REVOLT SUMMIT: VOTING & DONALD TRUMP

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CHAIR: [Fight the power soundtrack as Chair takes the stage] What’s up
y’all? How many people know it’s an election coming up? How
many people are pissed off about what you see in the country?
How many of you all know we can do better? How many of you all
want somebody to do it? How many of y’all voted in the last
election? How many of y’all didn’t? Yup!

So we got an amazing panel and what we’re going to do, is we are

going to have a conversation about all of these issues from who’s
in the White House, to who’s trying to get into the White House,
to how we vote at a local level, to the census that’s taking place
and how that’s going to impact us, to the fact that Hip Hop plays
an amazing role in how young people turn out, and specifically
black women – who are the most important demographic in
politics anywhere.

So to do that we’ve got an amazing panel of men and women who

are going to come out. I want you to give each and every one of
them a round of applause. Give it up to my brother Steve Parjet;
Candace Owens; you know TI; Killer Mike; Katrina Pearson; and
Tamika Mallory. Give it up for our panel as they come up. That
means clap. [Fight The Power]
 Alright y’all we’ll get right into this: So what I’d love for each of
you to do, in less than sixty seconds, is state what you think is the
single most important issue facing us in this presidential election.

STEVE: I think the most important thing, when I think about young people
– when I think about twenty, thirty years from now, and when I
think about this election, I think about the intersection of climate
change and the way that technology is going to change absolutely
everything. In our lifetime, what it means to be human is
different. In six to ten years, fifty per cent of jobs that pay under
twenty dollars an hour are going to disappear. Everything is going
to be different.

I have a three year old daughter. When I think about her future,
when she’s eighteen years old everything is going to be drastically
different and I want to see really, really epic interesting
conversations that are visionary and thinking about the future
fifteen, twenty years from now because I think that then next
years is wen we really make a decision about which way that we
go.

CANDACE: I would say the biggest this election cycle is that we are starting
to hear the word Socialism a lot in America. It is something that I
don’t think people quite understand. It has killed one hundred
million people in the last one hundred years. We look at
countries like Venezuela, former USSR and we have people that
are making it sound good – which is how these countries tend to
evoke socialism into their countries before it comes in to
completely destroy everything that the country has.

I would say that the second biggest thing for me is that I am

getting tired of the Democrat party drumming up the same issues
every four years, taking advantage of the black vote and doing
absolutely nothing to fix our communities while expecting us to
vote for them.
TIP: I am going to run down a list of things but I think they all kind of
coincide. I think that home-grown terrorism and crazy white boys
with AR15’s shooting up innocent people; I also think that mass
incarceration, the privatization of the prison system, the
militarization of the police, how they interact with the people in
our communities and police brutality – I think that all those
things, although they seem separate, coincide and correlate.

KILLER MIKE: Speaking for and on behalf of the African American community
(because I think that when we talk about important issues a lot of
times most of us try to cover broad ground) – I am supporting
Senator Sanders if you want to know and what’s within his
campaign. But from a very acute, and very “Where we are”
standpoint, African Americans have to be bigger parts of the
economic landscape of this country.

We should be owners and not buyers; we should be a merchant

class and not only consumers; we should have and we should use
our political leverage power to leverage and broker Government
contracts on our behalf so that we have fifteen Atlantas and not
one Atlanta. You should be hunting, fishing, shooting, training
and focusing on self-reliance and not simply relying on the people
you see day to day to take care of you.

KATRINA: I would say that the biggest issue that black Americans face is a
severe lack of leadership. He speaks on behalf of black people,
I’ll speak on behalf of all the black mothers out there because our
children are extremely important and no one seems to care. I
think that has to stop and I think that right now we have an
opportunity with a President Trump who has gone far and beyond
any other previous administration to impact black communities
directly, Atlanta included.
 I think that this lack of leadership in the black community is what
we face because Killer Mike just mentioned our political power.
Well guess what? That power is diminishing every time they bring
more illegal aliens into the country and make them voters.

TAMIKA: I think that what is the most critical issue of this time is the idea
that this generation becomes comfortable with white supremacy
being the law of the land fascism in our government. I think that
is a very dangerous position for our people to be in and I think
that for young people to believe it is normal for white supremacy
to be the law of the land is very scary because it stops our
potential and growth.

What we see happening right now is that white supremacy is

actually winning. I think that’s probably one of the most
dangerous issues of our time.

CHAIR: L-l-l-l-l-l-l-let’s get ready to rumb-l-l-le! Y’alL have heard six

people representing the black community, say similar and very
different things. I think that’s dope! I think it’s dope because all
black people don’t want the same thing, and I think that the fact
that we pretend like all black people want the same thing makes
us crazy and puts in the kind of situation where we can’t have the
conversations that we are about to have right now.

The fact that we are hearing different things to me is

encouraging. The question is, are we mature enough to have a
conversation here at Revolt that they are never going to have on
MSNBC, CNN or Fox? I want to be really serious: If you love black
people, then you have got to look black people that you disagree
with in the eye and talk to them like they are human instead of
yelling at them, call them names or disrespect them.
 We are getting ready to have a real conversation that only Revolt
can have and I’m excited about the brothers and sisters on this
panel that are going to make that happen. So what I’d like to get
right into is this whole notion of trap the vote. Trap the vote is
not just the theme of our panel, it’s a C3 organization that Steve
started. Steve I’d like to hear why you started this organization
and what you want to accomplish in this election term.

