Season One is coming to a close, and we’re reflecting on how misinformation has reoriented the way we interact with the media as a whole. In this special, extended episode, our MJ comrades DJ Hudson and Brandon Forester join us to reflect on a variety of misinfo-related pop culture stories, including Stark Trek and #StopCopCity, and how these moments have an impact on our culture. We do some forecasting for the future and take a look at how our communities are actively fighting back.
Season One is coming to a close, and we’re reflecting on how misinformation has reoriented the way we interact with the media as a whole. In this special, extended episode, our MJ comrades DJ Hudson and Brandon Forester join us to reflect on a variety of misinfo-related pop culture stories, including Stark Trek and #StopCopCity, and how these moments have an impact on our culture. We do some forecasting for the future and take a look at how our communities are actively fighting back.
Host: Eteng Ettah
Producer: Genevieve Montinar
Original Music Compositions by: Brandon Bagaason
Clip 1: Credit- Posted by joe kose on YouTube “Star Trek Original Theme”
Clip 2: Credit- Posted by Flicks and Music on YouTube “The Color Purple (OST) - Main Title
Clip 3: Credit- Posted by HBO on YouTube “Succession Opening Credits Theme Song | Succession HBO
Clip 4: Credit- Posted by Goodie Mob on YouTube “Cell Therapy (Official HD Video)
Clip 5: Credit- Posted by Sacredity on YouTube “Steven Universe Theme song (with lyrics)
Clip 6: Credit- Posted by TV Themesongs on YouTube “Abbott Elementary Intro”
View the transcript here: https://actually-hold-up.simplecast.com/episodes/hold-up-misinfo-cant-live-long-and-prosper/transcript
You can check out Copaganda Clapback here
Make sure to follow MediaJustice on Twitter (X) @mediajustice and on Instagram @MediaJustice
Eteng Ettah: 0:12
Hi, I'm Eteng Ettah with MediaJustice, and welcome to "Actually... Hold Up", where we break down what you don't know about the stories you think you know, and why. If you've been tuned in all season long, you already know that misinformation is rampant, and popular stories often come to us from the media in a manipulated way. Don't worry, though, that's where we come in.
So I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is that this is our season finale. The good news, though, is that because there were so many topics we could have talked about in this season that we weren't able to get to. We're switching things up in our final episode, we're going to have a lightning round where we're going to touch on a variety of different stories and topics, and then do some forecasting for the future.
Before we dive in, I want to offer a special acknowledgement and thank you to Harvard Shorenstein center on media politics and public policies, technology and social change program led by Dr. Joan Donovan, who developed the media manipulation cycle we've been discussing all season long.
We have two of our comrades from media justice as our guests for our season finale episode, I want to welcome our guests Brandon Forester, our national organizer for Internet rights, and DJ Hutson, our digital organizer, and media justice.
Welcome Brandon and DJ.
Brandon Forester: Hey,
D.J. Hudson: Hey,
Eteng Ettah:
cool. All right. So I'm excited for this conversation. This y'all are such a dynamic duo. It's gonna be great. So let's first start off, I want to get a sense from both of you. What was it a top popular story or a cultural event you followed this year or in recent years that you'd consider to be a standout when it comes to misinformation? And obviously standout is not positive? In that context?
Brandon Forester: 2:20
Yeah, I can start. I think that it's a story that is the one that stood out this year, and also in the past. And it's, for me, it's like this misinformation around the kind of crisis of masculinity. And the way that the stories come out, is actually in these forms of mass shootings, which are often perpetrated by folks who consider themselves in cells are involuntary, involuntarily celibate.
But it's not just that, like there's this whole, there's this whole kind of grievance politic, by conservative men, particularly white men, but also you see the strain happening in the black community. There have been a lot of stories over the last year about Asians men's rights group on Reddit.
And there's like this, this mythology, or there's the misinformation piece for me is like, this concept that as the world is shifting, and as men are less able to oppress others, essentially, they're like, the thing that they're holding on to is this, this concept of masculinity. And the thing that they're that they're claiming is emasculation, but really what that means what they're saying is that we don't like the way the world is changing, because it doesn't allow us to have dominion over others.
And so there's this whole thing it goes from like Tucker Carlson trying to tell men that they need to get special tanning, tanning methods for their scrotum to like. So the way that you see Trump kind of show up in this machismo it's like, yeah, so it's really been for me, like, I feel like that's been the big thing that's been on my mind. It's just the ways that this old guards it's kind of old oppression really desperately tries to hold.
D.J. Hudson 4:10:
Man, thinking about tanning differently now.
So yeah, I am DJ and I am in Atlanta. And I grew up not too far away from the city itself. And, yeah, we have a cop city to stop. And I think that the fact that it's known as cop city is actually like a huge victory over misinformation and disinformation is the story that I've been following just because I'm always fascinated by all the ways that movement will respond to bullshitters but also because I'm from here, and so Atlanta has this like, you know, mythology of being the black Mecca and it is this place that is by and for black people and that it is full of all this black political power.
And yet like you know, Oh, I'm only a couple of miles away from where Rashard Brooks was murdered. And the fact that this was first of all presented as a training center that was going to make Atlanta more safe, but also like this like narrative that like, oh yeah, of course black people in his black city want to have this forest destroyed so that there can literally be a fake city built so that the police can get better at navigating this black as city to chase black people and harm them. And then there's also just been like repeated just like mind boggling examples of misinformation and particularly from the local news media, like I grew up reading the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
And it's a real good example too of what happens when we lose, you know, independent media and when we lose like local media or media is subsumed into these big corporate structures, because the AJC now is just like a mouthpiece for the Atlanta Police Foundation who are the ones who were both benefiting from in funding and absolutely behind pushing capcity but some of them were even more like Stark examples right. So like you've had multiple City Council hearings where people all over the world have watched hours and hours of public comment from Atlantans black Atlantans, saying We do not want this and for there still to be routine news narratives about how the activist fighting against cop city or so are not from here outsiders,
man wow, history being called an outside agitator is nowhere new. That's literally the same accusation that was made against black civil rights protesters, again in Atlanta and all around across the south. So like we're seeing misinformation just on a fucking roll. But also, it's just so not new. And then there's like they just straight up lied and said that cops city was only gonna cost $30 million.
Mind you, again, going to the Atlanta Police Foundation, the most well funded Police Foundation in the country. The misinformation is just naming these things as if they are a fact, when in fact, the deal that was signed was that the city of Atlanta is going to pay 30 Millions of my tax dollars to the Atlanta Police Foundation and $1 million every year for the next 30 years.
So actually booboo the price tag is 60 million of my money and no, no, thank you. So yeah, following cop city closely, mostly also because like, yeah, we got to the top cities and stop and we are here doing it.
And I think you all had my fellow organizer earlier this season, right? Talking about some of the propaganda stuff. And so it's that's like a big, obvious example. But it happens in all different ways through our local news through our newspapers. It's not just something that's like these bigger stories when you see that happen.
Eteng Ettah 7:45
Yeah, I appreciate the examples. Your naming for masculinity, gender stop cop city can't talk about misinformation without talking about the police and anything they're saying being reported. as fact. I also really, really appreciate what you're naming DJ about how misinformation is not something new.
And so it reminds me of our premiere episode and conversation with Bridget Todd, where we were talking a bit about the context that we're in with social media. And the internet makes things a bit more tricky. But our folks have been contending with having to parse out accurate information, but also get information that's actually reminiscent or representative of what is actually happening on the ground.
And so I want to talk about another big issue that's been coming up and it's around our education system. And so you both have incredible education background. So Brandon, you have been an educator and DJ, you have been a librarian. And so something we've been seeing is this pattern of our education system as like a site for misinformation. So whether it's state governments like what we're seeing in Florida, where African American Studies and other marginalized histories, you know, are being removed from curriculums, as well as we're seeing this with right wing commentators when it comes to the whole critical race theory debate, which is a legal framework, not something we are teaching kindergarteners and yet like the misinformation around that would make you think that's what's happening.
