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Speaker 1: Of litigation and government relations firm, and Almo serves as

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the senior pastor of the Douglas Memorial Community Church of

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Baltimore and affiliates.

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Speaker 2: He's also the former chief executive officer of the Rainbow

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Push Coalition. Doctor Yary, welcome forward to the show. Good

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to be with you on a Wednesday. It's a little

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while today. Let's see what happens, Doctor Yeary. You know,

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Gina has proposed that we take a look at yesterday

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in history. I meant to get to this yesterday, but

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we ran out of time on this day. On January twentieth,

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Colin Powell was selected or appointed, if you will, to

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be the first African American Secretary of State of the

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United States. Significance, Doctor Yurie, of the leadership of Colin Powell.

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Speaker 3: Well, aside from a distinguished military career, certainly his appointment

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was very hopeful. I think there was, by virtue of

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things beyond his control, a little bit of disappointment and

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tarnished when it came down to the testimony concerning weapons

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of mass destruction in Iraq. But I think overall, if

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we were to try to position General Powell service, it

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would be highly unlikely, nearly impossible that he would be

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Secretary of State under this administration, simply because of the

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way they view the expertise and the capabilities of people

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of color, particularly of African descent. So I think if

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we just used that benchmark from yesterday and look at

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how far we have regressed in many ways in terms

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of who is actually called upon to serve in this government,

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particularly with this administration, I think we would all agree

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that it leaves a lot to be desired, and that

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would be putting it mildly.

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Speaker 2: I know that we'll be coming forward in just a moment,

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but I do want to ask the question and remind

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people that Barack Obama was also inaugurated twice president of

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the United States. On January twentieth, Kamala Harris was nominated

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and was sworn in as the first African American woman

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Vice President of the United States on January twentieth, and

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so January twentieth in and of itself, including but not

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limited to Hiram Rebels, and the role that he played

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in the history of African Americans, was also very significant.

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On the date of January eleventh, I'm Jesse Jackson Junior

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listening to The Jesse Jackson Junior Show. My producer telling

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me to keep talking because I guess we're going right

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to the thirty. No, she's just saying keep talking generally.

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Oh it's okay. I'm Jesse Jackson Jr. More we come

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forward on Kblate Talk fifteen eighty. I'm Jesse Jackson Junior.

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Welcome lord to the Jesse Jackson Genia Show on Giulate Talk.

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Our regular contributor on Wealthy Wednesdays is doctor s todd Yurie,

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principle of the Yearie Firm. He's both a lawyer and

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a minister. He has one foot in the pulpit and

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also one foot in the courtroom, but both feet in reality,

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Doctor Uri, Welcome forward to the show. It's it's Wednesday.

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Speaker 3: It's I'm waiting to see what the producer is gonna

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tell us when she says keep talking. That's a good

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thing rightday.

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Speaker 2: But Gina does an extraordinary job. Really grateful for the

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work that she does here at the program and at

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the station. Hey, let me throw this out at you.

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I'm thinking in this moment, as we reflect during this

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drive time in Los Angeles, of just how significant January

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twentieth is in Black history. Now. I say that because

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I believe, even though Shirley Chisholm gets a significant amount

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of credit, that the first campaign by black people in

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a presidential election year to get the attention of Democrats

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and Republicans after the Voting Rights Act was the poor

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People's campaign. Doctor King is trying to get the attention

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of both parties at the hour of his assassination with

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this idea of the poor people's campaign. It's a campaign.

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It is a campaign like mailers and billboards and yard science.

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It's a poor people's campaign bringing them into the process

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just three years after the Voting Rights Act. Then you have,

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of course Shirley Chisholm in campaign nineteen seventy two. We

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have Jesse Jackson in a campaign nineteen eighty four and

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eighty eight. We have Reverend Sharpton running a presidential campaign.

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Everybody trying to get Reverend Yeary to January twentieth. Then

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we have Barack Obama as President of the United States.

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January twentieth, we have Kamala Harris inaugurated on January twentieth.