STEVE: First off I want to acknowledge that this feels like a cookout and I
feel super comfortable right now. This is dope. Firstly, I am a
member of a team and trap the vote is about civil engagement,
political participation and making sure that young people vote.

We talk about youth of culture. We think about the culture

today, the most powerful culture on the planet – Hip Hop culture,
black culture that’s at the centre of it and every other race of
people and young people that have bought into that. We talk
about the fear of gods that Jerry Lorenzo drops in all the white
kids – get ‘em and all the black kids – wanted them.

This is globally powerful and I believe that we have cultural

power. I think that we have seen an incredible progressive shift
over the past seven years with the rise of mini groups in the
country and young people particularly using their voice and
talking about things that they care about.

Trap the vote is about bottling that cultural energy and power,
and turning it into political power. I don’t have an agenda. My
agenda is to uplift the voice of young people all over this country
because these are the future leaders of this country. We are
listening to them, we are doing polls and surveys. What we are
hearing from young people is that they don’t feel heard.
 We are hearing them say that, “Hey we are being really loud
about the issues we care about and our political representation is
too polarized and they are not making anything happen for us.”
We want to make sure that the seventeen, eighteen year olds up
to thirty five – that everybody is voting, that everybody feels
powerful and engaged so that we can usher in a new generation of
leadership.

We are not only talking about millennials but Generation Y and

Generation Z. This is the future and the future is right now and I
think that we need to take young people more seriously. So
that’s what trap the vote is about.

CHAIR: Thank you so much for that. So Tamika, I want you and TIP to
chime in on this. So often in black spaces the language we use to
young people about why they should vote is – because somebody
died for them to vote. We hear it over and over again. I don’t go
to the polls because somebody died for me. I appreciate those
that came before me but I vote for my babies. I vote for my
interests and my business.

So as we attempt to change this narrative or evolve it, as we

engage the community, what is the way that we need to do that
differently than we have? Especially often times when we don’t
have candidates that are directly inspiring young people to be
involved?

TAMIKA: I think that in this moment we definitely need to be delivered

from that old language around who died for us to have the right to
vote and all of these different things, it doesn’t work. I think in
this particular moment we have to respect the fact that young
people are brilliant. They are reading, watching, listening and
paying attention.
 Whether or not we value their opinion does not mean it does not
count. The only way we can bring young people to the table is to
talk to them about the issues that are at the centre of what they
care about.

In their communities, police brutality is an issue. Obviously

education is an issue. Jobs are an issue. So when we fly in looking
fancy and having people that know nothing about Ms Lucy’s water
being dirty or anything that’s happening on the ground, we are
missing them completely. We cannot talk about people without
having them as part of the conversation.

More importantly, I feel like so many of our spaces, especially

female spaces where we are organizing are too elite for the
people we talk about. So if we are organizing without those who
are the strippers, scammers, the people who have been cast out
by our society – if they are not at the front of the conversation we
are just doing something to make ourselves feel good. We are not
doing anything for the people in our communities.

TIP: I agree a hundred per cent with what Tamika said and what Steve
said. I don’t think people should be motivated to vote because of
who died for them to vote. I think they should be motivated to
vote because the decisions that are being made affect them and
the people that they would die for. One of the main issues is we
wait too late to try to motivate young people.

This should be a conversation in first grade, second and third, all

the way up to high school, instead of waiting until you’re eighteen
and it’s your first election after your birthday and then we try and
explain the importance of voting to you. I think there has to be a
mindset that is developed over time.
 I know you said you don’t have an agenda and I appreciate people
like you but I do have an agenda. My agenda is to liberate my
people; teach them to love each other again; revitalize my
community; create a self-sustaining financially stable ecosystem
that will be present for generations to come; and you cannot do
that without putting the proper people in office that have similar
interests and a passionate need to fulfil these voids, whether it’s
education, employment or just proper opportunities for us.

We don’t just want access or a seat at the table. We want the

table! I am tired of asking. You can never continue to ask the
person who is oppressing you to stop oppressing you. That only
happens by leverage and force. Our leverage is our culture and
the power of our dollar. Until we take control of that and
redirect it to the places and the people we need to redirect it
towards, then we will always be in a position where we have got
to ask for a handout or someone to do something for us.

CHAIR: With that – because I want to build on that, Candace and Mike I
would like for you to chime in here. If that is true – and I would
love to hear whether you each think it is true or not – we really
should not be acquiescing to the agenda of either party. We
essentially should be developing an agenda that is ours and
forcing them to respond to that.

So often we are simply saying, “I want to support Trump” or that

candidate. It becomes a party decision, versus forcing them to
know what our vote is worth. I am interested – because both of
you are on different sides of the aisle – what is the best way to
engage a two-party system into our agenda?
KILLER MIKE: I’m on the black side. We represent two different candidates but
I am on the black side of the aisle. I am on the side where the
good potato salad is. I will let my sister speak first but I will let
everyone know that my political interests start and end with how I
grew up in Atlanta. It is just a little foolish for us to say that we
don’t inspire children by saying someone died for your right.

The people who oppose you glorify their heroes. I am a proud

American, let me say that first. I have no problem saying that
because I am provided an opportunity in this country that I travel
the world. Other black men and women don’t have that
opportunity.

It is my responsibility to take that opportunity and create more

opportunities by way of economy; having a platform to speak on
behalf of; and by way of making sure my constitutional rights and
privileges are honoured. This is why you hear me, someone who
stands a lot of time with people on the left, say that I don’t care
what other black people are talking about – I am not giving up my
gun for anybody. The second amendment promises me that. I
speak and say what I like because the first amendment promises
me that.