And so, I'd love to hear both of your takes on you know, what is the state of education as a site for promoting misinformation? And are there any ways you've seen students and other folks fight back against um,
D.J. Hudson 9:53:
I can start us off because I love talking about libraries. I especially Do you have a deep, deep abiding love for public libraries, I'm not like a on paper library. And I do not have my library science degree. But I have had the opportunity to work in university libraries and also in a main branch of a public library, one of my favorite jobs of all time, in part because public library specifically literally exists to be places for people to come and find whatever information it is that they need.
And is one of the only places that is one like a true public Commons and a third spaces people talk about, but also a place where you can come in and get like state funded resources that you need, whether it's being able to apply for a job, being able to figure out how to fix your car, being able to understand your relationship to your own gender, for free, without having to give over your own information without having to do all of these other punitive things, right, they get in between what we need.
And I think that what public librarians also do, what they did for me, right was like my first introduction to the concept of misinformation. It wasn't called that as much. But what I was introduced through working in libraries is the concept of information literacy, which is like a series of frameworks and principles, and ideally, goals that people can achieve. And understand these concepts of how information works, how we as human beings relate to information, and then how we get more information and what happens everywhere in between there. So basic things like knowing that you will not seek out information that you don't know that you already don't have. And also that it should be somebody's job to be present to help you when you have a question and help turn you in directly towards the information that you need and help you navigate it. Right.
That's what public librarians do. And also people always have so many questions, I worked in the reference library. And so my job was to answer questions for people all day, which I absolutely love. And also one of my favorite parts of the job was making library displays. And so watching what's been happening right now with these book bands, and these attacks is really making me You know, I've been sending so much love to my library colleagues and folks who are out here because they really are on the front lines, you'd be surprised how politicized a library display can be, which is literally just putting books together somewhere where people can see them that have something in common and hopes that they'll read them, right.
We do displays for lots of reasons to hope that people will fill gaps that they might not realize they have in my favorites were making the private displays. And so you can imagine a pride display might be the only time that a young person or even an older person, let's talk about it right? How many folks are always seeking information about the rest of the world and who they are. This might be the only way that you even know that it's possible for you to understand what it might be like to be trans and in the south, right. And even the ways that libraries are constructed, there has been so much that is then sent to put on a tag to keep these pieces of information off the shelf.
So like right now, why eight books? Why if you read white books, and you understand why it's one of the biggest growing and most popular sections of any library or bookstore, because why writers are literally writing about and to and for the experiences of young people of all kinds of different stripes and walks of life. When you take those away, you take away not only a safe space, but an opportunity for somebody to have access to information that has been contested for a really, really long time in a place where they actually would be with somebody who can help them navigate and look for even more of what they want to know.
Brandon Forester: 13:33
Yeah, I'm actually going to cheat. I'm going to start talking about librarians also. And then I'll get to kind of the schooling part. So DJ and I, just a couple of weeks ago, we were in Mississippi doing some story collecting about the digital divide in the black, rural South. And then part of that was actually in dealing with this larger kind of misinformation theme that pits urban versus rural places against each other in this conversation about the internet. And often that's coded language, especially at the national level, we're urban, they're talking about black communities, and rural, they're talking about white communities.
But that's obviously we know that that's not true that that doesn't work like that. But also the truth is, is that it's black rural communities that are the ones that are the most disconnected. And so we were talking and interviewing a librarian down there. And one of the questions we had asked was, you know, why do you think that is? Why do you think that the most disconnected place in the United States is a black rural South? And I think for her for Ms. Gene, it went back to this kind of broader question and more historical view of of, you know, why folks need access to information and why they're denied access to information.
So when asking Miss Jean, this librarian, and Mississippi who'd been a public library and had been in librarian at this HBCU community college and now maintains the institute museum that holds that history that like a lot of these histories is actively being erased by the white power. So anyways, her response to Why is why is the most disconnected place of black rural South?
Why is that the place where they don't want people to have this connection information on one another. And she said basically, it's the same reason why they said that enslaved people didn't need to read. You don't need information to pick cotton. And that's what these power structures want. They want us to be docile workers. They don't want us to be people that are critical thinkers. And that's to say, critical thinking that word critical and critical thinking is the same one, as a word critical and critical race theory.
So anyways, I think that that is an important part of this conversation is that they don't want us to know our histories, because in our histories, they're the seeds of revolution. There are seeds of actions that we can take to change these fundamental broken systems that exist. But let me do so as an educator like this battle in the education space has been going on for a long time. I'm from Wichita, Kansas, it's also the home of the Koch brothers and Koch Industries. And so I've always kind of viewed them as like my nemesis.
And the situation we find ourselves in with Christopher Ruffo is part of like a long lineage that the Koch brothers father Fred Koch is a part of, he was a founder of the John Birch Society. The John Birch Society was a super conservative group of kind of conspiracy theorists who came together, they were too far right for even like Nixon and William F. Buckley, and folks at that time, not too, not too conservative for folks like Barry Goldwater. But at that time, like the Conservative Party was like, we still need their support, but they are outside of the party. L
ike they can't be a part of this in public. And actually, like, even they go back to this like myth of masculinity. If anybody's familiar with the movie, Dr. Strangelove with Peter Sellars, there's this whole like scene, there's this whole like, theme about how fluoridating water is a communist conspiracy theory. And in my hometown of Wichita, Kansas today, we still do not have fluoride in our water because of those kinds of silly conspiracy theories.
But the reason why I bring this up is because in the 1960s, what they were saying, and you have to remember that this is in response to all of the things happening in the 60s, the response to things happening, the protests against wars, the protests about things about gender, and sexuality and race that reached a peak, and you think about Qin state where that protests led to mass shooting of student protesters. So in this in this kind of setting, in that context, the John Birch Society was actively telling their membership, you need to join the PTA, because they understood that as a school as a place of education, that's an inherently a liberal space.
And I say liberal space and like a space where a classically liberal space where you're going to encounter these ideas and these philosophies, and you're going to be like, critically thinking about the society, the reality you're in. And they don't like that, because they saw what happened when people in the 60s started to question these kinds of dynamics. Whether they were gender or race or capitalism or imperialism.
They understood that those questions were fed and fueled and grown by access to these places where people were not just workers were not just cogs in a capitalist machine. They were folks that were asked to that we're accountable to critical inquiry and critical thought. And so this is not like all the things that we're seeing now. In no way are new. We're seeing like much more cruel versions of them. I think, with the ways that we see kind of the trans panic and the way that they talk about grooming, like those are insidious and like different and I for me, I feel like even more deeply evil ways and telling us not to fluoridate our water, although like fluoride in the water helps prevent heart attacks. I won't go through all that. Look it up.
Anyways, I'll stop there. And just by saying like, this is not new, like this is and it's also the same people. Like I said, this was started by like a founder was Fred Koch. And if you look back and think look at how folks were talking about Donald Trump as he was running for president, the folks on the far right, we're talking about him as a John Birch candidate, the Koch brothers are the ones that have been fueling this. They're the ones that are fueling Chris Ruffo.
They're the ones that made the Tea Party there. Maybe they weren't as much, but folks like them in the folks that are part of this legacy, the John Birch Society, were the ones that were financing the January 6, insurrection. And so like it's not new, it it is part of a much bigger kind of campaign, by the far right, to make us into folks who are docile and can't participate critically or in a meaningful way in our society.
D.J. Hudson 19:48
Can I hop into a little bit more critical thinking because this is something that I've been thinking about a lot too, because also as our education system has been changing, and as our education standards have been changing? The basic structures and like just the foundations that you need as a person who was learning about the world around you to be able to embrace your own capacity for critical thinking, those things have not been taught in schools nowadays.
And also to the reason why that's dangerous for society is because then what you lose is the natural instinct that people have to second guessed the authority of somebody who says anything to you, right? And to be able to realize that like, oh, actually, I can be manipulated, based on what information I'm willing to believe and whether or not I will ask questions about it. Going back to those library displays, you know, they're one of the books that I used to always intentionally put on my library displays during Pride was the query graphic novel, I was not surprised to see that it was like up at the top of the list of some of the most frequently banned books because they'd already been one of the most frequently banned books for so long.
