[SPEAKER_00]: This episode of True's Table is brought to you by our NAACP Image Award-nominated book, True's Table, Black Women's Musings on Life, Love, and Liberation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get it where all books are sold.
[SPEAKER_02]: Brothers, y'all all right?
[SPEAKER_02]: If this is your first time at Truth's Table, welcome to the table.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you've been sitting at the table with us all these years.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Now pull up a chair and have a seat at the table with us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, y'all, welcome to Truth Table.
[SPEAKER_02]: We advise a culture for grace and truth.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a community, and I'm Christina.
[SPEAKER_02]: This table is built by Black women and for a Black women.
[SPEAKER_02]: So welcome to the table, see how you're doing there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm doing decently in this wild world we live in.
[SPEAKER_02]: How are you doing today?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I'm, I'm yet a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm still getting a slight, the regime is still here, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, friend, we are still in our underground railroad 2.0 series.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, whatever we need to be in this series.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything's so great, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why do I want to need to be in the underground railroad?
[SPEAKER_02]: So we are honored to have somebody who's not a stranger to the table, I can say that now.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's on here, she is going to talk to us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Visit missing information and disinformation and malinformation and all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, we need to run it back again.
[SPEAKER_02]: We need a lab, we need a lab, we need a lab, we need a cap.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the lesson was about the Jim Crow maps, okay?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because let me read you some context, because we were supposed to record this message, but it doesn't message.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's up and so I had to be about a month and a half ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: And literally, the day we were going to record, it was when the regime decided they was going, they was going to pass some Jim Crow maps.
[SPEAKER_02]: in Alabama and Louisiana.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was Louisiana actually at that time.
[SPEAKER_02]: They all been coming up.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, they've been coming up.
[SPEAKER_02]: All these things.
[SPEAKER_02]: So actually, you could not interview with us on that day.
[SPEAKER_02]: But she is back at the table.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're going to talk about them during called math.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're going to talk about the misinformation, malinformation, this information.
[SPEAKER_02]: So welcome to the table.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's so so how you doing?
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, I'm still black.
[SPEAKER_03]: How are y'all doing?
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, he's still black.
[SPEAKER_03]: We still black.
[SPEAKER_03]: If nothing else, I'm gonna be black to the day I die.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know that's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I wouldn't want it any other way.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're gonna be black, even when we die.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a good news.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not supposed to pronounce it as far as I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's that's social theological implication.
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We like it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Before we launch into our conversation, was Y'all see you is already, we already go in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: In some soosa is the founder and CEO of Onix Impact and Organization created to better understand and combat disinformation targeting black communities and increased black civic engagement.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's also was previously deputy executive director of Fairfight Action of Voting Rights Organization founded by Stacey Abrams, where she led the organization's pro-democracy reform efforts with the focus on combating disinformation and voting policy reform, while overseeing the organization's research, communications, political and organizing teams.
[SPEAKER_02]: This follows her work as senior advisor to Stacey Abrams 2022,
[SPEAKER_02]: gubernatorial campaign y'all.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's been so long ago now, my God.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as a campaign manager in chief of staff for a top for a top 2018 U.S. congressional election prior to retirement politics, he's also was a portfolio manager at BlackRock.
[SPEAKER_02]: where she managed to array wide range of fixed income products, analyze monetary and fiscal policy and let firm wide research on housing, health care and inflation.
[SPEAKER_02]: ESAOSA is a native, Ohioan and a graduate of Duke University Sanford School of Policy, but public policy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the table.
[SPEAKER_02]: ESAOSA, oh my goodness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That that that that that biologist says, you know, she real smart.
[SPEAKER_01]: She real smart.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't don't play with her.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the streets across industries.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we and we and we are we we love that you would share your your wisdom in your insights with us today.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, of course.
[SPEAKER_03]: Of course.