CHAIR: Mike, I don’t want you stop. What I want you to do is tell me
about the process, because you and Bernie have been riding hard
but I am interested in knowing what was the conversation.

KILLER MIKE: It’s bigger than Bernie. We are going to keep it local. I am talking
about Atlanta. What I mean is that Atlanta is a black city that
succeeded with some black, but non-black total agreement. We
had a black paper here that was owned by black republicans,
which helped the SCLC promote, which was owned by black
liberals.
We had black ministers who were ultimately conservative and told
Doctor King when he was a young man in the late fifties, “Hey I
want to start a campaign” – they said, “Well there’s Alabama.
Take yourself down there and go.”

It did not start in Atlanta because Atlanta black folk had some
money and they were a little boujee. It started outside Atlanta
and came back with young people. So young people, the old
people with whom you disagree now once were young and
because they did things like taking bullets, beatings, bashes to
the brain – you have that opportunity.

So absolutely, there’s a blood oath that’s been made in every

American. When we learned about the American revolution in
Corrier Heights Elementary and all black neighborhoods, we did
not learn about a white country that simply used us as slaves. We
learned that the first person to die on behalf of this country was a
black man named Christmas Addocks.

That gives a sense of pride to a black boy. Well what happens to

that black boy then? That little boy grows up and goes to
Frederick Douglas High School. Frederick Douglas is the most
photographed person of the nineteenth century. A person who
worked with both democrats and republicans, who helped free
not only black people, but women.

He said in 1865, women and black people deserve the right to

vote. I would not know that had I not been educated by a
syllabus that was given from Clarke University. What you see
when you see me and TIP is the product of black excellence. We
didn’t wake up and then black started using big words, singing,
dancing and had it all figured out. This is a process. You are a
part of a process the same way a Jewish child is part of a ten
thousand year process of keeping their culture.
 Clarance Avont is the reason you have a Sean Combs. Never in
your black life allow your history to be wiped away. After you
know you’re dragging yourself out when you don’t feel like going
to vote, call your black friend and tell him to vote – take your
children when you go to vote so that it becomes a habit. Who is
your congressman? Who is your senator? Who is your city council
person? If you cannot answer those, you have already failed
yourself.

Google that and know that it is your responsibility because you

stand on the shoulders of others. It is your responsibility because
that is your current president right now. It is your responsibility
on behalf of your children and that is simply why you vote.

CHAIR: I appreciate that and I think the context you have given between
knowing and teaching our history, versus the messaging that we
are using are two different things. I can totally agree with you
but I still have a question nonetheless, because I think you have
negotiated with people – what your support looks like – in ways
that none of us have ever negotiated. The same way business
people have sat at the table with others and negotiated deals that
others couldn’t.

I’m curious: What does the negotiation look like with a candidate
when you say , “I’m going to give you my support. These are the
things that have to be there for me to give that support.” I think
that’s important as we start talking about who we are going to
support and I need to hear that from you.

KILLER MIKE: If you look at our Mayor, I’ve supported him first – Bernie. He put
forward marijuana decriminalization bill. Why does marijuana
decriminalization matter in Atlanta? I know a lot of young men
mine and TIP’s son’s age that get a marijuana conviction and all
of a sudden their scholarship ends at Clarke, Moorhouse, Georgia
 State. I wanted to make sure that would not happen to a young
man again.

I told her when she was on the city council, “If you can get the
council to support the decriminalization bill, you have my full and
total support.” I would like to say that TIP and myself stood out
in the rain, on those steps on that morning and gave those
speeches on our behalf because we saw her come closer to the
progressive chain of thought that we wanted.

After we did that we saw Atlanta follow, Clarke was ahead of us,
but you see other counties decriminalize. That comes directly out
of local politics and us talking directly to candidates. In terms of
national candidates – if your national policy appeals to me or I see
it working for my people in some way, then you have my support,
but you also have my honesty. My honesty is always going to tell
you what I do and what I do not support.

CHAIR: Candace, same question on the other side. What are the
negotiation tactics to ensure that we are not acquiescing to
someone else’s agenda but being clear about ours in the process
of giving them our support.

CANDACE: The first thing is that it is important to identify what our agenda
actually really is. I think that the most important thing for people
in this room to understand is that there is a very small window.
Right now the black vote is the most important vote in the
country.

There is a very small window before our vote ceases to matter,

these conferences and us sitting here will not matter because
illegal immigration – if you’re looking at the numbers, every new
birth in this country:
Sixty per cent of all new births are Hispanic Americans. I say
illegal is the new black because it is true. There is a reason why
they are advocating for open borders. Right now our vote means
a lot but new births of black Americans have stagnated. The
population growth within black America has stagnated.

The things that I pay attention to are the numbers. I pay

attention to the birth rates in this country, which is why I’m pro
putting something down to stop illegal immigration. The second
thing that I think is important – and you may have heard me
testify in front of congress – is the illiteracy rates that are facing
black America.

Seventy five per cent of black boys in California can’t pass a

reading exam. Across Baltimore they looked at five schools and
couldn’t find a single black child that could pass a basic reading
or math exam. I caught a lot of slack because I said this is the
democrat plantation, but I meant what I said.

When you look historically at what plantations were when we

were slaves, there were three things that were needed for them
to run. The first was our ignorance. Black Americans were not
allowed to read, otherwise we would have our limbs chopped off.
That was because an educated mind cannot be enslaved. So the
fact that our education and our schools are in the condition in
inner cities and all throughout America, and not a single
candidate is talking about it is problematic to me.