Same thing with Maus, the comic that, you know, featuring these mice characters, they're about how to teach people how to understand society in a critical way. So that when you walk past a library display, and I've intentionally put pictures of Marsha P Johnson on it, then it clicks in your mind. Oh, wait a second, not only can I be trans, I can be black and trans black people can be trans trans people aren't black. Okay, wait a second. And then you start to see the narrative that your toll unraveling and then you also get to learn that the P and Marsha P stands for paid online.
Right, then you actually get to see this long queer history of resistance to oppression, through humor through laughter. In the 1970s, I had to go back and look up her name as Anita Blake, I think I always forget Nina Brian O'Brien, because I call her that orange woman in my head. In the 1970s, she was saying that homosexuals can't reproduce. Unfortunately, baby were quite fertile. Homosexuals can't reproduce.
So they have to recruit right? Not knowing or remembering or recalling which I know people have to write that this we've already been here before. As a nation. This was also in Florida. We've been here before we've seen this before. And so when people can act like these are new moments, and like trans people just popping up out, you look out, you know, you're gonna get your babies and like, No, we're we're busy saving up that of our own childhood kids are expensive. People also completely lose in this context for when folks are chanting at the drag March in New York City that we're coming for your children.
That is a joke that people have been saying for years and years, because children have been used as a cudgel against our communities for so long, that the best that we can do is go on and live about our lives. But if you must press us, then we'll acknowledge it. So being able to know the world around you and understand it in a historical context is crucial.
But there are things that are being taken away from people in education right now, that are making them more vulnerable to not being able to recognize these things. And
Eteng Ettah: 22:50
So much brilliance, so many great gems, it's really clear that I just I appreciate the reinforcing that. But this isn't new. And so it makes me think about just how deliberative is to make these things seem new as a way to disconnect folks from this historical context.
And, you know, Brandon, you're you were touching on this in particular, were like, folks know that the more we read into our history and get that information, those seeds of revolution that you're speaking to, and so, you know, the folks that we're fighting know that as well, as you know, we hope and want to ensure that our communities also know that that wisdom is really, really powerful.
And so I want to move us to talking about the ways that community has always found ways to communicate and to share information. So in the midst of book bans, and rapid misinformation on social media, like I love that our folks always find a way. And so I'm curious one if there and I appreciate Brandon, that you mentioned a movie, so we're gonna talk about movies real quick.
So I'm curious if there's any movie film or popular media that comes to mind when you think about this subversive learning this way of folks finding access to information, maybe a non traditional ways.
Brandon Forester: 24:28
I guess I can start. So there's a there's a documentary that I'm thinking of, I cannot remember the filmmaker or the name of the film at the moment, but it's about D.J. and I are both part of the whole organization black organized for leadership and dignity, and we got a chance to see it in the National Gallery. That was kind of about the ways that ritual was made. and kind of black Caribbean spaces, particularly through like maroonish through kind of forming these sides of society or the side pockets outside of society.
And that documentary really focused on the way that kind of these syncretic. Religious like the ways that like these religious aspects are, I always say like if somebody mispronounce a word, it doesn't mean they're dumb, it means they reread a lot they read, I just might have bad pronunciation. But there's these the essentially shows how like, these kinds of creations of hoodoo, and dance and ritual, are these kinds of amalgamations of these different pieces of religion and culture of folks that were brought together with different pieces of religion and culture. And that those things were one about, like having a space to still experience joy and to make culture together.
But those were also spaces where revolutions were planned. And so like that, that sticks out to me, and I wish I could remember the name of the, of the author or the the filmmaker. And then like the other thing that stands out to me, as is kind of like a side answer to the question. It's not so much about how I've seen kind of subversive versions of learning and film. But it's about how I've seen culture as a subversive place of kind of learning. And so like, because when I was an educator, I was an educator, mostly in the Peace Corps, I did some work as a teacher in the United States, but I was teaching in places that were very conservative have very kind of strict gender roles.
And part of our work was to be subversive, with kind of like, you know, these cultural ideas of gender equity, or you know, whatever it was. And so that might look as small as like, if I'm doing an example of grammar lesson, then having a woman be a doctor, you know, that might not be that huge, but that could have like a real impact on folks. And so I think about, again, like going historically, books, media justice, and I love Star Trek.
I think that Star Trek is a great example of that, especially the first series, nobody explicitly said that Pura, who was like the representative of Africa, is like, third and command. And that's like this deeply meaningful thing in the 1960s, to have a black woman, not just like a black American, but a black African woman, be in a position of power on the ship. And also there was a Russian officer. And also there was this and this was Japanese until you, you see this kind of vision of a different kind of possibility.
Now, it's not just Star Trek, there's actually this deeper legacy that connects to Lucille Ball. And so Lucille Ball, and her husband started Desi productions, they made Star Trek possible. They didn't just make it possible. They fought for it to continue when it was meant to be cancelled by the network. And she fought specifically for some of those more progressive ideals in that. Now that happened to get like, actually, she was one of the first women if not the first woman to be pregnant, on broadcast television.
Think about that. There was a time when you couldn't even be seen as a pregnant human on televised broadcast. And then also, designee productions was responsible for the Van Dyke Show that had Mary Tyler Moore is like the first woman that appeared in slacks and wasn't just like this doting Martha, Martha every whatever housewife, although they're still kind of, you know, people can have critiques about that as well. When you when you believe in critical being critical, it's okay to have critiques about all kinds of things.
But it also became true when Mary Tyler more than went on to have her own show. I just watched the documentary last week on HBO. And it was so good. And I had no idea about the kind of impact that Lucille Ball had in that because that was one of the first shows we had Mary Tyler Moore was a single woman, she was a career woman, it that that show talked about dating, and single women having sex and sexual lives. And it also talked about abortion. And so like, for me, I think that the ways that I see Subversion and culture, the possibility of it, or teaching subversive things are like that are the ways that it's not about like, force feeding people, this is what you need to know, this is what you need to see. It's just showing people so that because we have all of this kind of externalized oppression that we internalize whether it's explicit or not, where we put limitations, we think that this is what society has for us.
But when you're able to see that in a way that's not selling you in a very political way, or a very direct way, you just see that that's something that can be real. That is the way I think that we have like these kind of subversive, external kind of liberatory forces that people can then internalize and so it's not exactly like an example of, you know, that was that was subversion, learning in film, but film being a place of As a person teaching,
D.J. Hudson: 30:01
Yeah, I was I forgot to hammer my mic on here on my my amen corner rooms and going off. And speaking of a man Yep, I'm talking about the color purple. All right, yeah, The Color Purple is a sacred text to me. And I'm so glad there's a movie coming out later this year. So I could be like, this is new and current, because I will talk about the previous film all day. But um, yeah, it's such an important important story to me.
And I think probably for reasons that don't seem like I don't know, immediately apparent. What I'm really excited about about the movie that is coming out later this year, among so many things is that it's based on the play. And the play actually handles a lot more of Alice Walker's text. And the reason why the color purple is what I call a sacred texts for me is because there's a particular chapter in the book itself towards the end, which is where the title of The Color Purple comes from, and it gets glossed over in the film in the 80s. But it gets more love in the play in the upcoming film version.
But it is these two black queer women because let's be very, very clear, like Celia showed are in a loving relationship. They're lovers, and clear and polyamorous at that, but they're in rural Georgia in the early 20th century, and they're just sitting on the porch and they're talking. And it starts with Sealy being angry, and being specifically angry at God who she's been writing her letters to all this time. And then it goes into this conversation that is literally just silly and should exploring their understanding of theology, their understanding of who God is their understanding of spirituality,
I have a theology background, their schools, literally a minister once upon a time. And for me, what is most important, particularly in the political context that we're in today, we're in religion, and Christianity specifically, which is something that people all over the world choose, because it's a choice that they want to make about how they understand the world, just like any other spiritual belief system, has been so turned into a political weapon, that there's now language of Christian supremacy, which is this concept of when Christianity is explicitly and specifically used to justify oppressive harm.
