Speaker 1: I'm just Jackson jewis Well. Of course, l fifteen leads
Meet Pays with Gina Towns. Yeah. He was our creator
and producer of The Jesse Jackson Junior Show, president and
CEO of five nineteen Productions, and the executive producer, creative
director and program director of The Jesse Jackson Junior Show
on Smiley Audio Media's Kblate doc fifteen to eighty. She
is also the host of Reflectivity on my weekly series
Fat Meat Fridays. She's a graduate of Hampton University with
the Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication and Arts. Gina
has also earned her Masters of Arts in Theology and
Social Justice from Princeton Theological Seminary. She co produced the
Emmy Award nominated and documentary documentary Hampton University One of
the Wonders of the World, and as a songwriter, co
producer and performer, her single Yes hit number twenty six
with a billet on the Billboard. Gina, Welcome forward to
The Jesse Jackson Junior Show, Fat Meat Fridays and the
j Lunch Club. Thank God it is Friday. That Friday.
It's almost as if we talked just last week. It
feels like a continuation the weeks are moving very very quickly.
Speaker 2: Well, time is moving swiftly. I don't know if January
has ever gone this fast.
Speaker 3: It's really really something. It's also a slog when one
considers all of the politics that's taking place. Gina, your
thoughts on the roundup of our week here on the
Jesse Jackson Junior Show.
Speaker 2: Well, going all the way back to last week, Really,
I have had a great time, maybe more so than
I have in a while, because you know what they say,
you don't appreciate, you don't know what you got till
it's gone. And our show has decidedly taken on a
lot of Martin Luther King. We spent more than his
birthday or even the national holiday recognition of his birthday.
I mean decidedly every day. I asked you and our
guests to focus on Martin Luther King, and you have
done a tremendous job with bringing our attention to beyond
Vietnam a speech that he wrote a year to the
day of his assassination, and you'll break down of it.
The discussions that you've had with people who are very
cognizant of the social justice space, but in particular, there
have been some conversations and you and Johnny Mack, who
study Doctor King each and every week. Certainly we have
a need for that right now, and that is the
part of our history that we must turn to and
lean on.
Speaker 1: You know, I give it some reflection in this first
segment of our show. Nineteen sixty seven must have been
a pivotal year in the life of Martin Luther King Junior.
I was born in nineteen sixty five, and so at
age two and a few months, I can only help
but think that with what I've heard, with what I've read,
with what I've come to understand, that the April fourth,
nineteen sixty seven speech Beyond Vietnam a time to break
the silence, and the fact that he wrote the book
Where do We Go from Here? Chaos or Community serves
as important data points in going forward for those of
us who are in the King and the King gi
and if you will tradition, where do we go from here?
Chaos or Community? The question before us today is whether
or not we are closer to community or we are
closer to absolute global chaos. I was watching the leadership
at the Davos Economic Summit this past week, and it
is increasingly clear that they are accepting the idea that
the old order has passed, that a new order is
in front of us, that traditional alliances that have held
true at least since the end of World War Two
are no longer the same alliances. Europe obviously feels vulnerable.
Greenland is less secure today than it was before Donald
Trump became president again. Russia is embolden in Ukraine, and
Vladimir Lensky is treated as a stepchild. The President of
the United States kidnapped the president of Venezuela, Jared Kushner,
the President of the United States, began something yesterday called
a peace board. We'll talk about more of that will
to come forward on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty. I'm Jesse
Jackson Junior. More when we come forward on KBLA in
your show, It's happening Fridays with our creator, Gina Towns,
and our very special guest in this hour is doctor
nik Cordelai Corte. Not only does he continue his work
as an author and KBLA White House correspondent, but also
returns to GSP as professor shaping the next generation of
transformational leaders. His work bridges the worlds of media public
service and education, living proof of what it means to
lead with both head and heart. A proud graduate of
De LaSalle High School in the San Francisco Bay Area,
he went on to earn his bachelor's degree in political
science from the University of Southern California, where he also
pursued a minor in Critical Approaches to Leadership, and after
several years of experience as a public affairs professional, doctor
Q felt called to deepen his impact through education, choosing
Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology GSP as
his academic and leader ship home. Doctor Corte, Doctor Q me,
you welcome to.