I think that’s a huge negotiating tool for me. Another component,

and this is the biggest issue that I think is facing America today
which was important for maintaining the plantations was the
break-down of the family. The biggest issue facing black America
is father absence. We have children that are growing up without
their fathers in the home and that is being incentivized by the
government right now via the welfare system.
 When the government says, “We’ll give you more money if you
don’t marry the father of your children.” It is incentivizing bad
behavior in our community. What happens when you remove a
father from the home? This is why I do not mess with feminism at
all! I’m not with it.

This break-down in mocking masculinity, making it seems like

there is something wrong about being a man, all of this
contributes to the break-down of family. The single motherhood
rate in the 1960s in black America … [multiple interruptions from
an individual in the audience]

KILLER MIKE: These are black men and women, and in particular these are
black women. It does not matter how you feel about her
personally. Everything she has just said, Lois Farrakhan has said
for the last twenty five years. I don’t know if she’s a fan of
Farrakhan, I know Tamika and I are, but you cannot take the truth
and be mad at who tells it to you. So just chill, be quiet and
receive the information, that’s it.

CANDACE: I have been turned into public enemy number one and I say the
same thing whenever I hit the stage. The single motherhood rate
in the black community in the 1960s before Linden Banks Johnson
started the Great Society Act, was twenty three per cent. At that
time that was considered very high. Twenty three per cent of
black people are growing up without a father in the home.

The single motherhood rate in the black community today is

seventy four per cent. Seventy four per cent of our children are
growing up without a father in the home. It was Barrack Obama,
who I don’t even have anything for, who told you what happens
when you remove a father from the home. You are nine times
more likely to end up in prison. You are six times more likely to
drop out of high school and you are twelve times more likely to
live a life of poverty.
 Why is nobody talking about father absence and why I we keeping
silent when we actually do. This is what black conservatism is by
the way. It is really not that controversial.

CHAIR: I want to make sure I get Katrina in here and then we’ll open this
up a little bit because at some point I hear all of this but the issue
is we still have to elect people, we have to create power from the
local level and to national. There’s a plan that has to be in place
for us to be able to deal with this stuff so Katrina I want to hear
from you as you have been engaged in this current administration
– what is it about this administration that makes you so confident
that it has the ability to deliver what a black community, that this
president who is often in opposition to, cannot?

KATRINA: Your question leads to what I said was the biggest gap in the
community, and that is this vacuum in leadership. When I first
met president Trump, I had heard him years before he actually
ran for office. He talked about things that were really important
to me as a black mother. Not just as an American or as a voter.
What he has done since he has been elected is prove himself.

He has given more money to HBCUs. He just eliminated three

hundred million dollars of debt from hurricane relief. He has just
given them another hundred million dollars more on top of what
no one wants to talk about like those at MSNBC and CNN –
opportunity zones.

There are nine thousand opportunity zones that were established

by the Trump administration including probably two dozen
counties right here in Altanta, in this state, in Faulton County
where he has put up hundreds of billions of dollars of investment
into black communities. Not just impoverished communities, but
black communities. So to me, you put your money where your
mouth is.
 This president has done that, so what all the young people in the
room should do – we’ve heard that we don’t have a voice; we
hear disenfranchisement – well guess what? Who has been in
charge of these communities for the last four to five decades.
[Candace interevenes – “Democrats”]. Exactly.

CHAIR: Wait, I know where we are going and I love the fact that to me,
promise zones sound a whole lot like empowerment zones from
the Clintons. Neither party delivered on making sure that
legitimate development took pplace in our communities. I’m
interested TIP, and you’re coming in on this economic piece. How
do we begin to deal with that because the federal government
creating zones has normally been the places where gentrification
starts first.

TIP: I had a question for both of you young ladies and Candace, how is
it that you can support and align with a constituency that will not
denounce white supremacy? That means your son, daughter or any
of your family members – if they are called out there by a
policeman who is a covert / undercover cop and gunned down,
this constituency will have nothing to say about that. How do you
support that?

Although what you’re saying is absolutely factual and a lot of the

things you are saying have merit, I cannot even get to that before
I address the disregard for young black lives and he will not speak
up on it. All of the things that you spoke on from opportunity
zones, I will never anything negative to say about the financial
benefits and tax breaks that come from the republican party. I’m
a rich person and I appreciate it all.
 What we must understand when we’re talking about opportunity
zones and we’re giving credit to the person who pushed that
legislation forward, which by the way started with Tim Ford – a
black man who was a republican out of South Carolina. That is
who wrote the legislation and presented it, however, the
president did allow it to go through. In order to benefit from
opportunity zones you have to have capital gains taxes.

Not many black people in these opportunity zones have capital

gains taxes to be able to reap the benefits of these things,
therefore it would be billionaire corporations, other people who
are not from these communities coming in and building things that
we don’t need, doing things that don’t help us so they can shelter
their taxes.

I have been investing in opportunity zones all my life. I must

benefit from that, but I actually know the need of the
community. You have these systems in place but the people who
have the biggest ability to take advantage and who are readily
able to do so are people with absolutely no genuine interest in
doing anything to support this community they are coming into.
They have no tangible investment but are doing it to shelter their
tax dollars.

CHAIR: Candace please talk about your first point and then respond to
the second point.