We can talk about things like colonization and also the LGBTQ hysteria that's happening right now out in the world. It's got over overreaching ramifications. And that is different from what people actually believe. And like that is why that conversation between these two women are so important. And talking about subversive learning in this conversation at one point, you know, sillies talking about how she's mad at God, and she was like, oh, no, you're gonna blaspheme, like he's gonna come down and get you.
You know, St. Louis says something so important. She says, If God ever listened to poor color, women, the world would be a different place already that scripture, right. But then she flips it on Celia, and she says, See, we tell me what your God looks like. And we'll who see Lee described as a white man, and should points it out. And she says, So tell me see Lee, how is it that you believe in a God who looks like somebody who oppresses you? Why is that and then they walk through this conversation. And then they get to a point towards the end of it, where they're literally talking about whiteness, and they're talking about toxic masculinity and men, and they say, it's like, man, what have you believe in that he's everywhere.
He's on your box grits. He's on your radio, and the instant that you believe that He is everywhere you believe that He is God, you have to get me off the other side of your prayers. Some it's such an important small scene, you know, but what it does is it rephrasing it, reshift, right, like God being this figure of power and oppressive power and domination, to God actually being something that's representative of your real lived experience and how you live and see the world, which includes necessarily being able to critically engage oppression out in the world where you see it, being able to see through the misinformation, which includes being things like I mean, look at the world that we have today. 45 would love to be on my box cigarettes, he definitely is all over my radio if I let him.
And there are so many other men who I cannot get away from if I flick and wanted to write even the preponderance of these big tech companies, they would have you believing that they are the newest gods and inventors the Edison's of our day, because they say so. And without the ability to actually recognize, you know, one thing that's going to be here that probably won't be after Elon Musk is a rock, you know, realizing that these things that are true and real and natural and essential to us, are actually the places where we can draw the most meaning not just what we're given by normal society.
Brandon Forester: 34:44
I think the only thing that I would add, if it's okay for me the curse on this podcast, I see is that these so called like self proclaimed world builders, they're fucking clowns. Like, a fucking joke. You on musk, like Twitter. or it shouldn't be that complicated. Like, you just like destroyed this big part of society. Because you're a clown. It's a joke.
Jeff Bezos is like roid rage. Maybe these people are not serious people. You know, it's like, it's, you know, succession. Yeah. You know, like one of the final things that the Father says to the children is, you're not serious people. And, you know what, like, I'm not in any ways like, agreeing with that kind of Gilded Age of like, you know, at least Logan Roy was like a serious person was a world builder.
And that's what you got from Kindle at the at his at his funeral was talking about how he was this world builder. Like that's what these people think they are. They think they're Logan Roy with their fucking Kindle and shiv. And whatever the little that's you on Musk is they're like, they're the failed Trump children who just happened to have an emerald mine in their back pocket. So that's the one thing I'd
D.J. Hudson: 36:00
like response to people with a poop emoji in an email. Yeah, yeah. Oh,
Brandon Forester: 36:07
we've got Zuckerberg also. Yeah, who's preparing to fight an MMA MMA style fight with? Anyways, that's it. Yeah, podcast.
Eteng Ettah: 36:15
That's a different. That's Season Two. Um, I love that you brought in succession. Brilliant. Love it love succession. Um, so I mean, this has been this has been so amazing on the historical peace, and I love the ways that shawl are just dropping so much on that, in particular, are there ways that queer people bipoc People marginalized people have worked to fight against misinformation that you find notable and very successful?
And something I mentioned in our first episode with Bridget Todd. And like, it has been mentioned here. We know misinformation is not new in you know, from radio, to other forms of media even older than that, like misinformation has been spread, and our folks have had to find ways to fight back.
So I'm curious what examples from history come to mind?
Brandon Forester: 37:18
Yeah, I mean, you know, what's weighing or what's on my mind right now is I just recently had reread the media 2070 dsa as part of the media reparations project being led by post three press, particularly black staff and free press. And, you know, it has always been the case that black folks and other people of color, and other marginalized folks have had our own, we've had to create our own forms of media, because we have never been allowed to be a participant in the dominant media, you know, except for maybe a little place of representation, or as like a low level worker, and that's still largely true.
And a lot of that has to do with policy decisions by the government. They're not just kind of like, you know, capitalism is evil, but the government sure helps alone. So. So yeah. And like one really specific example that is in that book that I'm sorry, in that report, but also is in the book that Joe Torres wrote news for all the people, which is like the story of history of media for people of color in the United States, is there's this maybe mythology, maybe it's true, I don't know. But that Martin Luther King, Jr. had his office on top of the radio station.
And when he needed to broadcast something out, because it was so important to have that connection between movement and media, that he would just rap on the ground, and they would rap on the roof. And they would, there was other rap on the roof. And they would lower the mic down to the window. So he can get his message out without having to leave the offices.
And so like, but there are a lot of examples that are like that, whether you think about, you know, the kinds of larger things like jet magazine, you know, or you think about the really hyper local ones. You know, like I mentioned that I'm from Wichita, when I was reading through that essay. I was researching this kind of history that I didn't have about which it's all about, there was black press, there was multiple black holes and black press, there was queer press. And these are things that, like, it hasn't gotten better. In some ways. It's gotten worse as we've been subsumed into the dominant media systems.
And so I think I've made a losing track of this question, but, but in some ways, I feel like what's what's coming up for me as I'm thinking of these historical examples is that we are in, in some ways, a much worse place now. Because if you look at ownership of television stations, ownership of radio station, ownership of production, it's still owned almost exclusively. And I don't mean like I'm not exaggerating, like I think it's less than it's between one and 3% of broadcast television stations are owned by black folks or people of color.
And so like, in some ways, the problem is still worse and we still need, we still have that deep need. It's not a historical thing, like we still need to figure out. And again, like, like we talked about before, like the seeds of revolution have been covered over or been erased. And so that's why I didn't know about this history in which at all, but anyways, we need to not just look at these as histories as like, great example, we also need to understand that in these histories, we have answers to some of the questions that we still hold today.
D.J. Hudson: 40:28
Um, yeah, my mind is, is turning towards the group from Goodie mob and Zora Neale Hurston, both of whom I think really, like, exemplify and talk about, like this black tradition of telling the truth and shaming the devil, but also like telling your truth in your voice and in your people's voice. Because you know, who you're talking to, and who the message is for the message is not to refute a dominant narrative that is harmful. Like, you're actually not trying to argue with power, you're speaking to your folks. Right? Um, there are no hosted talks about, you know, in some of her earliest attempts at doing anthropological research, she went back to her own hometown, and found that when she showed up to people as an anthropologist, they wouldn't talk to her.
But when she just showed up as Laura, they would and she realized that like this is part of because of like this blacks long standing tradition of mistrust of institutions that are curious and trying to investigate and collect data, right when black people so like, it's the same thing, like I feel like all my neighbors in my neighborhood like I have my work cut out for me canvass it for COP city, because if I show up with a clipboard, you know, people are gonna peek out and be like, what you want, right? Right, like, right, we have as a culture, a healthy distrust and rightfully earned, right of like folks coming around who we don't know asking questions.
Why do you want to know that? What do you want to know? Um, but we know how to talk to one another. And so I think about like, big group from Goody mob. Again, I'm from Atlanta, you know, grew up here in the 80s and 90s, and have so much gratitude for Goodie mob. And for big group in particular, he was talking about some of the history of what they do on this podcast I love called bottom of the mat. I don't know if I can shut out other podcasts, I hope.
Okay, cool. But he talks about how like they envision Goodie mob as like a working class, hip hop, right, that would speak directly to the experiences of the people who were listening to it was like entertainment, but also entertainment that night was trying to teach you something because it did they didn't assume that people didn't know that they starting from a very black black Atlanta southern working class place, which is that I know, you know, what's up. I know, you know what, you know.
