters said no, We
Speaker 1: will continue to make the issue of violence against black
Speaker 1: communities visible. We will not accept a simplistic answer. We
Speaker 1: will not allow this issue to be buried in the
Speaker 1: graveyard that has not only claimed black lives, but also
Speaker 1: the struggles to defend those lives. So thank you for
Speaker 1: not giving up, for not going home, for staking our
Speaker 1: claim to freedom on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, with
Speaker 1: such great power that Ferguson has become synonymous with progressive
Speaker 1: protests from Palestine to South Africa and indeed all over
Speaker 1: the world. But when Mike Brown was killed in Ferguson,
Speaker 1: the movement refused to disband. Even when the police attacked.
Speaker 1: The movement refused to disband, even when some people's rage
Speaker 1: led them to respond in ways that may have been
Speaker 1: the counterproductive, and that almost always happens, the movement still
Speaker 1: refused to disband when people tried to discredit the protesters.
Speaker 1: The movement refused to disband. Even when people asked, where
Speaker 1: are the leaders? Where are the leaders? The movement said,
Speaker 1: we are the leaders. I love Martin, I deeply love Malcolm,
Speaker 1: but this is the twenty first century and I've learned
Speaker 1: that leadership is not a male prerogative. I know many
Speaker 1: of the brothers in this hall today know that women
Speaker 1: have always done the work, so women should also be
Speaker 1: in the leadership. When black women stand up as they
Speaker 1: did during the Montgomery bus boycott, as they did during
Speaker 1: the Black Liberation era, earth shaking changes can occur. She ended,
Speaker 1: you know, of sitting here listening to you read that section.
Speaker 1: After everything we've talked about, I was thinking about Angela
Speaker 1: Davis at the same high school that you attended, that
Speaker 1: place where your passion and self confidence died as a kid.
Speaker 1: I don't know, in that moment twenty years later, did
Speaker 1: you feel some part of yourself being reborn, absolutely and vindicated.
Speaker 1: I remember being so proud and just holding my arms
Speaker 1: up in the air. You know, it was full circle.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like I had a voice when I
Speaker 1: went to the school, but now standing there, I knew
Speaker 1: I had a voice. But because Ferguson protesters have been,
Speaker 1: you know, just dogged out. For her to stand there
Speaker 1: and say that we were a movement that we you know,
Speaker 1: for her to say that we were leaders. It's one
Speaker 1: thing for folks that never touched movement, that never had
Speaker 1: to run from dogs that were unleashed, never had to
Speaker 1: endure being arrested for fighting for civil rights and fighting
Speaker 1: to save, you know, our lives. It's one thing for
Speaker 1: them to say it, but you know, to say all
Speaker 1: of these horrible things about us. But for her to
Speaker 1: validate us in the way that she did, it reinvigorated us.
Speaker 1: It reminded us of the mission, and it told us
Speaker 1: in that moment that we are a part of history
Speaker 1: and that we were on the right side of it. Well,
Speaker 1: on the heels of that speech. You're run for office
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. Yes, you don't win. You're running for
Speaker 1: of US in twenty eighteen. You don't win. Remarkably, you
Speaker 1: manage to run another campaign in twenty twenty where you
Speaker 1: win an unseat Lacy Clay, whose family had held the
Speaker 1: seat for over fifty years in Missouri. Now you're here
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, up for reelection with this new
Speaker 1: bill You've just introduced called the Helping Families Heal Act.
Speaker 1: What is that? When I was running, Michael Brown's mother
Speaker 1: came to me and said, Hey, we have this bill
Speaker 1: that we're working on to help families, and we want
Speaker 1: to know that if you get elected, if you would
Speaker 1: introduce this bill. And I was absolutely interested to do that,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't elected. That was around the twenty eighteen election.
Speaker 1: Fast forward to now now that we are in the
Speaker 1: position to be able to push this bill through. We
Speaker 1: worked with Michael Brown's mom, Leslie mcsbatten, to build this bill.