[SPEAKER_03]: What I've learned across, you know, multiple industries is that a lot of
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, and the same, the same issues that, as you, as you all have, we are seeing the same issues that have plagued us for, for, for generations are coming are coming back or having to hate it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, goodness, you know, we were initially going to start off talking about misinformation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we still are.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I do think it would be helpful to set the context of what has transpired between the time that we sent you the request to come on show.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's just to now, okay, I'm never here at this table, can you explain, you know, to our sisters at the table, the brothers in the standing room section, about what has transpired with regard to voting rights, specifically black voting rights, currently right now in Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, can you just break it down?
[SPEAKER_02]: What do we mean by these Jim Jim Crow maps?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why should the sisters in the brothers care?
[SPEAKER_03]: So, yes, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's bigger and broader than voting now, like in the last few weeks, the Supreme Court has gutted the two strongest legal tools that Black Americans have used for decades to fight racism and discrimination.
[SPEAKER_03]: They've gutted them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: The first decision is
[SPEAKER_03]: the voting rights act, the law that ended Jim Crow, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: They came and said with unbelievably a flawed arguments that it would be essentially saying it's,
[SPEAKER_03]: going to be nearly impossible to prevent folks from just drawing black folks out of power, diluting our political power, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Right afterwards, they, in Tennessee to your point, they had to split Memphis up into three districts.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, did you?
[SPEAKER_03]: To dilute the black power enough to have no impact, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And we saw
[SPEAKER_03]: to your point, Florida, eliminated a majority black district.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can I see a race that's soul, majority black district Louisiana, eliminated one of its two majority black districts.
[SPEAKER_03]: Alabama, eliminated a majority black district.
[SPEAKER_03]: Mississippi's governor has said that they will eliminate their soul black districts.
[SPEAKER_03]: Georgia is in about a week about to eliminate one of their two majority districts, two black majority black districts.
[SPEAKER_03]: with an hour and people are like, what are these districts, matter what, this is about whether who has the power to shape all of the decisions in your life, from your health care, to your job, to your
[SPEAKER_03]: access to food, to places that you grew up in, and it's not just federal, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That first Supreme Court decision is going to mean that across the south, we are going to have school districts of all black kids, being run, having school boards,
[SPEAKER_03]: that have that are actively hostile towards them.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is the level of harm that's the Supreme Court, it's first decision.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then two weeks ago, it passed down
[SPEAKER_03]: It's second ruling, and this one got it not a law, but the 14th amendment itself.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wasn't even aware that we could go to amendments.
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought they were safe.
[SPEAKER_02]: They knew it would ever day one.
[SPEAKER_03]: But no, these justices are better, in justices,
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, when at the 14th Amendment itself, and that in equal protection under the 14th Amendment is about racial discrimination across the board, voting, housing, policing, schools, employment, right, and they basically said, y'all, that in,
[SPEAKER_03]: In 2023, Alabama tried to pass some draw some racist maps.
[SPEAKER_03]: And long story short, the Supreme Court confirmed that those maps were racist.
[SPEAKER_03]: Two weeks ago, they said that not even their own ruling that something was racially discriminatory was enough evidence.
[SPEAKER_03]: to prove racist intent under the 14th Amendment.
[SPEAKER_03]: They said not even our own, not even a Supreme Court ruling.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so if a Supreme Court ruling is not enough, what is the bar?
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, again, people thought that this was just about, but no, they ruled, in that case, on the 14th Amendment, and just yesterday, the Trump DOJ came out, and declared that workplace discrimination, that protections against workplace discrimination were unconstitutional.
[SPEAKER_03]: siding these cases 14 times.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we are watching at frightening speed, the civil rights infrastructure that black folks fought for, that everyone in this country benefits from.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I will say that we have also seen a response in these states because many of these states have had elections and Georgia early voting turnout serves for black voters.
[SPEAKER_03]: Louisiana, early election turnout serves for black voters defeated all five of their amendments.