And one of the things that Getty mom used to do is they will routinely name things like the the red dogs, right this like, what is the strike unit of the Atlanta police that in the 80s and 90s wreak havoc on black communities, and they would literally reference the red dogs and Sheriff ILDREN bill and clamp judge Clampett like they would call people out by name on the record on the track. And because they know that this is what black people are dealing with an experience that is so important, and it's also just a very strong black tradition of like naming things and naming things to each other one just like dignifying our own experiences and perspective, because we know we can't expect that right, from systems of oppression, but also it it reaffirms the trust that we have in each other as an information resource, right.
And it reaffirms the trust that we have in each other's relationships alone as being able to break down these myths and this misinformation that gets put out about how criminal we are, how backwards, we are like, we ain't paying the white folks no attention, baby. I was trying to not cuss and then like three more cuss words came out.
Eteng Ettah: 43:46
So good. It's all good. It's warranted. Yeah. I just just so much gratitude to the both of y'all for I'm learning so so much throughout this conversation. And so, thinking about the stories that we covered throughout the season, we talked about the depth the herd case we talked about Nicki Minaj is tweed and COVID vaccine misinformation. We've touched on the writer strike and the ways that studios and corporations are using misinformation to impact solidarity with workers. I'm curious, what role do you think popular culture media plays in the media manipulation cycle?
D.J. Hudson 44:31
Unfortunately, like my thinking just goes straight to the problem of capitalism, which I mean, I don't know if it's so much of a problem. It's just it's a system and it can be expected to work the way that it's going to work, which is to constantly find ways to squeeze out more profit. Speaking of Star Trek, Brandon and my partner has transformed me into a Trekkie and I could not be more grateful after many many years of being a chucklehead at Star Wars and I'm and I was reading about How one of the newer shows on Paramount plus prodigy just got completely, like, pooled and cancelled out of nowhere.
And Brandon, I were actually having this conversation with like Paramount Palace like rebranded and like all these new Star Trek shows were coming out. And we're being publicized because as a lifelong Star Wars fan, I was fucking pissed. When Disney bought Star Wars and announced that they were going to be throwing away over 30 years of content from the Star Wars expanded universe, right. And for me part of the why that was because the Star Wars expanded universe was where I found so many stories of queerness, of blackness of transcendence of deep spirituality of nuance that didn't exist in the mainstream movies, right.
But because the corporation saw these ideas and these concepts in these worlds as profitable, but only if they could control it the way they want it to, then opportunities for those things. And those stories that really spoke to and moved me are now getting cut off for others in favor of what they believe is going to be more profitable. And we saw what happened with the most recent Star Wars movies, I'm not ready to talk about it. But shout out to John Boyega, for telling the truth. And bringing it back to prodigy you know, and like taking away this show, something similar happened that I was watching with HBO over the last year, I'm a big, big fan of Cartoon Network and Cartoon Network's animation.
And part of that is because shows like Steven Universe have been so fucking crucial to me, it's so so many queer and trans people, especially for trans people of color. And even growing up being able to see some of the ways the animation was working, shaped a lot of how I think about the world. But when HBO wanted to become Max and consolidate, one of the first thing is to go were animations and shorts and stories and shows that were created by women and films by queer and trans people by black and brown people that feature black kids that feature queer kids that feature kids having all of these different experiences that they deserve to have.
And so like, for me, I think one of the impacts that I guess we see on pop culture is that when pop culture gets commodified, then it instead just becomes like a bargaining chip for a corporation, instead of it being an avenue of many doors to new fucking worlds as it should be, right.
And so for Star Trek of all, like, you know, franchises to be facing these questions of like, like for people to have to wait for indefinite months, you know, weeks to know, when they'll get to watch a Star Trek show that they've been watching for years, just because it changed corporations. Like, that just should not be our status quo. Um, and yeah, I'll pause there because I feel like Brady's got someone that will probably come back to, but yeah, I think like, the role that corporations play, it's obvious if you know what to look for.
Again, right? Um, but it's really, really sad the impact that it's having, and I believe that some of the properties that are just the artists appearing are probably the ones that will be most likely to call this shit out.
Brandon Forester 48:03
Yeah, I mean, I just like to add David Zaslav to the list of fucking clowns.
Eteng Ettah: 48:09
Running clown lists.
Brandon Forester 48:11
Yeah, the running clown list. I might even again, I might be aging myself, but the office space
Eteng Ettah 48:18
love that
Brandon Forester: 48:21
name that they use for Michael Bolton. I've seen third no talent ask. Anyway, so to get back on track about pop culture. Yeah, getting like I think about I mean, what's even a reasonable length to answer this question? Because, you know, I think about media and the way that it plays in culture in terms of like these epochs. And so there was a time when media music news were things that we made together, the people you know, and over time, things have shifted. And so we've had radio and broadcasting technology has grown. And we reached the point where it was mass media, where it was like, there were some central viewpoints that were broadcast to us.
And those viewpoints were not ours, were not our people. Those were the viewpoints of this white male, capitalist debt cult, that is capitalism. And now we have social media, which was like, the idea is that that's supposed to be the opportunity to where we're all able to talk to one another to lots of people. But realistically, because we have these gatekeepers of social media companies are really in the same ways that production studios or journalism or newspapers have been kind of gatekeepers that really mediate pop culture through capitalism in a way that is really harmful to us.
And so I think about it again, like for me, it's less so about these kinds of bigger dynamics, and it's more so about like the really small ways it impacts people and so I think a lot about it. filters on like Instagram, and like how much social media has become this place where we ourselves fall into? Like, in some ways, it's akin to what the boys talked about is like double consciousness of the of the Negro like having to not only like have this image of ourselves, but really we start to form this second image of ourselves.
That is the image that other folks see of us. And so that's like this double consciousness that we have social media has done that to everyone where everybody has this kind of need to think about, not how do I portray what is true about me, in my experience in my story, my life, but how do I think about how the other person is going to see me? How do I be a brand? How do I always put my best foot forward? How do I literally let technology change me into something that is more a Western, white idealized version of what is considered beautiful. And like when I say about, like these beggars who are forced, because what really matters to me, or what I really would really on an individual level, hurts me is when I see how these external forms of oppression are internalized by individuals and perpetual self perpetuating.
And so that's the way that I see. And then, of course, there are wonderful opportunities still in the media, to have these beautiful stories. Star Trek Discovery has been one of the most beautiful shows it was, it taught me things about grief that I didn't know that I needed to understand during a time of pandemic. And what I love about, you know, we talked about that idea of representation and Star Trek and that, but what I what I love about discovery that I've heard folks say is that it wasn't just that, like, there was a place for you in the future. But there was a place for you specifically in the future, for whatever your full self was, there's a place for you. And that's wonderful.
But at the end of the day, Paramount owns that shit, and they can do with it what they want. At the end of the day, we don't necessarily have Lucille Ball fighting the good fight and paramount for us, and 2023. And it's like DJ said, you know, like, so this comes up, my work is mostly around the internet. And it comes up a lot about, you know, how these large monopoly internet providers are bad actors. And, you know, for me, it's not about like, about evaluating them on a moral stance, you can't have you can't, capitalism is an amoral at best system, and immoral system in practice.
And so it's not like it's not about whether or not these companies, whether they're the big media companies, or the big internet companies, which here's the secret, a lot of times the same Comcast is NBC Universal, it's also XFINITY, at&t, all these places Amazon's productions, through they're trying to build internet, these places do not care about telling stories, they don't tell care about your story being told, they don't care about your full self being seen. They're not accountable to communities, they're not accountable to us, they're not accountable to black folks. They're only accountable, legally accountable to their shareholders.
And so that's why you see this, HBO has had some of the most incredible, important television, prestige TV. And with this, being bought by whatever Warner media, it has, it's now been combined with TLC, which used to be the Learning Channel, this reality TV channel. And so instead of like, giving us this beautiful, kind of deep and thoughtful and, and diversity made, like D.J. was saying, like, you just didn't have just like a white male perspective. On the show, we think about isa Ray, think about I mean, just on and on and on, think about the kinds of important kinds of stories that have been told on HBO. But now the question isn't about telling important stories. The question is about, is it cheaper to make succession or more profit mixing session?