CANDACE: Alright so to tackle the white supremacy thing, your question was
a fallacy because you insinuated that he has not denounced white
supremacy. Can somebody please go to his twitter feed right
now, go back to the shootings. I want to talk about why we get
manipulated, I am not even trying to make this a contentious
moment. This is where black America loses.
We allow people with cameras to go and hear a whole speech,
take out a couple of sentences you said and create a whole new
headline. People who were not there get incensed and
emotional. They don’t actually go back and hear what was said in
full context. They do this to me all the time, they do it to Trump.

He has denounced white supremacy so many times, about twenty

four times on his Twitter feed. If you want to fact-check me go to
a couple of weeks ago when the shootings happened. He said that
America is no place for white nationalism and white supremacy is
an issue that must be tackled.

Let me tell you why the black vote is the easiest vote for
democrats to keep for the last sixty years. If people know what
you fear, you are the easiest person to control. The democrats
have figured out that black America is emotionally responsive to
the word racism. One hundred per cent, the biggest issue facing
black America is not white supremacy.

When Trump said there were good people on both sides he was
talking about the fact that some people who were in the
Charlottesville rally literally came there because they don’t
believe that statues should be torn down.

Amongst the people that went there were white nationalists.

There were some people that were there using their first
amendment right. There were some people there to respond to
the white nationalist in a big must happen. I am saying that being
hung up on that is allowing you to not look at an administration
that is tackling so many issues in black America right now.
 I do not consider myself a republican, I am definitely not a
democrat. Trump woke me up. I used to be liberal and he woke
me up to the idea that we are being manipulated by the word
racism every four years. We can be emotional, boo and cheer but
I am telling you right now the black vote is not going to matter
after the next five years if you don’t pay attention to what I’m
saying to you. I’m telling you the absolute truth.

You are being used, abused, lied to and manipulated by the

democrat party. If you want to keep uprising and talking about
racism when they are taking our fathers out of the home.

CHAIR: Wait a minute because what I’m concerned about is, how is that
any different than the fear that Trump has created in poor
whites? The fear that Trump has lifted in poor whites that black
people and poor, immigrants and urban people are their problem?
He did that when he said “Make America Great Again”.

TIP: When you say make America great again, which period are we
talking about? The period when women couldn’t vote? When black
people were hanging from trees or the crack era? Which period in
America are you referring to? [the crowd went wild at this point
and Candace’s point was declared dead by the Chair]

TAMIKA: This is really a lot to unpack. First there’s a lot of things that
need to be clarified. First, you don’t need to fact-check Candace
or anybody else on what Trump actually said. Call Jake Tapper at
CNN because he already fact-checked it and said he was pulled
out of context. It’s already been fact-checked in the media
number one.
 Number two, I think hundreds if not thousands by now of young
black men will be going home for Christmas because of criminal
justice reform put in place by president Donald J Trump. That
impacts the black community in a major way. Why is nobody
reporting that? People who have been given harsh sentences and
have been in there for far too long have been freed because black
people who are woke went to the oval office and said, “How can
we help black America?”

President Trump said, “Whatever I can do, I will. You want you
basketball players coming back from China? I’ll help you with
that. You want ASAP Rocky? I’ll make that phonecall.” Come to
the table, he is willing to help. TI I am telling you he will do
whatever is asked of him.

TIP: You just showed that what they did was manipulate black people
to thinking that by getting a person out of jail, then I’m cool with
you. I am from the ghetto. I have been peeping game for a long
time. I know when things are not right. I do agree with the
criminal justice reform, he has done great things but it is all from
an opportunist’s perspective.

It is a lie to say that black America cannot move forward because

Trump is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Black
America has been moving forward generation by generation. It is
more self-sufficient and This Forward was brought to you by a
black man. I am not going to let you tell my children black people
are not moving forward.

KILLER MIKE: Black people, stop it! Everybody hush. Listen. I am about to give
you the secret to what you are all witnessing. What you black
people are seeing right now are free people arguing over who has
got the best master. So we are going lock and register this back
down. I’ll tell you when America was great. Seven years after the
ending of the civil war.
Blacks within seven to fifteen years accumulated over fifteen
millions acres of land. Before you get to clapping, black people
bought some land. Black people were the only skilled labour. If
there was welding to be done, iron bending, cotton picking it was
black people so instantly your value became more and Candace
has a point.

The point that she made about illegal immigration affecting you is
it is going to affect you at some point. Why? If the Keygel Chicken
Factory is higher in illegal immigrants at an undercut rate, it
affects the black people who live there who should be demanding
twenty bucks an hour. They are being undercut, so when they get
wiped out they have to hire blacks, pay them and unionize. So she
is right on that.

You have to remember that people who look like you immigrate
too so before you wildly dismiss them all, America is always going
to have a slave class. If illegal immigrants will not be the lowest
paid workers, those in prison will be and they always end up
looking like their sons and so it circles back around. People who
are black, came from two different plantations and had to get far
enough away from the master to ask, “How are we going to burn
down both their houses?”

This is my thought: I don’t care if you destroy the democratic or

republican party because at one time blacks were republicans and
you dominated those seven years after the civil years. You had
more black in the House of Senate than you do now and you
dominated your own economic communities. You did that as
republicans. As democrats you did that in cities like Atlanta, you
failed in other cities but the most important thing is self-
organizing.
By the time we get to a candidate we should have a list of things:
“White man, white woman, these are our demands. You can meet
them and get our vote or you cannot and we’ll stay home, make
crochet and collar greens.” What we cannot do is continue to
argue who is the best master. I don’t care if it’s Tump, Obama,
your mama, my mama. What do you have for me and my
community?