[SPEAKER_03]: Alabama.
[SPEAKER_03]: uh, voter turnout for black voters, serves South Carolina, highest on record for black turnout, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Correctly, um, and direct response to these decisions we are seeing black folks come out, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Which is what we have to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: But we can't just stop evoning, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to take economic pressure.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to take litigation.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to take organizing, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to take us getting involved on a local level to make sure that they cannot take over our school boards in the middle of the night without us noticing, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: They cannot.
[SPEAKER_03]: get a free pass to take away our city councils, our congressional districts.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the most significant attack on Black progress that we have had since post-reconstruction.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is reconstruction 2.0.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, you know, there are
[SPEAKER_01]: how far people are willing to go to dismantle black political power and really to maintain the mythology of white supremacy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just think, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we have of course a series of questions for you about misinformation, but I am curious about as we just as you just did a great job of surveying the present moment and all I can do is just lament and really be big man about a variety of things that led us to this moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have all kinds of feelings and thoughts, but I will not go on a tangent right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: That would be a whole not an episode about how did we get here, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: As you think about your work, if you were to look back retrospectively.
[SPEAKER_01]: at the misinformation as the narratives of this most recent political season that led us to underestimate this moment?
[SPEAKER_01]: What would what stands out to you?
[SPEAKER_01]: What were some of the things that were said or manipulated or twisted that opened the door for where we are now, which some folks absolutely thought it's just absolutely no way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And here we are.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a phenomenal question.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we actually put out an entire report on this last year, called The Black Out Report.
[SPEAKER_03]: People can go and see it at blackoutreport.org.
[SPEAKER_03]: Where we raised the alarm about the attacks on Black Progress and Power that we were seeing just in the first eight months of the administration
[SPEAKER_03]: No one was talking about because of the DEI disinformation campaign that is still being wielded, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And basically, in a Trojan horse for the ultimate power grab, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: As long as they can make us think that this is about corporate classes that suck.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, last year they eliminated $70 million in flood protections for black communities.
[SPEAKER_03]: As long as they can make us think that this is about fairness.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, they can eliminate $30 million in maternal mortality research.
[SPEAKER_03]: They eliminated $10 million.
[SPEAKER_03]: and sickle cell disease researching a rare blood disorder that impacts exclusively black folks including my little brother, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: They called sickle cell research woke ideology, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We documented 15,000 concrete arms to black
[SPEAKER_03]: economic mobility to black jobs to black history, to black progress that was all happening behind this disinformation campaign that is still being wielded right now and you know some folks are like, well,
[SPEAKER_03]: Guess what, this is not, this is a front.
[SPEAKER_03]: Who they are attacking in their quest to get rid of fairness and equity, literally part of the Constitution is very clear.
[SPEAKER_03]: We put out a special edition of the report this year because of an executive order trying to take away
[SPEAKER_03]: This was the clear example we had seen yet of how disingenuous, this entire disinformation campaign against black folks has been.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because this is a significant source of wealth for black community, nine point eight billion dollars.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: A year come from federal contract payments.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're probably the number one thing the government spends money on, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: They're high as bill.
[SPEAKER_03]: 9.8 billion dollars to black communities.
[SPEAKER_03]: That 9.8 billion dollars represents 1.2 percent of federal payments.
[SPEAKER_03]: 1.2 percent.
[SPEAKER_03]: When you go after 1.2 percent, we are not talking about fairness.
[SPEAKER_03]: It undermines every single argument you have about what this is really about.
[SPEAKER_03]: When you have to 1.2 percent, that is about the control.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we have been raising the alarm.
[SPEAKER_03]: We talked in our release of the black report that it was no coincidence that all of this was happening at that time months before we were likely to see the end of the voting rights act.
[SPEAKER_03]: which is the world we are now living in.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I cannot, like if you are mad, if you are in despair, like all of this is valid and we gotta take that energy and move forward.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, we've got to be in lockstep on these, ah, ah, that's fine.