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January twentieth is as significant a date in the history

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of black people as any thing we celebrate all year,

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including Watch Night, Emancipation Day, Juneteenth, the election of a

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United States President, doctor yeary all forty seven of them

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is black history. It is.

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Speaker 3: The question becomes, is it history in a progressive sort

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of sense where we're building and expanding on the principles

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of opportunity and inclusion, or does it become a very

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regressive kind of date that has many of us kind

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of marking the calendar to say, you mean to tell me,

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it's only been one year since this dude's been in

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office and we got three more to go. What does

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that portend for folks who are relying on the government

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to be a resource and not just an adversary in

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opposition to what's in the best interest, particularly of those

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who are most vulnerable. If we think about who gets snap,

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what it looks like we still don't have a livable

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wage in this country.

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Speaker 2: There are a number of things.

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Speaker 3: Even when we get into fair housing and the regression

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that happens there, we still don't have justice for black farmers.

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Because every time that comes up, the argument is is

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that somehow justice for disadvantage black folk is somehow discrimination

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against white folk. That every time we get to a

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January twentieth. We have to wrestle with whether or not

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these next four years is going to lend itself lend

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themselves to needing to be much more engaged and then

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much more assertive in making sure that we don't go

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back in time, which is exactly where we find ourselves today.

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Speaker 2: I am particularly honored to hear that reflection. I've not

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heard one on this subject matter, and I think we

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together come up with a creative energy to put an

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angle on a particular date that some might just see

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as the third Windnesday, third Monday in January, where we

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celebrate the King Holiday and where we hear the speeches

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over and over again. But the fact of the matter

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is so much of our history now comes together in

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the cycle and Indian interpretation of what that date specifically means.

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I mean it ought to be a day of voter

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registration of a day of participation, a day of environmental justice,

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a day of equal high quality education, a day of

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health care, a day of holding Congress accountable, a day

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of sharing with future presidents of the United States, the

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kind of expectations we have in judicial appointments to the

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Federal bench and to the Supreme Court. I mean January

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twentieth is definitely not a laid back date because when

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you look at people like Hiram Revels, and you look

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at the significance the hopes of swearing in a new

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Congress occur on the January twentieth in a presidential election year.

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All of these things are happening in the context of

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January that somehow we just see as as small by comparison.

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Hiram Roodes revel was elected by the Mississippi Legislature as

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the first African American to serve in the US Senate

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or Milestone during reconstruction, so he wasn't sworn in until

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February twenty fifth, facing opposition and debate over his eligibility

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due to racial citizenship laws. According to sources like the

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Equal Justice Initiative, Hiram Revels the first black Senator. The

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Mississippi Sippy Department of Archives and History shares with us

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his story January twentieth, eighteen seventy. Dr Yuri.

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Speaker 3: Well, bear in mind what eighteen seventy represents is a

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shift post Civil War, post Civil Rights Act of eighteen

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sixty six, and then you moved to Civil Rights Act

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of eighteen seventy you're beginning to see the emergence of

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a very influential voting block of people who had been

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historically excluded. And so Hiram revels election first of all,

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being selected by the legislature in and of itself ought

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to tell us a whole lot just because of the

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way senators were elected at that particular time. It wasn't

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a popular vote per se. But it also speaks to

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I think the importance of our full engagement and participation

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in this process. Where I think we've tended to lose

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our way is we've kind of held our engagement at

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the polls subject to kind of instant gratification. This isn't

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this isn't a one and done. As you were talking

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a minute ago, I was thinking January twentieth for us,

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or the third Monday in January, in observance of doctor

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King's birthday, should be a day that we actually issue

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a report card on the United States government on how

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well the government is doing addressing the issues for whom

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doctor King had great concern. And so it shouldn't just

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be hearing a president pontificate about Some would say pontificate,

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others might say defecate on the reality of what he

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had done on behalf of the nation. But rather than

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listening to this dude just poo poo over everything and

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make us believe that somehow other things are great and

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we're better off than we would have been otherwise is problematic,

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and the people's voice needs to be heard, and the

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government needs to be critiqued and evaluated on its effectiveness

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and doing what the government is supposed to do if

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it is government of.