Or is it more profitable to keep up with the Kardashians? And we know which is more powerful, or, which is why we do that we know which is more powerful, and we know which is more profitable. And so it comes down to that like baseline of like, I guess what I'm trying to get at is, it's not even trying to evaluate David Zaslav or these other folks as being like good or bad.
It's just trying to understand what their needs and their motivations are, have nothing to do with our well being and in fact, are opposed to our
Eteng Ettah: 54:30
Yeah, it feels like with all the cancellations and the mergers, HBO is Max. Like, I also think about the writer strike. There's I'm hoping this this combination of things is getting folks to consider, you know how the creative stories that we see are deteriorating, how it's so profit driven, whereas there are films and TVs and books that the cultural impacts can't be understated.
And like, we're losing that and I feel like folks are, I hope we're moving towards a collective consciousness of being like, okay, it is messed up that, you know, powerup Paramount plus can not only cancel shows, but then like, take them off and erase them forever. And so it feels like as views, I guess the the media system or as these impacts kind of trickled down to like, individual folks now being like, wait, I love that show. But it didn't get this random metric that gets moved all the time. Now, it just can get taken out of my life. And so
D.J. Hudson 55:43
oh my god, if they ever elementary The revolution was.
Eteng Ettah: 55:49
Yeah, yeah. Let's go. Um, this is the third episode of our season where we're talking about having met shoe which I love, so we really gotta get this Sequenza we do. We do. We gotta, we gotta. We gotta get this to John Boyega. Shout out to John Boyega. I love that. You mentioned him I hope I hope wherever you that he's doing all right.
Brandon Forester: 56:19
Can I offer you? This podcast? I got DJ on Yes. The sci fi sisters. They're black women talking about their experience with Star Trek. And what they always say when they're talking about a celebrity or somebody that that you know, that they're trying to get in the air. They might say something like now Quinta, if you're listening and then they know that you need to reach out so I'm gonna offer you that like, as you try to call in these folks, John boyega .
Unknown Speaker 56:52
And we know Oh, you are
Unknown Speaker 56:56
come get on the show. I love the
Eteng Ettah: 56:57
best friends. Yes. It's like so we have the running clown list and then we have the list of folks that like we need to get this to and the clown
D.J. Hudson: 57:07
list is getting shorter because they keep fucking consolidating. Is that
Eteng Ettah: 57:13
maybe one one hopeful thing of where our media system is trending towards on the topic of hope? Um, I am curious what what gives you all hope about the fight against misinformation especially considering you know, we've touched on this before. But with social media and the ways the internet is evolving this ecosystem is just that much more treacherous for misinformation. So what's what's giving you hope? Or who's giving you hope around this? Yeah,
D.J. Hudson 57:52
I can I can go right back to cop city. The organizing the folks have been doing on the ground here. It gives me so much tremendous hope because this is what you do. And this is what people have done all over this ball of dirt that we call Earth for eons right is that when oppression shows up and then when oppression digs its roots and into where you live and say it's not going to be moved.
You just keep showing up and more and more numbers, right? Like every single news story every single smear every single time that the police have, first of all, like, actually took away one of our comrades tore to gate and actually murdered someone and then lied about it every time that they have raided a house every time that they have locked up somebody who just said Stop cop city. People have not been dissuaded people have not bought the myths and the lies people have continued to show up in greater and greater numbers to speak out to say that they don't want this shit.
People continue to go and have barbecues and parties and art bills and fundraisers like it what gives me so much hope because I think that one of the things that I was listening a lot to Jamiroquai, as virtual insanity grew up on that music video hits hard like a motherfucker hits even harder and 2023 especially when you go back and you read the lyrics of it. And I think that like one of the missions of these tech companies and big tech and big media really has been to be on your box of grits and on your radio and to convince us that they are ubiquitous and that the internet is what they say it is and that the internet is the world right?
And so I feel like there it's it's ironic that we are more connected than ever but also like feel so claustrophobic sometimes, because it feels so hard to break away from all of these different messages and narratives that you didn't ask for it that you don't want. But I am such a strong believer that it is our real lived experiences and ended our relationships to each other that will break any lie and can Living the lie that the internet and technology and rampant commodification and planned obsolescence are the future and the only thing that we can look forward to when people say, I don't care how much money you got, I don't care how many high tech cameras you want to put up. We as a community of Atlantans know that we can keep each other safe.
That all that $61 million can go to where we've been asking it for, for youth centers for our young people for mental health care for housing for people who need it, not for cops. And for people who don't live here to fix the fucking potholes, please, oh my gosh, there's one the size of stone mountain in front of my house right now come get it, you know, and so it's like our lived experiences break these things down. And what gives me so much hope is when people hear oh, they're gonna be tearing down this forest.
And they say, We need that forest. Actually, we call it a long a one to four that this city has actually just straight up on principle of the earth alone who has had so much from us leave it alone, like that's enough. And for people to continue to come out and show up and to break down all of these barriers and the silos of these misinformed messages. That's given me so much Oh,
Brandon Forester: 1:01:13
yeah. For me, I'm not somebody that operates that much on hope. I'm being honest. As a having I'm more of a yin and yang,
I'm more of a fit. What love No, I'm more faith through words kind of kind of a person. And so, you know, hope just feels like prayers, you know, after a mass shooting or something, like, let's just believe that things will change, because they can't keep going on the way they are.
Yeah, they're gonna change. They're not gonna get better, though. And so what I look for, particularly, is joy, moments of joy that exists, despite everything, particularly black joy, I think about beauty. I think about those moments when I see people stepping into their power, those things, those times that make me cry, like, complex, happy tears, like those are the things that get me. It drives me to keep doing this kind of work and make me believe that there's a future that I will not get to, but there's a future that exists that we're fighting for.
Yeah, and so it's things like that. And I actually, in one of these, one of those things, I remember the name of that documentary, documentarian, and their documentary was coming to Queen, and I think you can look on YouTube, it's the ASHA Lang and get a clip or a preview of that.
And so when I see things like that, when there are folks that are able to make this really deep and beautiful and meaningful, kind of storytelling outside of this kind of threat, capitalist system, that is what doesn't give me hope. It makes me feel like another world is possible. I guess you could call that hope. I don't. Also we have a an organization in our network called, used to be called House of pinnacles. And now it's called
Unknown Speaker 1:03:09
D.J., if you want to say that when you
Brandon Forester: 1:03:11
come free house come free country films come free films. And they are black trans folks in the South that are making films, and their films make me have complex tears every time. And so it's things like that, that I look to, but certainly, I think there is something hopeful that we have something like Abbott elementary on ABC, you know, and we have a show it's not just like the black folks and the black run show but also like charter schools or the bad guys like that's, you know, we have political statements now of course, they're whitewashed in the most like literal sense.
Although I've Elementary, I wouldn't say is whitewash but like I just I'm saying like things that are produced by mass media are whitewashed and that they are white owned and white produced. But, but there are things there are cracks in the in the system that we can see there are these little places where the dandelion seed has been able to grow. And so that's what I look for as places where the dandelions are breaking through the concrete of this death cult that has capitals.
Eteng Ettah: 1:04:13
I just I love how illustrative and visual like the complex happy tears are dandy lines and the concrete and it makes me think about, you know, it makes me think about what a media system that is affirming for marginalized communities feels like embodied and feels really important to like name very descriptively what this feels like, because it makes this vision of a media system that we are working towards just that much more irresistible and also really love the importance on and can't demonstrate that enough. I mean, we're on this podcast, making our own media is incredibly
Powerful, and is one of many strategies to combating misinformation and making sure our folks can get access to information. That is clear and honest about what what we're contending with. And what also is bringing us joy and hope. And so I want to do some forecasting.