Speaker 1: This bill is or mental health services for those who
Speaker 1: are victims or the family members love ones of victims
Speaker 1: of police violence, because there is no government funded program
Speaker 1: that will directly give resources or mental health services to
Speaker 1: families that have endured that type of violence, because police
Speaker 1: violence is still violence. It will allocate one hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars fifty million dollars to put for behavioral health centers
Speaker 1: to be able to give mental health resources to those
Speaker 1: family members and loved ones who need it, but then
Speaker 1: another fifty million dollars for the Department of Education to
Speaker 1: implement in schools so that students who lost someone to
Speaker 1: police violence that they can have help write in the
Speaker 1: school system when it comes to this bill, but really
Speaker 1: any bill where you're fighting for issues that you care about,
Speaker 1: men to care for all, canceling student dad, increasing the
Speaker 1: minimum wage, the housing crisis. How do you turn what
Speaker 1: is theoretical to your colleagues and make it as real
Speaker 1: to them as it is to you. If it's an
Speaker 1: issue that where I have lived experience, then I speak
Speaker 1: to it from that lived experience. I speak to my
Speaker 1: colleagues just that way. I think back to the eviction
Speaker 1: moratorium action that we took on the steps that I
Speaker 1: spoke about earlier. I remember doing a lot of media
Speaker 1: out there on those steps, and people would come up
Speaker 1: to me, even my colleagues. Later, some of them came
Speaker 1: up to me and said, I didn't know that that's
Speaker 1: what happens when you get evicted, Like I just didn't know,
Speaker 1: or I didn't know that's what happens when you live
Speaker 1: on the street. I didn't know that that's what happens
Speaker 1: when you go to a food patche You can only
Speaker 1: go to some food patris only let you come once
Speaker 1: a month when those that are directly impacted are at
Speaker 1: the table. That is how the transformative change is able
Speaker 1: to happen when we tell those stories so that other
Speaker 1: people are accountable. Now that you've hurt the message, now
Speaker 1: you are accountable. I speak to the situation as directly
Speaker 1: as I can. That's the one thing about it. I
Speaker 1: don't waiver on that, Like I'm not going to stop
Speaker 1: doing that. I know that people have said to me,
Speaker 1: are you going to keep you know, pushing this issue
Speaker 1: or you you know, are that's going to hurt the
Speaker 1: party or that may hurt this person's seat. I don't
Speaker 1: want to hurt someone's seat because we need all the
Speaker 1: Democrats we can in Congress right now. We need to
Speaker 1: keep the House and we need to keep the Senate, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but we got to learn to be able to do both.
Speaker 1: We can't neglect my community. I can't continue to let
Speaker 1: people die in my community to be able to save
Speaker 1: somebody's seat. We need to work on messaging. If you
Speaker 1: need to hire more people to work on messaging, than
Speaker 1: do that, like let's raise money for that. But what
Speaker 1: will not happen is my community gets to be pushed
Speaker 1: to the side. My folks get to continue to die
Speaker 1: when my community continues to be number one or number
Speaker 1: two for homicides in this country over and over again.
Speaker 1: At least this time we move down the number two
Speaker 1: for police murder year after year after year. When my
Speaker 1: community continues to be number one for the murder of
Speaker 1: children year after year, and you tell me that I
Speaker 1: need to tap her down, keep that quiet. This goes
Speaker 1: for anyone. This is not something that's just for my colleagues,
Speaker 1: And this is for anyone who feels that I need
Speaker 1: to shut up fix the problem, and I can well
Speaker 1: forward them this tape. I think part of what you're
Speaker 1: talking about is this term you developed called politicism, which
Speaker 1: is part politician, part activist, someone who hears what the
Speaker 1: people need on the ground and uses that to inform legislation.
Speaker 1: But you alluded to colleagues of yours criticizing this approach.
Speaker 1: One of them is named Karen Bass from California. She's
Speaker 1: a long time civil rights activist and the head of
Speaker 1: the CBC. She said, it is the role of an
Speaker 1: activist to push us as far as they can push us.
Speaker 1: It is our role to legislate, and that is a
Speaker 1: different role. We are very committed to making a difference,
Speaker 1: and that is different than making a point. You can
Speaker 1: either make a point or you can make a difference.
Speaker 1: Do you think she's right? I love and respect Karen Bass.
Speaker 1: She's my colleague, She's an OG in Congress, so I
Speaker 1: absolutely you have much respect for her. But we have
Speaker 1: two different views, and I think that I've proven that
Speaker 1: you can do both. People told us we could not
Speaker 1: win an eviction moratorium staying in place, but we did
Speaker 1: get that to happen. We've been able to bring home
Speaker 1: over billion dollars to our community in less than two years.
Speaker 1: We have passed more than twenty five pieces of legislation
Speaker 1: through the US House of Representatives, and we have also
Speaker 1: had legislation signed into law by the President of the
Speaker 1: United States. We've done that as the freshman. So you
Speaker 1: can absolutely do both. It's a matter of someone being both,
Speaker 1: and that I am, and I'm not willing to take
Speaker 1: off the hat of the activists to be in Congress.
Speaker 1: The people of Saint Louis elected me being the activists
Speaker 1: going into politics, and that is who I will be
Speaker 1: in this seat because St. Louis and I rise, and
Speaker 1: it is Saint Louis that I want to end on.