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Speaker 2: For and by the people. Oh, doctor ear you've said

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something about this report card. Now, this report card makes sense,

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I mean, and it can come from not only a

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national perspective, but even local communities ought be issuing on

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January twentieth what the state of play is on these

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critical questions raised by doctor King and raised in our

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society large given the very nature that January twentieth is

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a turning point in American history every four years, as

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part of a cycle in our historic memory as a nation,

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there is, as I was corrected earlier by James Felton Keith,

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of course it's January twenty twenty nine when we inaugurate

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a new president. But it still happens right around that

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third Monday in January every single year. Yeah, it's always there.

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Speaker 3: It's here where I think it's important that we lift

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up the work of Tavis Smiley and the regular publications

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of the State of Black America when we would do

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an evaluation and an assessment of where are we in

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terms of the fundamental and essential points of evaluation, in

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terms of quality of life, participation, engagement, protection, are we

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secure in our person It is that kind of ongoing

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spirit that we have to go back and pick up again.

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But we also have to expand who are the teachers

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that are informing the report card?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 3: We get grades in more than one subject. Certainly we

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need to do a collaborative, cooperative, even a coalition focused

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evaluation of where the government is because that's how we

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begin to inform our own community. It's not just to

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tell the government the obvious. They know they're not doing anything.

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To tell them they're not doing anything is really more

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of a waste of energy, but to raise it and

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elevate it to a point of public discourse, local, state

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and federal. If they're going to give us a state

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of the city, state of the state, state of the

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Union address, then the people need to have their own

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retort to be able to say, we call bs for

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what you're trying to sell us in terms of a

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billy good. What's really going on here is you're hustling

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the people to the benefit of an exclusive club and

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to the harm of the masses. And therefore the people

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now need to get organized and mobilized to be able

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to take back their government.

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Speaker 2: You know, we're onto something here. I'd like to see

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that State of the Union. The Black State of the

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Union Report reissued every January twentieth as a reflection on

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what the state of the Union really is, what the

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state of the Negro is, from our economic to our political,

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to our social to our cultural and there is no

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doubt that at this hour in the nation's history, we

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are in a source or space of regression. We are

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going backwards, not because we the people, particularly us, are

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not moving forward, but because the government itself is turning

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its back on the least of these year each just

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a few more minutes before we come forward.

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Speaker 3: Well, uh, you call it turning turning his back. I

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think I think we got mooned. Uh. Something about this

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feels like a childish or a high school prank. That

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basically what what the Congress keeps showing us is there

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behind right, they're basically saying, we'll do what we want.

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Speaker 4: Uh.

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Speaker 3: You know, you've got a president that's overseas today saying

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he's not going to give up on taking somebody else's land.

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He's just not going to use force to do it. Uh,

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and then comes out with some statement that says he

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has some sort of agreement that allows him to back

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away from imposing tariffs some folks who oppose his point

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of view about the seizing of land. There is this

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sense that we who have lived this history must be

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able to recount it. One because this year marks one

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hundred years since Black History Week was initiated and installed

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in this country, that we've got to go back and

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remember how we got here, and how we got here

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was not by some sense of charity or some sense

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of you know, egalitarian focus. Oh, let's just make room

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for the negro. No, we came in kicking down doors

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and making demands and persisting until the cries and the

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calls for justice had to be heard and had to

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be honored.

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Speaker 2: Go to the club.

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Speaker 4: Recent claim by President Trump that the nineteen sixty four

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Civil Rights Act harn white Americans is just wrong and

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it's dangerous. It rewrites history in a way that fuels

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fear and resentment. My fathers and so many leaders of

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the movement, Fred Shuttlesworth dying, Nash John Lewis, I can

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call the role, but I won't do it today, did

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not risk their lives to divide this nation. They did

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not risk their lives to divide this nation. They did

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so because America was denying millions basic rights, the right

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to work, the right to vote, to live where they please,

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to move through society with dignity. The Civil Rights Act

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did not give Black people special treatment. It made discrimination illegal,

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the same discrimination you're trying to turn around and use

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a quiet the law to protect everyone equally. That is democracy.