Speaker 4: The Jesse Jackson. I'm on the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.
It's Friday. I couldn't be happier. How you doing, brother man?
Speaker 1: I love you very much and there's absolutely nothing you
can do about it. That's right, Ney, Listen. I am
particularly concerned about the headlines over the last two weeks,
and I'd love to get your input and your feedback.
Let me just read them briefly. The US pulls out
of the World Health Organization. The United States formally completed
its withdrawal from WHO on Thursday, after a year after
President Donald Trump, he simply essentially put the cabash on
it USA. Today, Americans say the United States is out
of control, and not just the liberals are saying it.
Al Jazeera says the US to withdraw from dozens of
UN international organizations. The Wall Street Journal echoes that Trump
pulls out of more than thirty UN bodies, BBC Trump
withdraws from US key climate treaties and dozens of other groups.
And of course, the context here is a global climate
catastrophe that is taking place at the same time that
the administration is withdrawing from international cooperation because, as John F.
Kennedy said, we all share the same planet and we
are all more Doctor Q, where is this? Where are
we going? In the post celebration of Martin Luther King Junior,
his ninety seventh birthday was January fifteenth. Chaos or community?
Speaker 4: Well, thank you for the question, Jesse Junior. I think
there are examples of both. There are examples of chaos
in community. You've just laid out the kind of chaos
that we're seeing, particularly abroad, but the chaos that we're
also seeing right here across the country, we're seeing facilitated
by ICE. For example, I am still shaken and stirred
having learned about UH civil rights attorney and activists uh
Nikema Levy Armstrong not only being arrested at the hands
of the US Department of Justice for exercising her First
Amendment right UH in and in in peacefully protesting UH
in a church where the pastor is alleged to also
be doubling as a local director of ICE. To add
insult to injury, we saw that the White House just
yesterday shared an altered photo of an arrested UH Nikema
Levy Armstrong. What do we call that? We call that propaganda,
you know, you got to say it playing uh And
and so we are seeing a lot of seeds of
division that are being sown. We're seeing, uh the kind
of chaos that is intended to leave us feeling disoriented
and feeling powerless, and feeling like what it is that
this administration hopes to accomplish, That every plank that's a
part of Project twenty twenty five, that all that is inevitable.
That's what they want us to feel. But I think
to your point, I think community is a part of
the anecdote to this. We cannot make it to the
other side of this chaos by ourselves. And so I've
been heartened to see so many activists from across the
country lock arms and declare that what's happened to folks
like Nikeema Levy Armstrong and other peaceful protesters, other legal observers,
other American citizens, the trampling of folks civil rights and
civil liberty. Not only is it wrong, but you have
people taking to the streets saying not on my watch.
That is the kind of community that we need to
sustain through election Day in order to bring this country
back from the brink.
Speaker 1: You know, I saw the altered photo of sister Armstrong
side by side with the dignity that she accepted and
did not if you will resist arrest. As a result
of that protest, we also saw some levels of the
exact same attempt to disgrace if you will, to humiliate
don Lemon. I believe in the same particular event, And
I'm wondering to think about a department of justice that
traditionally prided itself in the idea that even those in
captivity are innocent until proven guilty. This kind of altering
of the even prosecutorial environment where even a criminal defendant,
an alleged criminal defendant, has to even prove in court
that hey, the documents that you're showing or the evidence
that you're presenting has been altered to reflect not the
truth of my First Amendment rights, but the inherent insults
that are associated with the process. Uh that if in
fact you are proven innocent, the social media space, the government,
with the government's support, participates in a denigration of you
and the organization and the movement and the very processes
that we have hold deers Americans. Your thought about that
as a professional journalist.
Speaker 4: Well, let me just say, speaking of feeling shaken and surred,
I think a lot of us who pride ourselves in
developing the first draft of history in the form of journalism,
I think we were disturbed by the efforts of this
Trump Department of Justice to trample on the right to
a free press. And thank goodness that this federal magistrate
judge rejected the Justice Department's initial attempt to bring charges
against our friend, our brother, journalist Don Lemon, for appearing
alongside protesters who went into a Minnesota church over the weekend.