[SPEAKER_03]: On these local elections on this economic pressure.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, what come, if you all can't come out and make a stand against the 14th Amendment equal protection clause not being, come on.
[SPEAKER_03]: I say any more.
[SPEAKER_03]: Come on.
[SPEAKER_03]: We talk about amendments, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, we,
[SPEAKER_03]: We need to not just boycott, but buycott, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Make sure we're buying from our folks in this moment.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Make sure that we're supporting litigation and organizations is on the ground that are helping folks get neutral aid.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're helping folks get to the polls.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're helping folks, black folks live their daily lives.
[SPEAKER_03]: These are what we're gonna have to go back to real community power.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's something beautiful about that, right, because to the point that John are making earlier, the level of purposeful, intentional, blindness that got us here, right,
[SPEAKER_03]: progressives over whatever you want to call them and ability to recognize understand that we are still at our core in 1960s coalition, that has not changed.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the only people that realize that are our opposition, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: They know that as clear as they see that and they know the fastest route to
[SPEAKER_03]: It's only we weren't surrounded in Bowlingwater.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now I got to get off my soap box y'all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, you see how you would like to get time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take your time.
[SPEAKER_02]: We hear you know you said so we we will go to a break, but before I go to the break, I do want to ask you about this because You broke it all down and I I thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: We thank you for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am curious because I believe that in the power of community mutual aid They need for us to get in lock and lock and step.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what you, you know you talked about that the buy cut I talk to say I was like, I love black women because we just go make up.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, oh my God
[SPEAKER_02]: you heard it here okay that's a new work get you into it okay I'm not just boy got by caught it's true we didn't all of that let me tell you if there's anything black when we can do hello we can lead a by-kind
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you a lot about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, that's the gym.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm curious, before we go to break up, like, how?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because of the effects of disinformation, the malinformation, the misinformation, targeted toward our community.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am concerned about the fractures within our community.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I understand, then not everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, uh, uh, uh, it was marching, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, I, I, I, I understand.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody wasn't, wasn't about that life.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that, you know, most, most part, most, most were not.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm curious about the, the frizzers and the fractures.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what I'm wondering is, how do we make this matter?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's sure we didn't shouldn't have to make this matter.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I didn't make this matter, though.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm thinking to our, our black immigrant brothers.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is just, you know, I can say that as a first-gen.
[SPEAKER_02]: And how do you make this matter, you know what I mean to our cousins, you know, and to our Caribbean, you know, cousins, I had to leave.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's not just them, I'm just, I'm trying to lift up and surface some of the features that do come that come up and that have been stoked, you know, and where they don't feel like there's a buying, where they have followed for the trap.
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, and the lie, that they don't have skin in the game, that they don't have buying as if they would even be here.
[SPEAKER_02]: They would not even be here apart from those rights that you named.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so can you talk a little bit about that?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then after that we'll go to the break.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm just, you know, because I'm curious about what you would say to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or two men, you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, 100% and I think to the us is, and I do think that a ton of the, that there is a massive, massive difference here between, especially the us is that have, have grown up here that born here lived here, completely different.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because, again, we've been, we've been black in this country since the day we were born, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And how do we make this matter?
[SPEAKER_03]: For a lot of folks, it is going to, like, we're at what 700,000 black women who have no longer in the workforce.
[SPEAKER_03]: right, uh, that's across the board, right, um, this, this, this, this, this level of, of, like, they are, they are, the department of justice just said that racial discrimination in workplace is as legal.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's across the board, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So, that's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our diaspora brothers and sisters are Hispanic brothers and sisters are Asian brothers, it like these, you know, first they came.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I insane, you know, they're not to make it matter.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you take all of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So y'all get on a good foot.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're here now.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know what on that note while y'all getting on the good foot.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to take a break and we can't work it back.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk some more over the so-so.