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So to my white brothers and sisters, the Civil Rights

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Act was never meant to harm you. It was meant

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to heal a nation broken by injustice. Fairness does not

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steal from you. Justice strengthens us.

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Speaker 2: All Junior listening to Jesse Jackson Junior show, Bernice King

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said it all more. When we come forward on k

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BLA talk fight, welcome for with me, Come on, come

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on with me. More than past political Action chair for

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the Maryland State Conference of the NAACP, as co founding

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principle of Community Churches for Community Development, Inc. And as

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the founding principle of Assault Strategic Advocacy and Legislative think Tank,

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a faith based public policy collaborative that works on regional

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and national empowerment strategies impacting disaffected communities. He's often called

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upon to facilitate creative conversations that solve challenging public policy problems.

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A civil rights attorney and public policy advocate, Doctor Yeerie

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holds a deep belief that honest dialogue creates opportunities to

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form strategic partnerships that strengthen families and communities. Doctor Eerie,

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welcome forward the Wealthy Wednesdays and the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

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And as we wait for Doctor Yerie, I wanted to

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share with with everyone that I thought the profundity with

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which Bernice King delivered her remarks, which from my perspective,

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must always be difficult for Reverend doctor Bernice King. Obviously

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she's commemorating all the birth of her father, but also

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having to reflect not very far from his grave site

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along with the gravesite of her mother, and yet with

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such poise and such grace. She comes forward every single

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year on this holiday to reflect upon the life of

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her father in a timely, relevant, courageous, and clear way,

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and she almost always challenges the occupant of the White

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House and the nation's leadership to a higher moral calling

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and purpose. And so I was particularly moved just a

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few years ago when I sat through the King Holiday

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service at Ebenezer Church when Bernice delivered her annual address.

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Senator Rafael Warnock was present on that occasion. Of course,

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he is the pastor of Beniezer Baptist Church right across

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the street from the King Sinner. And the grace with

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which she approaches under very difficult circumstances, that reflection must

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be some kind of special place that she has to

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dig in order to be able to provide the kind

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of clarity that provides every single year during this period.

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And so I am particularly grateful for her spirit. I

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am completely grateful that God has given us a woman

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in this particular time, a leader of immense moral authority

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and clarity in Reverend Doctor Bernice King. I do believe

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that I want to turn our conversation to this question

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of Donald Trump and Greenland and his preoccupation and obsession

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with Greenland. With that said, I'm going to turn to

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our team and ask them to play a clip regarding Greenland.

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Speaker 5: Thucidides is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of

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international relations reasserting itself, and faced with this logic, there

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is a strong tendency for countries to go along, to

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get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that

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compliance will buy safety. Well it won't, so what are

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our options. In nineteen seventy eight, the Czech dissident Vaslav Havel,

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later president, wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless,

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and in it he asked a simple question, how did

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the communist system sustain itself? And his answer began with

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a greengrocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in

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his window, Workers of the world unite. He doesn't believe it,

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no one does, but he places a sign anyway to

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avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because

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every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system

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persists not through violence alone, but through the participation of

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ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.

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Havell called this living within a lie. The system's power

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comes not from its truth, but from everyone's willingness to

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perform as if it were true, and its fragility comes

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from the same source. When even one person stops performing,

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when the greengrocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack. Friends,

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it is time for companies and countries to take their

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signs down.

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Speaker 2: For decades, for.

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Speaker 6: Decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the

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rules based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised

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its principles, We benefited from its predictability, and because of that,

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we could pursue values based foreign policies under its protection.

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We knew the story of the international rules based order

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was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient,

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that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically, and we knew that

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international law applied with varying rigor depending on the identity

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of the.

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Speaker 5: Accused or the victim.

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Speaker 6: This fiction was useful.

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Speaker 5: An American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open

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sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support

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for frameworks for resolving disputes. Placed the sign in the window.

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We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling

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out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer.

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Speaker 2: Works, Doctor Yarie. I want to turn our attention to Greenland.