How about we shape the good of what we each have into a ten-
point agenda to present to every local, state and national
politician – “If you cannot meet points on our agenda, we simply
cannot support you. I like you, I love your casinos Mr Trump, I like
you Bernie. I like maple syrup that comes from Vermont but what
do you have for us?”

When talking about whether black people have done better we

keep doing better and getting knocked down. This is your
homework, I give up on trying to convince you. Go home tonight
and listen to Thomas Saw; Walter E Williams; Antonio Moore;
Evette Carnell; the economic strategy of Elijah Mohamed and
Marcus Garvey; the political strategy of Stokely Charmichael; get
on your study and prove yourself worthy because I am tired of
arguing who has the best master. You are already free, now act
like it. Do your research and decide what is best for you.

What was best for us in Atlanta was a black man who said, “Okay,
I’m the mayor now. You want to do business with Atlanta? You
want to use an opportunity zone – twenty nine per cent of
government contracts have to be attached to black people.”
When he found out that there were no black architectural firms
he said, “We can’t build airport runways so he gave white firms
the right to build airport runways.” The Herman Russel company
laid the runway so my thing is, as black people how are we going
to get into a room together, stop fighting over who is master,
decide what our agenda is and how to leverage it?
 I don’t care who agrees with Collin Capernick or Jay Z. I care that
black people as a whole showed up to work that day. What if
nobody had showed up to work? If every policeman, beer
salesman, car parker, NFL analyst would not have showed up …
Until we are ready to do that, we are not serious about being
free.

You are just here to see a show and argue about who has got the
best master. Until we decide what is the real breaking point, if
blacks are fifteen per cent of America, we should be fifteen per
cent of Wall Street, music executives, Hollywood executives,
governors, mayors and until you hit that fifteen per cent you are
failing, failing, failing no matter who your master is. So pick a
better master and I say kill your master and get your own things.

CHAIR: One of y’all has the unfortunate responsibility of going next. As

Mike lays that down, we have a choice to make to continue to do
what Mike just suggested we do, or we move to a conversation
that shifts as a result of that. As opposed to being divided on
lines that don’t matter, let us begin to respond differently. Do we
make that shift or continue to go down that road?

STEVE: I have goose bumps listening to you and I think a lot of other
people do to because you are talking about power, the definition
of politics. When you say fifteen per cent, I want to hear fifteen
per cent or more because we can do it. I am thinking that my
family and friends are not stupid.

Black people are not dumb, we don’t care about semantics, words
and what people say. We are about vibrations, we are here
because Puff Daddy invited us, that’s music that’s vibrations. We
know when something is not right.
 What is congress’ approval rating right now? Maybe fifteen per
cent? So we are having a conversation right now about people who
are unhappy on both sides and that is what is really going on. I
want to see a conversation move forward. I am hearing truth from
both sides. I am listening to young people every day, they are
progressive and are tired of polarized lines and people saying the
same things every single day as things get worse every year.

CHAIR: So Tamika yesterday I heard you talk about the difference

between an activist and an organizer. Organizers begin to engage
to pull people together when activists are talking about what it is
they care about. This seems like an organizing opportunity to me.
As Mike started to talk about it we could lose this in loving what
Mike said and leave here to do all the same things. You listen
with your organizing mind, I want to know what you are hearing
and to get closer to what Mike was talking about than to have the
debate we were having prior to that.

TAMIKA: I think that it is absolutely true that we need to be having

conversations with people we may not agree with. Black people
are not a monolith and I think we keep trying to force black
people into one square when that is not possible. I agree one
hundred per cent that we need to be going into rooms together.
What we cannot do is go into rooms with lies. We cannot go into
rooms talking about things that are absolutely untrue and our
communities know it.

I would challenge every one here to really be able to look at

yourself and say, “What communities do you talk to that tell you
that there are jobs?” I will let you know that the Ray Ray and
Kesia that I meet with on street corners across America don’t
have these jobs so when we go into rooms and try to have these
conversations and meetings of the mind to tell them that this
party helped us to get jobs, they are not going to listen to us.
So we need to make sure that our people are at the forefront of
the conversation and that their issues are what we are taking into
account first and foremost, not an agenda of anyone else but as
you said an agenda that belongs to us. I am not here to argue the
facts of whether or not the democrats, republicans or any other
party is right for us. We actually need our own party. You talk
about what Minister Farrakhan has been telling us for so long, we
need our own party.

The only way we can get there is not uniformity but a certain
level of unity among our people where we can sit at the table and
say that we can come together for one thing, one time. I will give
you an example and then I will move on. When we talk about
organizing, we had our sister Shekisia Simmons get attacked by
police officers inside a Waffle House. They abused, derobed her
and we all saw it, it was on camera and completely out of line.

When we went to Waffle House and asked them what they felt
about the police officers’ conduct in their restaurant, we late
found out that the employees were directly responsible for what
happened to her. They said they don’t care about it and were not
interested in it.

When we came to black folks and said that we are cancelling

Waffle House, everybody started looking around and saying, “I
don’t know how I’m going to get involved with that, I don’t like
that plan. Who is the leader and how are we doing this?” The
bottom line is that if we had pulled our money from Waffle House
they would have known and other corporations would have been
able to see that you cannot play games with our community.
 While we may not all do the same things or agree on the same
tactics, what we have to be able to look at is how our power, of
us working together can make a difference in our communities
that no one has ever been able to do because it works for us and
it is a people’s voice that has always led our communities. That is
what I think we need to be focused on as organizers.