[SPEAKER_02]: So don't miss this.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll be right back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our NAACP Image Award-nominated book, Truths Table, Black Women's Musings on Life, Love, and Liberation, is making waves and shifting culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: I close this book feeling like I had just partaken in a multi-course meal, filled with grace and the courage to carry on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I believe you'll finish this book feeling the same way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Morgan Harper Nichols, artists and poet.
[SPEAKER_00]: By Truth's Table, Black women's musings on life-loving liberation at our website, or wherever books are sold.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, we are back at the table with E.S.
[SPEAKER_02]: O.S.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was talking about Jim Crow maps and misinformation, disinformation, malimformation, get into it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Please tell me how you got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You'd listen, he's also has been schooled in us as she does, and it's all been very necessary.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, one of the things that we talked about back in the day when you were here, so we talked about media literacy and how we're getting our information from how we properly vet it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like from 2024 until now, that feels like an even harder thing to get handles around.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so,
[SPEAKER_01]: What wisdom would you provide for our listeners now about as they are trying to discern what is true and how to respond well not to not to run around like the chicken with his head cut off At constantly in a chronic state of panic, but we need accurate information and so what's your what's your wisdom for us kind of our go to Even as we're trying to not become so exhausted and overwhelmed with some of the bad news we see.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah absolutely I would first say
[SPEAKER_03]: Everyone wants to go to on simpact.org.
[SPEAKER_03]: Click on Aisha.
[SPEAKER_03]: So on about AI tools, just type in your state, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And you will get a list of black news sources in your state to follow and subscribe, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Give you the link to do everything.
[SPEAKER_03]: It has never been more important to be following.
[SPEAKER_03]: black led news black journalists in this in this moment, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because we're at a point in time where even the the most mainstreams of media are not going to
[SPEAKER_03]: are afraid to tell the whole truth, because of what may happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Of a chilling effect.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you were going to see headlines that say Supreme Court, Louisiana versus Calate, decision on specific, district map says that maybe XYZ,
[SPEAKER_03]: ElementoP, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Telling you nothing about what is actually happening or the decision or the impact, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we need to follow right now more than ever we need to follow Black News.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's why OnEximpack has been investing and independent Black news infrastructure all year.
[SPEAKER_03]: And since the beginning of this organization,
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you led me, let me write to my question.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was going to ask you about what is Black Onix's initiative.
[SPEAKER_02]: I saw that news, and I thought it was like, oh, so powerful.
[SPEAKER_02]: Investing $500,000 into Black Independence.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, Black Media is clearly urgent.
[SPEAKER_02]: Even more urgent than I think when you first announced it, in my opinion.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can come at me though.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you talk to us about, first of all, what inspired that, I know you shared a little bit about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, arguing in the gaps, like if you had another $500,000, what are those gaps that you're like, ooh, we need to fund this, or we wanna support this arm of independent black media.
[SPEAKER_02]: Talk to us this time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh,
[SPEAKER_03]: But so this came about because of the, you know, as a follow-up to our blackout report and seeing how much was happening and how little was being, you know, reported.
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, the difficulty and that's even getting,
[SPEAKER_03]: reporting on the blackout report, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We went to a major news outlet.
[SPEAKER_03]: The journalist was so about it, like we worked closely for two weeks.
[SPEAKER_03]: His editor killed it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Today, before the story is supposed to drop, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We went to another major news organization.
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, the journalist was like, this is the story I've been wanting to write all year.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks to our six, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_03]: two days before the story is supposed to drop there.
[SPEAKER_03]: NBC, as y'all know, deleted or right.