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But I'm also deeply troubled by the reality that much

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of the investigations into Donald Trump in his first term

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were largely driven by what James Comy, Hillary Clinton others

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actually knew about Donald Trump and his ability to bring

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chaos to the world order. We have just a few

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minutes before we come forward, Doctor Eerie, your thoughts on

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the chaos of the hour from Donald John Trump in

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the international order. Two words that come up in that speech.

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One is American jiminy.

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Speaker 3: It is that sense of entitlement and self proclaimed dominance

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and domination that the rest of the world is now

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paying very close attention to.

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Speaker 2: And I think what you're.

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Speaker 3: Beginning to see is a realignment of allegiances and alliances

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that could very well leave the United States out on

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a limb by itself. And simply claiming that you've got

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the strongest military on the face of the planet does

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not somehow make you the one who sets the rules.

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Speaker 2: On the playground.

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Speaker 3: And so I think inside the US bubble, the thing

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that has to be determined, particularly in the halls of Congress,

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is how long do we let this reckless type of

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leadership go unchecked and not use what Congress has as

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its greatest tool, and that's the power of the purse.

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Speaker 2: That you can't just use who's.

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Speaker 3: Somebody else's money, which he's accustomed to doing, to do

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what he wants to do for his own benefit. And

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it's going to have diminishing returns. It already does, and

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eventually it's going to start causing arm in places where

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he claims that he's got his greatest success.

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Speaker 2: I'm Jesse Jackson Junior listening to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

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This is doctors Todd Yuri more than We Come forward

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on KBLA Talk fifteen j Lunch Club welcomes doctor Yuri forward,

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Doctor YERI I have a I have this revelation in

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our conversation that just arrived. Everything Trump did in his

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first term. When I think about Greenland, including demanding that

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Europe pay more of its own defense, It's not like

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it was an effort that if they paid more of

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their own defense, he would reduce the US military budget.

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In fact, he will be the first president to propose

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a trillion dollar annual military budget for the United States,

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the largest military budget per animal spending in the history

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of the world per year. But by demanding that Europe

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pay more of its own defense and then the American

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people giving him a second term, he's essentially saying, now,

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pay for all of your own defense. And of course,

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the greatest threat to Europe is Putin and Ukraine and

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the march of Putin westward from Ukraine to the borders

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potentially of Europe itself. When you speak about unraveling the

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entire international order, there is something to be said about

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the early investigations into Donald Trump and his behavior that

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was deeply troubling for the intelligence community in the United States.

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Speaker 3: Theory, yeah, there are few things embedded in that very

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cogent question. The US economy is a consumption based economy.

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Speaker 2: What makes it thrive is for the.

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Speaker 3: Consumer to be able to get what they need to consume.

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The US economy is not built to be self sustaining.

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It needs a global marketplace in which to operate so

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that you don't have as much pressure. Right, we have

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a depressed labor wage, we have depressed opportunity, we have

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kind of exclusions for who does and does not get

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paid for certain types of work. If this wered to

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really be as they talk about a market based solution,

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much of what the US claims to be America first

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would be beyond the reach to even be produced here

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because the cost of labor as part of the formula

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would be unsustainable. And so for the units to think

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that somehow or other, this notion of expanding military and

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getting other countries to pay more and giving this sense

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that somehow other these factories are going to come back,

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and yet they're going to pay seven dollars and twenty

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five cents an hour only in those states where the

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federal hourly wage is higher.

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Speaker 2: Than the state wage.

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Speaker 3: That's states, particularly in the old Confederate South. We've got

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to be real clear that we understand that we're not

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going to get hustled this time. That's what reverend doctor

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Bernie's King was talking about. That's what we heard from

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Davos this morning. Everybody is saying saying, look, we're onto

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this game and we're not going to get played again.

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And so remember you've been talking to mister President that

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is feeding this kind of infantile insanity. You need to

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understand that it's not going to be go along to

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get along. You're going to get pushed back internally in

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terms of in the streets of the United States, and

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you're going to get pushed back in terms of global policy.

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And if you want to live on that iceberg, then

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go for it. But we're not going to become subjects

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to American hegemony.

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Speaker 5: Again.