KILLER MIKE: You make a great point about the Waffle House thing because you
and TIP made me aware of it. The conundrum of certain things is
this as a Southerner: Okay you have an AK47 (TIP owned some of
those back in the day), then you have sniper rifles that target. My
opinion on the Waffle House targeting is that we should have
targeted that Waffle House and put that Waffle House out of
business. People wonder why not all Waffle Houses.

In places like Atlanta if I am a felon just coming home from a

twenty year sentence because of Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton,
the only places that will hire me are places like Waffle House. As
a felon they will hire me then I can become a grill master, then a
manager and eventually general manager.

If those black men and women can’t get hired at other places,
work at the warehouse, I would have put that Waffle House our of
business because I can count fifty that employ ten other black
people.

We cannot close five hundred jobs because of what happened.

We have to know the full ramifications. That woman was asked to
pay for silver ware. Most Waffle House give it to you for free.
They have a policy where they can charge you fifty cents. The
white woman who did that to her was unreasonable, she called
the police, riled her up and that was wrong to do.
 That white woman was obviously a racist and the only thing she
can get excited about is that at least she is not a black person. I
would have put so many people out of work that I would have had
to sit on the edge of my bed and feel bad.

CHAIR: Tamika, what I don’t want to happen is for us to get so deep into
the Waffle House piece that we get lost on what we’re doing.
What we’re doing right now is arguing tactics and strategy about a
specific issue and if we are going to do this thing then those are
the things we must do behind closed doors before we start so that
we have the ability to get most people mobilized with us and
make the greatest impact. I want to make sure that we get
questions from the audience.

TAMIKA: What do you do about Anthony Walker … for the abuse of black
people happening across their network? What do you have to say
about that?

KILLER MIKE: My thing is, we are going to have to come up with new and
specific … The first time that TIP and I ever spoke to Dick Gregory
he cussed us out for forty five minutes because TIP asked, “Should
we march?” What it made me realize that the old tactics have to
be revisited.

For example, “What can you do about police brutality?” One thing
you can do is run for local elections and start making it so that
you can sue the police pensions, unions and beyond the city
because when the city pays they do so with your money.

Go after the police’s pension, retirement money if they are found

guilty. If a judge let’s a police officer walk, elect judges and go
to the next election and remove them from the bench. A big
reason I will never vote for a prosecutor is because they were a
prosecutor.
 If you were a prosecutor you were just on the wrong side. As for
me and my household, we vote for defenders, public service and
we do not vote for people who have been part of the system that
has already ruined my life, so why would I vote for you?

CHAIR: The other piece is we have to play chess right? The other piece is
we know that police officers don’t get convicted not because of
judges and prosecutors but the law says that use of force means
that I can shoot you based on how I feel.

KILLER MIKE: We have to re-write laws. Do you know what we should be talking
about right now? Ratifying the thirteenth amendment. Nobody on
this panel would have an argument saying that slavery should be
illegal. The thirteenth amendment gives the greatest incentive to
lock us up. Nobody has said at any point has said the one thing we
can really rally around is the amendment of the thirteenth
amendment.

TAMIKA: The entire Constitution right now has areas in it that still apply to
us as being slaves.

CHAIR: Speaking of Constitutional things that happen, we know that there

is going to be re-districting in a census that happens next year.
Black folks are already being tricked about showing up, not
showing up, giving information to systems, counters, not doing it
and how we are engaging in that process.

So before we open this up, because we’ve talked about a number

of things, I want to know how important especially around this
issue of Jeryy Mandering, is the census and what do we need to be
talking about because this Jeryy Mandering piece is the party
piece. I’d love from you Candace on this issue of re-districting
and the census. Then TIP I’d love to hear from you and then I will
open the floor to engage with this panel.
CANDACE: I’m going to bring it back to what I said earlier. I think if you want
to talk about a foreign threat to our election process we shouldn’t
be talking about Russia, we should be talking about illegal
immigration because at the census that is conducted you are not
asked if you are a US citizen. When they figure out the districts
and how many votes you gather electorally, they are including
illegal immigrants who are not American citizens.

CHAIR: Despite what’s wrong with it, it’s going to happen, correct? The
census is going to happen? There has not yet been a law changed
and if it does happen, schedule is going to impact people here
based on re-districting right?

CANDACE: Well no, actually there is a great organization called Judicial

Watch run by Tom Finn and they’re fighting it. It impacts
everybody not just people. Not everything in Jerry Mandering is a
black or white issue, it’s an American issue and I think it is
important that at times when we can stop making everything
black versus white, and we talk about things that are actually
impacting America.

It may not be a black or white issue but it is absolutely a black

issue for us. This room wants to know – the question I’m hearing is
how the census count impacts our people (and what we can do to
ensure that it impacts us positively)

TAMIKA: We are talking about everything wrong with black people. You
have started and leveraged everything wrong with black people.
The quick points are, number one that there is a narrative that
has been basically created by propaganda to tell you that we
shouldn’t be counted; that when people come to your door to
count you may be arrested and all of these different fear
mongering tactics that are going to try and keep us from
participating in the census.
 The danger of that is what comes out of the census is how
resources are distributed in your local community. So not
participating in the census is not going to be the Boogeyman’s
strategy for everyone else, I think Candace’s point is right that it
becomes a black or white issue when the resources go to the
white community because they have convinced us that we should
not do the work in our communities.