[SPEAKER_03]: fire, their entire diversity, and NBC Black, and see Hispanic and see Latin America, all of it was gone.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was, but black outlets never, never blinked about reporting on our work.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we've seen in the, just as we've seen a tax on,
[SPEAKER_03]: news and, and, and, and dependent media more broadly we've seen that 10 times as bad towards black news and, and, and, and black journalists, you know, getting, um, arrested still having fighting legal battles to this day, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, you know, and so
[SPEAKER_03]: We believe just as most folks say that news and media is part of democracy infrastructure, black news and media is part of democracy infrastructure.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we have been standing tentos down against authoritarianism since Jim Crow.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, we wanted to support that.
[SPEAKER_03]: We believed it was time.
[SPEAKER_03]: We wanted to encourage other folks to invest in black media infrastructure as democracy infrastructure.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: donating to the NABJ's Jubilee fund to help National Association of Black Journalists help train and recruit and support their upcoming journalists out, working with the Black Press, the National News Paper Public Service Association to help digital media training
[SPEAKER_03]: helping, you know, archiving the Black Web supporting fellowships to equip Black individuals and students of media with Web archiving digital preservation of our stories, investing in Black news and Black new media, right, Black visual creators as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, it was,
[SPEAKER_03]: really important to us to do this type of work, to invest in this, and this type of work.
[SPEAKER_03]: These are the folks that we need to be telling our stories, holding us accountable, holding
[SPEAKER_03]: A viscerate the voting rights act at the end of Jim Crow and the 14th amendment in the span of three weeks and have nobody know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we're thinking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: misinformation, I mean, I think that the last time you were here, we talked a little bit about.
[SPEAKER_01]: what from our vantage point.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you work with the actual data and patterns.
[SPEAKER_01]: We work with, we work over here with the vives in the, in the discernment of the Holy Ghost is what we work with over here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we, we have noticed all kinds of patterns.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we're like, um, he's so certain us is just through in the data.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you know for the plural, the plural of stories is data.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right, that's right, that's right, that's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what we are seeing from our vote vantage point in the work that we do, which is in the justice and faith sector, we are seeing what feels like patterns of this information that really kind of
[SPEAKER_01]: create ways of dismantling black solidarity, organizational solidarity, across the so you name that from historic 100-plus-year-old organizations, universities, black orgs, black churches, things that have built the stability of the black community.
[SPEAKER_01]: sense reconstruction.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is what we are seeing from our lens and the constant battles online over the very networks and systems that will create the political solidarity, not partisan solidarity, but the political solidarity for there to be active resistance right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: and to the point where we're like, are they paying the people to do this?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not says it's everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that is, that's what we discern.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just would love to hear your broad comments about that and how do we respond to that at this time?
[SPEAKER_01]: We have so many, so many people who are just online popular, particularly in that religious
[SPEAKER_01]: space and religion and faith, faith, intersection, which is the world that we live in, and yet we are trying to offer accurate information.
[SPEAKER_01]: What would you say about what we should be watching out for?
[SPEAKER_01]: And are we just paranoid, is that what we see is true?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you're not paranoid.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are certainly efforts by individuals, about actors, by groups, by nation states.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to get to, I don't want to overstate,
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, intentionally, we have seen that reported on each and every year, right, social media accounts exposed as being either state actors or far right actors.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it's never been more important to be
[SPEAKER_03]: to be to walk with a level of discernment and a high level of skepticism for anyone dividing black communities in this moment.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because when they're getting rid of the voting rights act,
[SPEAKER_03]: And they are getting rid or gutted the 14th Amendment.
[SPEAKER_03]: Y'all, the enemy is not other black people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Under no one.
[SPEAKER_03]: It cannot be.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, whether it is
[SPEAKER_03]: We know that they will go after institutions and try to undermine institutions of communities as a way to prevent long-term organizing sustainability.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm an information expert or you're not saying these things lightly, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: is documented history, in fact, of this happening, to our communities.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we have to have to be asking ourselves who benefits from this type of division
[SPEAKER_03]: President of the United States is asking whether his potential opponent is really black.
[SPEAKER_03]: Who's benefiting from that conversation?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because, you know, I've never heard
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it got to be clear I in this moment, um, because that those efforts to divide will 100% come.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we we can always have family conversations.