So it's really wild that the year 2024 Is not that far away. Um, so we can take out our crystal balls, or whatever you might use to try to predict the future a little bit. But so what's on your mind? What What stories do you think folks should be keeping an eye on when it comes to misinformation? It can be stories, it can be cultural events, etc. I hear there's a little election happening and 2024. What do you think, folks? Yeah, what would you recommend folks kind of keep an eye on? And what are you thinking about when it comes to this info in 2024?
D.J. Hudson: 1:06:09
I really hope that people listen to black women in the south this time, and not listen in to tokenizing way, right? I'm not just like, only support or listen to or read the words of a black woman who is in politics when she's running for office or because, you know, some white person has endorsed her. But like, I really hope that people listen, I think the Alabama Senate election was really interesting, right?
And like, when the numbers came out, and when people were watching, and all these narratives that came out about how black women saved America, and all of these things, and like, I really hope that people also just listen to those black women who are saying, we're actually not coming to save anybody, we're doing what we need and want to do for our own selves. And you should, too, you know, and also, like, last night, let's not tokenize the people who we actually can predictably expect, are going to be always like, at the lead of the political sea change that needs to be happening.
Um, that feels really, really important to me. And then in the South, in particular, like going back to the trip to Utica that Brandon and I took some of the women that we talked to the Children's Defense Fund, we're talking about how it's no surprise to them that in Mississippi have the most draconian policies that come from the state of Mississippi, the impacts are worse, or black women and children. Um, and they know that that's important. And because it's like this idea of like SOGO ever goes to south.
So ghost nation is like, really, really important for people to understand that all you have to do is look at the political priorities, and a handful of southern states and Mississippi and Tennessee, and North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, and Florida. And you can get a forecast right of what's going to be coming down the pike from conservatives over the next 10 years that's been through for a really, really long time. And particularly for me, as a Southerner, it's really tiresome hearing people talk about the south of this place where we are just like, passively languishing under the lash of oppression. And where you know, like we're just out here being beat down.
All the time is like baby we've been here. How do you think that we have survived this long? It certainly hasn't been in fear and and shame? Absolutely not. The narrative that you are told about the South is misinformed. The narrative that you have that the South is the only place where explicit racism takes place is deeply misinformed. Like this is several generations of misinformation that needs to be broken down.
And so if you want to actually understand fascism, all you have to look at is what are black women in Mississippi and Georgia and Alabama, fighting against? What are they standing up and saying no to right? And then listen to them and follow their actual lead instead of either taking and CO opting their language and ideas and then doing it yourself, you know, or just holding him up as like all the beautiful beautiful Stacey Abrams signs and pictures and posters that I saw everywhere. Keep them up y'all that is also by the way our federation President let's be clear Star Trek reference.
Um, but like, truly, actually politically listened to and look at the conditions and the fights that black women in the south are leading so that nobody is under some mystery or idea of what's coming next and what we're dealing with like we're dealing with the early onset of fascism that has been built up to for a really long time. That's not a mistake. What we keep saying over and over again, Brandon and I that this is not new.
You know, like this is a bad Flash to the wins in the gains that we've already seen over the last few years. And it's the exploitation of the downfall of capitalism. So I really need for it 2024 for folks to one not act surprise, and also to stop listening to the clown list. Listen to the black women they've been telling us was,
Eteng Ettah: 1:10:16
okay, I love that little voice over listening, actually listening to Black women in the South as a way to like you're saying it the South in a sense is like this training ground or like experimentation ground for what might be to come next as a way to get ready to combat any misinformation that's coming out about that. And I appreciate you naming like our views around the South, collectively are misinformed. And there's rampant misinformation in particular about how we look at the south.
D.J. Hudson: That's not even like a metaphor of like when I was doing policy work, when I was in Tennessee, there are literally states called laboratory states where specifically state legislators on the state level and conservative and in super conservative majority states will experiment by passing the most strident legislation that they can to see what's going to happen to it and to see what kinds of challenges they need, they're going to face so that they can tweak it, make it stronger, and then share it in Ohio and Illinois, and Wyoming, which is what you saw happen with the abortion fight. So shit that we've been seeing with the abortion fights I was seeing in Tennessee, and 2010 2011 2012.
Right, these things aren't new. So this is actually literal and specific. What I mean about like, if it's happening down here, it's going to be coming to you soon.
Eteng Ettah: 1:11:38
All right, what's what's in your crystal ball, Brandon?
Brandon Forester: 1:11:41
Well, I'm gonna go go back to a DJ set. Because yeah, as I've mentioned, from Wichita, Kansas, so Kansas is in a different way, also one of those laboratory states. And that's in part because the Koch brothers view that as like their place to experiment, but also what I want to share is that again, because I just want to highlight how evil the Koch brothers are Willemstad, the Koch brothers, or whatever the Koch family, don't believe in hell.
But if there was one, he'd be burning it right now anyways, so you can cut that leave it in. So the reason why I bring them up those because a lot of the ways that they did their work was through ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. And that is where they are drafting these laws, they will get tested out, particularly in places in the south, particularly along the border, particularly in places where they just have these kinds of relationships like Kansas, although Kansas has shifted some, you know, since Brownback was there, and we were one of these experiments, financial kind of experimental laboratory states.
But just to say like that there are things above and below that, are these connective tissues that make that stuff possible, pay attention to that pay attention to who are the people that are drafting those laws to be passed in Mississippi? And then how is that legislation being passed off boiler plate from state to state to state to state to state? And feel free to come to Wichita Kansas in protest? Um, yeah, but also, I would say, I'm in my crystal ball. It's not so much what's in my crystal ball, watch Star Trek. It's really great. We're about to get the last season of our first black woman Captain sneak wet, who's been incredible. And the reason why I care about Star Trek and why I think it's worth Why would recommend folks watch it is because, you know, reportedly, Star Trek is in this future.
That's beyond capitalism, beyond scarcity. And what I love about it is that despite, despite us being in this future, that's much more closer to like a liberated future that we that we talk about. There's still conflict, we are still humans, we are still flawed. It still isn't easy. There are still complicated questions. And I think that the more people are able to tap into that and realize that like, actually, the struggle that we're in, there is an opponent, but like, this is a struggle that is like, eternal, about what it means to be human and to exist and to be in community.
And a way of thinking about Star Trek that I really love that deejays partner actually shared with me was as this beloved community, this ship, realizing that we all have roles and that we all are going to be a part of this community together. And they deeply care about each other. And they are. I was just listening to another Star Trek podcast this morning talking about how they are like, inherently like competent, decent, empathetic, loving people, professional and like professional. And so I think I'm not telling people like to watch those so that you can get lost in dream about a future that we're not in Then what I'm saying is like for one, give yourself like a little bit of a break, you can even just like fine on YouTube, the ship noise from the Star Trek Enterprise D.
So most calming shit ever talked about. It's the best thing to sleep to. But also because I think that when you think about kind of the deeper questions that we are trying to answer is a critical of the as a as a species with the ability, but not always the capacity for critical thinking. Is it lets you think about these deeper questions that are not about a policy decision? Or who should own this media? Who should all matter when is this good? Or how should we think about black cabinet?
It's about thinking about these deeper questions that that are, that are kind of core to addressing the structures we're trying to oppose, that are still essential and important beyond that. And so even as we're able to find these spaces outside of oppression, or to hide from harm, or to get respite, like we can still be in this mode of thinking about what does it mean to be a part of a beloved community to be not an end of myself to not be an island to be connected with other people. And I think that when people think more like that, regardless of what's going on in 2024, elections or stuff like that, when we focus and you saw that during the pandemic, what it meant for people to turn inward and say, we can form this mutual aid, we can take care of one another, we can start to form this beloved community.
Like that's what I want people to do in 2024. Think about how can you as an individual, start to challenge those internalized oppressive forces that you've taken in? And part of that I think Star Trek can do? And I think that's part of what Star Trek is meant to do. But also, how can you be a part of a beloved community, whatever that looks like for you.
Eteng Ettah: 1:16:50
I love that. I love the ways that this is half misinformation podcast, half Star Trek appreciation club. With that, um, we're gonna turn the camera to, I guess to me, um, so I'll hand it to you all for the making of actually.