The reality is that no one is going to suppress or try to suppress a

vote or a count if they don’t understand the power of it. So
anything that people are telling you not to participate in,
especially folks from what we consider to be the other side –
when they are trying to tell you that you should not participate in
something you always have the question, you always ask why it is
that white folks are being conuted in their communities, that they
are votes in the ways they should and our communities are being
told not to participate.

CANDACE: Because the illegals are flooding the black community.

CHAIR: I want to hear from you all. We’ve got a microphone right here
and folks can come and ask questions. We have a long qeue so ask
you question as quickly as you can so we can get as many in.

QUESTION 1: The Honourable Malcom X said we suffer from political

oppression, economic exploitation and social degredation. I
believe for us to end our political oppression we need political
unity. This is a healthy debate but I think we are approaching it
too micro and not enough macro. I believe that if we are going to
unify we must unify first around nationality.
 So my question relates to us needing a black vote day. Not a vote
day about democrat or republican. We need a vote about who we
are as a people. Are we Africans in America, are pan-Africans? Are
we Moors? Are we Nation of Islam? What is our nationality, flag,
constitution? What are our bi laws and core values?

What about the panel with us as leaders? Can we be that

intentional about burning down both the masters’ houses; raising
our own house; galvanizing leaders at one place and time, to vote
nationally on our flag, values and have a black vote day in real
life? Can we do that?

TIP: I think it would be helpful. There are lots of conversations right

now around reparations and so on but as I have been enlightened
by brother J Morrison we can’t get reparations because we
haven’t been efficiently classified as a nationality. African
American is not a nationality.

Black is not a nationality so you can’t give reparations to people

who don’t have an official nationality, a flag, Constitution, a seat
at the UN. So when we are speaking about reparations my though
is that we are putting the cart before the horse.

I understand the importance of that but I also think that there has
to be detailed instructions, lines of how to step-by-step achieve
this goal so you will know exactly what you are asking people to
do.

QUESTION 2: My question is for Killer Mike. My name is Brandon Robinson, I’m

from Detroit Michigan and run an art brokerage company where
we represent all our artists all over the Calt, Faultzen county. I
have just been invited by district nine vendor event on Tuesday.
This same district is equal to the same district in California as far
as the money that comes in family incomes.
 But when I come to Faultzen they say I’m too rich for them and
that their kids don’t need the scores to be up. This forces my
business as a black entrepreneur to go out there to district nine.
It’s like there’s no luck for entrepreneurship in the school system
to even get one-on-one with their technology.

I’m talking to principals that are five to one and I will give them
ten per cent back. I’m just trying to figure out why does it seem
like the white community adapts to what my company does, more
so than the black counties in Atlanta?

KILLER MIKE: I don’t have those answers. I don’t know the specifics but what I
do know that enough pressure will suffice and if you are truly
bringing a resource to the community, keep applying the pressure.
I know Michael Therman is a CEO out there, they are planning to
replace a superintendent there who will retire soon so keep
applying pressure.

What I do know is that black politicians and white politicians are

all politiians. Politicians respond to money and the will of the
people by way of a vote. That’s the way to apply pressure – bring
money into and take money out of or apply the pressure to your
constituency of applying a vote.

QUESTION 3: I want to first of all thank you because what we are really talking
about is the unfinished business of the civil rights movement. We
all stand on those shoulders and none of that happens without
vigorous, rigor and lively debate. My name is Julia Compton, I’m
from Atlanta High Tower on Bank and Rome. I am a consulting
producer on a documentary The Forgotten Ones on HBO.
 My question is for TIP because I want to bring it back to the head.
You said earlier on this evening that the things we are talking
about are separate but they really are not, they are related. I
think it’s important to end off the evening talking about how we
bring these things back to the relevancy of Atlanta and local
politics.

TIP: First of all, when we start to speak about politics, the first thing I
want to make sure everybody understands about TIP is that in my
eyes it’s not about republican or democrat. It’s about decent
people who have a genuine interest to fulfil the need of the
people that look like me and that’s how I feel.

If you know that the education system is sub-par in Atlanta, I have

children who go to school and I don’t want the education system
to be sub-par. So I’m voting for someone with a strong education
initiative. It’s not about voting for people because I’m black and
they are democrats.

Candace much to your dismay, that’s not how I feel. That’s not
how I choose a candidate. I choose people whom I feel are
decent, honest, educated, experienced and can actually follow
through with the things they stand on tv and say. I think that
everybody on this panel is brilliant, we all have ideas that could
benefit one another and I think that what Mike said was
absolutely correct.

KILLER MIKE: Before we get out of here, your charge is to read the preamble
and the United States Constitution so you know what your rights
are. To Atlanta: you should be the prototype for democratic and
republican black progression because you have the economic
means, a school system where fifty per cent or more are named
for black educators and emancipators yet you are not graduating
fifty per cent of your students.
 You have the ability, the third most fortune five hundred
companies here, the most black restaurants and hookah lounges.
This is Wakanda black people and if you can’t make Wakanda
work then we will fail in Charlotte, Jacksonville, Tampa and
Detroit. The answer is not with any one person on this stage, it is
in each individual in this room.

After these cameras leave get into your church meetings, living
rooms, masonic temples and organize, organize, organize and
organize! It is our job to get off both plantations. I don’t care if
it’s the social democrat one or the one by the casino owner. Get
off them an build your own things. Atlanta if we do not do it we
are failing all of black America. I love you all and I appreciate
that you let me talk.

CHAIR: Ladies and gentlemen that is the last word. Please give a round of
applause to everyone on this stage.