[SPEAKER_03]: We can always have to ask for a conversation.
[SPEAKER_03]: We can always, um, like these are real issues that deserve to be, um, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: uh, um, discussed and worked through, but let's be clear about who is harming our community right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So lately, you know, um, I know that we're we're coming to our clothes, but you so I would, I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you a question head or one about, um, AI.
[SPEAKER_02]: and the proliferation of AI.
[SPEAKER_02]: How that is, how can I, that it's furthering the misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation, rabbit hole, a loop, if you will, how can we, I think about these AI songs, too that are taken over, you know, they've got black woman, black woman, anthem, and it's just like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And how can we rescue some of my family members also from the WhatsApp that it's just flooding everywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, like, how is there a guide away for us to be able to discern like,
[SPEAKER_02]: That is AI, you know, that is, you know, all of these, you know, the feel good stories that come up on Facebook, you see, well, many people share it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I've seen the proliferation of AI from, oh my gosh, just just about everywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you talked to us about like how am I going to say how can people begin to discern to be clear-eyed and discerning of what they see.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like we don't want people to mistrust their eyes, but also we need a healthy level of skepticism.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is that balance?
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we walk that type rope?
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a whole new wave of education about AI and internet to your point because
[SPEAKER_03]: we're all going to need a higher level of skepticism and that takes work to build, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That takes work to build because there is, you know, we see on the internet every day it's just like pretty bad AI to be honest, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like the real kind of high quality stuff that, you know, will become more mainstream in a year, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: You're not going to be able to tell the difference.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we have to have a higher level of skepticism and have more faith in the messengers of where we're getting our news from.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we have to understand that AI do not let anybody tell you that AI is neutral.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is false white hope.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I is like any other technology.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is shaped by the priorities, the blind spots, the cultural defaults of its creators.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: We know Chad G.P.T.
[SPEAKER_03]: Recommended the death penalty more often.
[SPEAKER_03]: If the defendant's quote unquote sounded black.
[SPEAKER_03]: We know AI data centers land disproportionately in black communities.
[SPEAKER_03]: We know AI image generators default to dark skin for crime, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We know how this impacts job applications.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what black communities have been handed.
[SPEAKER_03]: And on its impact understands that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we also understand that
[SPEAKER_03]: these models that AI is actually the battleground for truth moving forward.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's where our truths are being decided.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we have built our own AI called Aisha.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, a chat assisted that is built from the ground up to better serve people that AI has failed.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: I eat just centers black sources that it sources black history.
[SPEAKER_03]: First, she prioritizes user privacy.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are not using any user data to train or inform our model for business purposes.
[SPEAKER_03]: What have you, your stuff is only accessible to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We are data centers.
[SPEAKER_03]: We know where they're located Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal,
[SPEAKER_03]: It is so unfortunate as you see how these models are trained and built to see what must have happened for so many of them to end up as not to.
[SPEAKER_02]: Come on.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, one of the first things we told I was like, hey, you should have like a basic level of respect for people.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the greener, which that fundamentally changes answers to that, like, improved the community.
[SPEAKER_03]: And those types of things were just not done.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we're in a situation like, this is, we are building an AI assistant.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have no interest in replicating human intelligence.
[SPEAKER_03]: good, which is going to take more water than we got on this earth, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I've got no interest in trying to replace workers and having kids use.
[SPEAKER_03]: I used to, in any of that type of type of stuff, but I believe that we deserve better.
[SPEAKER_03]: and to be given biased outcomes and context and answers every single time we use these tools.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we'll be launching our issue on June 25th.