D.J. Hudson: 1:17:25
Yeah, okay, so yeah, what has been the hardest part of recording this series so far? And also, congratulations, shout out to you.
Eteng Ettah: 1:17:32
So one, I'll say as long as we've been at media, just as long as I've been at Media Justice, there's been talks of wanting to start a podcast. So I just feel a lot of like, we're doing it. It's out in the world. I think the challenging part two folds. So as we all know, with creative ideas, there's there's many Google Docs, and there were many, many Google Docs. And so the version of actually you all are listening to, has evolved in many, many different ways. So I think, making making the final decision of like, you know, this is what we're going to do.
This is the format. I think, deciding on the specific stories that we wanted to use as case studies was difficult. Since we know there's there's countless stories that we could have used for this. And then I think the second thing is just, I mean, just like doing it once you make the decision, the actual, like implementation. And so it's a new muscle because it's a new project. And so I think the newness is really exciting, and can also bring up, you know, some unexpected challenges we we didn't foresee.
Brandon Forester: 1:18:51
So I've kind of a two part question for you. Yeah. So I'm curious, what have you found? Most interesting, or what have you learned? We're putting this together both like, what have you learned about like, trying to put together a podcast, but also what have you what's like, the most interesting thing you've learned from maybe a guest on the podcast?
Eteng Ettah: 1:19:11
Yeah. I mean, there's, there's a lot of moving pieces for podcasting. So there's the concept and like fleshing it out, in a way where it feels very clear, but also engaging. I think, we we knew from the beginning we wanted we knew the essence of it very conversational, you know, you and a friend ki King about a tweet you saw and that, you know, being the reason or the impetus for having a deeper conversation about misinformation in our media system.
But there's so many moving parts from like, guest outreach, scheduling, like purely administrative tasks, um, that you know, there's that Have a lot of folks that we're excited to be partnering with and like having to strike the balance of making sure folks have everything they need, as well as staying true to this the story arc that we're trying to paint here in particular, breaking down the media manipulation cycle. And I think to the second part, I feel like I, I really love being in the role of hosts and I learned so so much from every single conversation that I've had, and, you know, not choosing favorites. I think one thing I'll mention that I really loved hearing about was in our writers strike episode with Angela Harvey, and she was a writer on Teen Wolf and I love MTV grew up on a lot of MTV shows and so definitely was like,
How do I rein in like the fan girling that I want to do but um, was really cool to hear just how that set was. And I think it's a great show, but then to hear it you know, the way that she speaks about the set is in a way where it feels like a microcosm for what all set should be. I'll also named drop my our conversation with my Asia and we talked about DJ Academiks and rumble and she had mentioned and maybe maybe all knew this already, but
DJ Academiks during one like a previous BT awards was like, on the red carpet interviewing NIGO some of there's that gift where he like, with amigo start surrounding him. And I didn't realize that was the first time I learned to DJ academics was when it looked like he was about to get run up by the Migos so
D.J. Hudson: 1:21:55
I viewed it because I was curious. I was also wondering, who is this young man?
Eteng Ettah: 1:22:01
Yeah, you know, you know, it's a little bit of a Yeah, that's how we started but, but I also will say I think it's been a really, really dope just learning about what motivates our folks who are working on misinformation and what where do we draw inspiration from whether from history to currently I mean, that's I think that's what's great about a podcast is that you can like get into it and I feel like I learned a lot more about my colleagues through doing this and the way you all think
D.J. Hudson: 1:22:37
all right, gonna go fast because I know it's top of mind top three funniest things that have happened in the process of making this show when you're ready
Eteng Ettah: 1:22:47
um, you know I want to shout out Genevieve multi high finit writer producer editor absolutely future you got already got the you got director working with you has been absolutely incredible. And I mentioned you in particular, because Genevieve was very patient with me and that there are many times where I'm like, reading the script to camera and just stumbling on everything and Genevieve's like, oh, maybe we need a new tagline. I'm like, No, it's it's it's just me It's um, but so yeah, there's a lot of great outtakes of me like kind of stumbling on things. But um, so that comes to mind.
I mean, there were so many gems in this conversation, the running clown list. A lot of great funny moments with Myaisha and a lot of the conversation just going back to migos about to beat up this dude. And I'm think also thinking about my conversation with Rumsha. We were talking about Nicki Minaj tweeting about her cousin's friends, friends, testicles swelling up because of the COVID vaccine. So many testes in the sun. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:17
This is the patriarchy Right. Right.
Eteng Ettah: 1:24:19
Right. Um, but we were having a fun moment just talking about you know, it's very easy to call it a test celebrities that you don't like who are like, very problematic, but I'm like, Who are Fave celebrities, you know, we kind of left the door open a little bit or a little bit more lenient. So we were talking about Rihanna and Tyler James Williams and that was our we also got to get this to him. That was the first time we mentioned Abbott Elementary. So yeah, a little bit of a the highlight reel.
Brandon Forester: 1:24:54
Um, I love that and from our episode, I feel like that calls back to like, being quiet. Recall in the same word in like critical race theory means that we can critique things that we love. You know, we can do another episode about critiques of Star Trek. But the question for the behind the scenes. So what do you hope that people get out of this or take away from this podcast?
Eteng Ettah: 1:25:17
Yeah, I mean, I have, I have a couple of hopes. I, I hope that it gets folks thinking, like, critically critical is like the word of that episode. I do hope it gets people's wheels turning a little bit more about our media system. I hope folks recognize or are closer to recognizing that the messages we get from media, it's not coincidental.
It's a it's not a coincidence, that when, you know, we can take cop city, for example, when someone organizing is murdered by the police, that their character gets vilified. It's not a coincidence that if you, you know, read through the New York Times, or turn on your TV, and you're seeing the same types of people the same types of stories in the same type of way. And I want to acknowledge, you know, that there are tons of stories that are out there that I think are pushing past what we are used to seeing, but it's not a coincidence.
And so I'm hoping folks can be like, Okay, let me get a little curious about the fact that like, it's not like, Oh, dang, like the cast another white dude and Superman, like, getting a bit closer to understanding like the intentionality around the way that we get media. And I hope that through using popular stories or things that have happened, that people can be like, oh, yeah, I remember when tic tock was talking about this trial, or I remember my favorite protest signs during the writers strike, which I hope by the time this airs that they've gotten other demands and more. But I'm hoping those those entry points were successful in getting folks to think about misinformation.
And I also hope folks just have a great experience listening to this. And like, I hope folks can feel the balance. We're trying to strike between, like, fun conversation, but also like, having really deep thoughtful conversations, too. So I hope it's clear. We've got some range, because I believe we do.
D.J. Hudson 1:27:41
Thank you for that Eteng.
Brandon Forester: 1:27:43
Yeah, I'm excited to listen. I'm excited to hear this this season.
Eteng Ettah: 1:27:47
Yeah. All right. With that, thanks, you all for joining us.
D.J. Hudson: Thanks for having this.
Brandon Forester: Sure.
D.J. Hudson: 1:27:54
I'm trying to remember by what do people say at the end of the podcast? Oh, dear. I've listened to so many.
Eteng Ettah: 1:28:13
Thank you so much for joining us for our final episode of this season. If you haven't already, definitely check out our other episodes where we cover a whole host of pop culture stories, and how they've been impacted by the media manipulation cycle, and misinformation. And remember to share them with your friends, family, and followers.
And if you like what we're doing here at Media Justice, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at media justice, to stay updated and informed on our issue topics. And to keep up with the great work our comrades are doing. We'd also love to hear your feedback. So let us know what you think about the podcast series as well. I'm a tang and thanks for joining us on "Actually... Hold Up" where we break down what you don't know about the stories you think you know and why.
Eteng Ettah: 1:29:16
If you've learned a thing or two about misinformation from our series, we'd appreciate your support and powering productions like this in the future. You can donate to support our work at the forefront of media and tech equity by visiting media justice.org
Transcribed by https://otter.ai