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Speaker 2: I heard the other day, and one person also commented

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in our chat that they've never seen a president more

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intent on a World War three and another civil war

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all within his own administration. Is there a tipping point? Todd, Well,

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the tipping point is you've got to be careful that

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the civil war and the World war don't.

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Speaker 3: Happen at the same time, because then you've got to

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figure out what he's going to do with the military

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that he says has these off the chart enlistments going on. Right,

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there is a ceiling to what the US military can

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actually handle.

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Speaker 2: And when he's running off.

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Speaker 3: In all of these places using the military for non

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military purposes, what he's doing is he's further depleting the

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capacity of the military to do what nations military forces

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are really there to do to defend their interest.

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Speaker 2: And so I think he's spreading things too.

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Speaker 3: Thin, and I think he's giving himself too much credit

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that somehow that he's going to be able to dominate.

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And in the meantime, I'm sure there are a number

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of conversations for which he is not pretty that those

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he would maybe consider as adversaries are maybe building alliances

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that are counter to the US domination strategy that has

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never really worked. And even as he celebrates two and

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fifty years of independence, the independence of America was not

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done solely by the resources of America. They had to

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have allies in that exercise. And to think that somehow

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that he can celebrate it and not honor it is

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something that we all have.

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Speaker 2: To reckon with, you know, doctor Bury, I think that

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I don't think he's making decisions at all. I don't

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think he's capable given what we've seen over the last

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nine months. I don't think he's capable of sitting through

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a meeting and rationally approaching the present role that he

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has as President of the United States, the moral questions,

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the political questions, the security questions. I don't think he's

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that patient. I don't think he gives the kind of

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reflection that we think about previous presidents, the George W.

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Bush maybe more I'm sorry, George H. W. Bush, maybe

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more than George W. Who needed his vice president the

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kind of reflection that Barack Obama and John F. Kennedy

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and even Lyndon Johnson gave to the office of the Presidency.

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I don't think he's capable of it. So this is

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a useful there's some useful idiocy going on here. But

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there is a cabal in the White House that this

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country is going to have to come to terms with

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through the legal system when this administration is over. Talking

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about autopen auto pen taking a person who is like

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00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:20,599
spending the weekend with Bernie's with the President of the

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United States and just having him sign things that are

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00:34:23,519 --> 00:34:27,480
part of this whole project twenty twenty five agenda has

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been so catastrophic to the republic itself. To the two

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00:34:32,519 --> 00:34:35,360
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He's

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00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:38,079
shredding the documentary Iman year. We have about two minutes

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before you come forward. I know, I took us in

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a beat valley and you take us to a mountain

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of hope.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we got to climb the mountain, though. We gotta

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be real clear what we're seeing is actually the byproduct

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telling exactly what you just mentioned. It is the kind

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of passive endorsement of this kind of recklessness.

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Speaker 2: But here's what I was saying for us.

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Speaker 3: To remember as we observe Doctor King's holiday on yesterday

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or day before yesterday, we have to remember that Scripture

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tells us that in honoring God now into the one

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who is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all

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that we can ask or imagine according to the power

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00:35:25,079 --> 00:35:28,079
that's at work within us. This isn't a moment about

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what God's going to do. This is a moment about

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what the people are going to do.

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Speaker 2: You the power that God has given.

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00:35:33,039 --> 00:35:36,079
Speaker 3: Us to be able to change the dynamics and dimensions

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00:35:36,119 --> 00:35:40,159
of what human frailty cannot otherwise produce. And if the

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00:35:40,199 --> 00:35:44,119
divine in us rises in this moment, then the moral

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outcomes will indeed be ours to experience, and we will

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be able to pass them on to our children.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, doctor here for being with us today. Always

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00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:57,880
good to be with you, my brother. I'm Jesse Jackson Jr.

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00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:00,159
You've been listening to s. Todd. You're the principle of

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00:36:00,159 --> 00:36:02,800
the year. Refirm a Maryland based litigation and government relations firm.

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00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:06,480
More with Jesse Jackson Junior tomorrow, but for now. More

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00:36:06,519 --> 00:36:08,840
with KBLA. Talked of fifteen eighty when we come f