[SPEAKER_03]: As you can, you can use her right now on our site.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll be launching the app version on June 25th for anyone to be able to download to use to view black sources 100%.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I use to sound safe, okay, I use to make mistakes.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not trying to
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, protect all the other channel on the right way, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not trying to pretend like we have created a perfect AI model.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is not exist.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have created a better one.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, that's a great question.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a great question to ask not only of an development of an AI chat box, but anything that is being developed around what are the initial assumptions?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are the philosophical boundaries and priorities of what we are creating, whether it's an industry brick and mortar, or whether it's, I don't know, a relationship you build in what the foundation or assumptions.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think we see so much as incredibly diagnostic that you would have one developer who does not think about human life value consideration or a bias to the longevity and flourishing people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you have another who might say the, you know, at bottom, the very first matter is that there is a respect for human life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's a game changer and that really is the difference.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think philosophically between some of a lot of the political and social riffs that we have right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_03]: A hundred percent.
[SPEAKER_03]: To your point, do we really want?
[SPEAKER_03]: Think of the ultimate tech bro?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do we want that person deciding the moral values?
[SPEAKER_03]: of our society.
[SPEAKER_03]: No.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would call and get neutral.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I feel like something sort of like that happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, and what happened to people, and what happened to aid for those who needed medications and services all around the world and the name of efficiency.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's just, it's like a horror movie.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes this is not that complicated.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes y'all, I don't know, watch, watch one, sci-fi movie, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello.
[SPEAKER_02]: They tell you, graph and some, Tia, okay?
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just saying, I'm not trying to get a conspiratorial, but I'm just saying, and I'm the 25th, and let us know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let us know your thoughts.
[SPEAKER_03]: things that you would, that we should add, look through, things that are, are, that she's doing particularly well.
[SPEAKER_03]: If we've got to know, we sure will.
[SPEAKER_02]: We sure will.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, he's supposed to, we're so grateful to have you here at the table.
[SPEAKER_02]: We will put, you send us, you know, chat about his ashes, links, black, onics.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry, onics, impact.org that black out report.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to put all of that in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so that our
[SPEAKER_02]: Aisha.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's also a, Osa, thank you for your work.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for your advocacy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for your witness, it matters.
[SPEAKER_02]: What you're doing matters.
[SPEAKER_02]: We see you and we are grateful for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So keep running on.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know we can get hard.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know it can be discouraging.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's not a vein.
[SPEAKER_02]: Your labor is not in vein.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just want to say that out loud.
[SPEAKER_02]: It really matters.
[SPEAKER_02]: And thank you for your investment.
[SPEAKER_02]: in our people, investment in our brilliance, investment in our excellence, believing in the importance of it now, more than ever, especially at a time like this, with this economy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just saying, 500,000,000, they ain't no small thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just saying, I was going to give you a flower.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a lot of money in this economy.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so thank you for your work.
[SPEAKER_02]: we really appreciate you when we're grateful.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I also want to say thank you to our listeners.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're taking a seat at the table with us this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's keep the conversation going.
[SPEAKER_02]: Give us your thoughts about underground railroad road 2.0.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jim Crow maps in misinformation mayhem.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to get me, shave it off an Instagram, thread, or Facebook, a at-truse table, email us your thoughts, and ask truestable at gmail.com, and black women.
[SPEAKER_02]: Truestable has a black women's discipleship group, so you can join us on Facebook.
[SPEAKER_02]: Make sure you answer all of the questions, and then you will be admitted into the group.
[SPEAKER_02]: Make sure you follow truestable on Facebook and join us and invite your homegirls too.
[SPEAKER_02]: So don't forget to rate and read the show on iTunes and subscribe on your favorite podcast player.
[SPEAKER_02]: True Sabah has a Patreon account, so y'all can send your love offerings to patreon.com slash true stable or you can bless us at our PayPal, which is PayPal.me slash true stable.
[SPEAKER_02]: True Sabah's audio producer is Joshua Heath, our video producer is Darrell Bradford and True Sabah's executive producers and hosts our Kevin Uyen and Christina Evanson will see you soon on the next true stable.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bye y'all!