Speaker 1: You had this quote which was born out of those
Speaker 1: two years in Ferguson, where you said the truth is
Speaker 1: the Saint Louis I grew up in oftentimes feels very disconnected.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it as if our communities existed in silos, segregated
Speaker 1: by race, religion, ethnicity, or class. The protest brought us
Speaker 1: out of our homes, our neighborhoods, our places of worship,
Speaker 1: and gave us an opportunity to not only come to
Speaker 1: know one another's pain, but to imagine what a future
Speaker 1: of collective liberation could look like. Now that we are
Speaker 1: seven years is removed from that moment, as we enter
Speaker 1: this midterm election, do you think we're moving towards that
Speaker 1: collective liberation? Do you think in twenty twenty two and
Speaker 1: in the years ahead that's even possible? Possible? Yes? Are
Speaker 1: we moving in the right direction? No? My third day
Speaker 1: in Congress, there was an insurrection on the US Capitol.
Speaker 1: Folks marched in the street in twenty twenty after the
Speaker 1: murder of George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, and so many others.
Speaker 1: But then that very next year, in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one saw the highest number of police killings
Speaker 1: since police killings started to be recorded there were only
Speaker 1: fifteen days in the year where the police did not
Speaker 1: kill someone. Right now, we have people who believe that
Speaker 1: the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris was stolen,
Speaker 1: who have won their primaries in their communities, who are
Speaker 1: heading to a general election, some of whom could possibly
Speaker 1: win those seats. When we look at how we're organizing collectively, yes,
Speaker 1: we're fighting, and I think that we're working together. But
Speaker 1: when white supremacy has made the decision that we are
Speaker 1: going to try to come at this in every way
Speaker 1: we can right now in twenty twenty two, I believe
Speaker 1: that we're going the other way. We could go the
Speaker 1: other way if we don't fight. So we need fighters.
Speaker 1: We need fighters that's willing to call a thing a thing.
Speaker 1: We need those folks seated not only in Congress, our
Speaker 1: school boards, our city councils, our county government. We need
Speaker 1: folks that's willing to fight. So that's what my hope
Speaker 1: is going into this next term, is that we don't
Speaker 1: tiptoe around these issues that we fight, but also believing
Speaker 1: that folks will show up and use the power of
Speaker 1: their voices in their votes, because what we are facing
Speaker 1: is a national ban on abortion. Where we're facing is
Speaker 1: a possible national ban on contraception. We could be facing
Speaker 1: a national band possibly on marriage equality. And that's just
Speaker 1: the beginning. We could be allowing the insurrection to get
Speaker 1: sworn into Congress. If we don't show up and use
Speaker 1: our voices to vote, people may say, well, my vote
Speaker 1: does not count. Well, boo, I'm in Congress because the
Speaker 1: vote counts. That's the only reason I made it is
Speaker 1: because your vote does count. So Boos, show up, Take
Speaker 1: your friends, take your cousins, show up. This is the
Speaker 1: moment because our democracy is at stake. You said, it's Sam,
Speaker 1: how fragile this democracy is. That's what it is. It's
Speaker 1: fragile at this point. So we need folks to show
Speaker 1: up because your life, your legacy, right now, it's at stake. Well,
Speaker 1: all I can say in this moment is thank you
Speaker 1: for showing up as you have in these last two
Speaker 1: years in Congress, in this conversation with me, and in
Speaker 1: the years ahead. Thank you, Sam, Congresswoman Corey Bush. It
Speaker 1: has been an honor. Thank you. I appreciate you. We
Speaker 1: all right. That was a lot, fam That was a lot,
Speaker 1: And that's our show. Special days to Jessica Purcell and
Speaker 1: Sarah new at Penguin Random House, Julia Weaver at iHeart,
Speaker 1: and of course, Congresswoman Corey Bush to purchase her latest book,
Speaker 1: The Forerunner. Be sure to visit our website at talk
Speaker 1: easypod dot com. There you'll find our back catalog of
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Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Caitlin Dryden. Today's talk was edited
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Speaker 1: Our assistant editors are Clarisse Gavara and Lindsay Ellis. Music
Speaker 1: by Dylan Peck, Illustrations by Tricia Chanoy, Photographs by Maria
Speaker 1: Alvarez and Joe Martinez. Video and graphics by Ian Chang,
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Speaker 1: thanks to Patrice Lee, Kylin Ung and Paulina Suarez. I'd
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Speaker 1: mil LaBelle, Eric Sandler, Nicole Morano, Maggie Taylor, Morgan Rattner,
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Speaker 1: Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg. I'm Sam Fragoso, thank you
Speaker 1: for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here
Speaker 1: next week with actor eddie redmain Until then, stay safe
Speaker 1: and so long.