You know, so we can't live stream protest that's against
the law, that that invites the Department of Justice, the
US Department of Justice, to file charges. It's it's it's
hard to not believe that Don Lemon's black, proudly black,
proudly gay self didn't factor into his targeting. You know,
it's it's hard. It's hard to believe, you know, that
someone who has demonstrated an ability to speak truth to power, right,
it's it's hard to believe that this Justice Department didn't
seek to make an example out of Don Lemon and
and to send a signal to you, to send a
signal to me that telling the truth, speaking the truth
to the masses, streaming the truth to the masses will
be met with a federal government weaponized by this Trump
administration's ultimate aims. You know, it is it is. It
shocks the conscience that there are a number of folks
out there that can't see this for what it is.
It shocks the content that Democrats, Republicans, independents can't lock
arms and say this is a bridge too far, right,
what else is it going to take? But look, you know,
our legal system, Uh it worked, uh in this case,
you know, But I fear for the other independent journalists
that are out there that don't have the same muscle
as legacy corporate media might have. I shudder at what
is possible if the algorithms change and suddenly it's harder
to get information from these independent journalists, you know, on YouTube,
on Instagram, on some of the other major platforms. And
last thing I'll add is you know, of course, I'm
sure you're aware that TikTok is now officially under US ownership.
For anybody on TikTok, it's worth looking at the terms
of service, looking at the terms of service uh as
a part of what TikTok says that they're offering. I
took a look at it yesterday because you know, I
like to geek out on stuff like this. I was
looking at the community guidelines in my time off last night,
and one of the areas you talk about integrity and authenticity,
you know, and they talk about how we require clear
labeling when AI or editing is used to realistically depict
people or scenes. We don't allow AI generated content that
misleads about matters of public importance or that harms individuals.
Will look with the White House just put out yesterday
on those media channels with Nakeema Levy Armstrong right, and
so part of the fight ahead as folks that refuse
to spiral ind chaos and folks that embrace the tenets
of a beloved community. Part of the work that we
have to do is also hold these social media companies,
hold these organizations to what they say on paper. They're
all about.
Speaker 1: You know, I just want to add, because I know
the genus going to come into the conversation in just
a moment. You know, when Donald Trump first became President
of the United States the second time, there was an
attack on the legal community that would have historically stood
up and fought for Don Lemon, for a mis Armstrong,
because on the face of the matter, it's wrong. The
prosecutions of Letitia James, the prosecution of the prosecutors, the
care in which Jack Smith had to prepare and present
his testimony to avoid to the extent that he may avoid,
the kind of contempt from Congress that that others have received.
This is what we see. This is what we discuss.
But these individuals are hiring lawyers who literally to prove
they're innoc since can bankrupt the alleged criminal defendant. I
can't begin to tell you just how much this costs
to preserve your name, to preserve the dignity of your work,
to not become a mean, to not become part of
a culture. When we need people to speak truth to power,
we need people to be taken seriously, we need to
convey serious messages. But then when we find ourselves having
to mortgage our homes, to pay for lawyers, to lose
everything that we've ever gained, just to stay free, just
to maintain the integrity of who we are, this is
the era that we are clearly entering. Me and I
wanted to allow Gina the opportunity to come just before
we come forward in two minutes, to share some of
her initial thoughts.
Speaker 2: Well, you started out listing off a number of things,
a number of news stories, but in particular, it is
our withdrawal from the world stage, our participation in a
beloved community around the world. And this really follows leadership,
because there's a leadership that took us to these organizations,
and there is a participation that we've had foundationally, we
have been the financial backbone of many of particularly the
who the World Health Organization is of particular interest as
we begin this isolation of what appears to be an
isolation period, but certainly this is not what Martin Luther
King envisioned or thought about us. So domestically, we have
a number of things going on that dan have tentacles
that reach out around the world, and we tend to
look at things in an isolated fashion. But all of
these things add up together, and I think, you know,
one of the reasons why we have to study Doctor
King is because we are losing a place in our
history and an ideology that we have to fight for.
Speaker 1: You know, when I saw some of the memes of
Doctor King during the holiday period and leading up to
the holiday period, with him dancing and clowning, and with
people taking pictures of him who were not there at
certain periods of his history, and even for the King
family to respond to say leave my father, Bernie said
out of the memes, out of the jokes. And the
idea of protecting one's legacy in this context is it
is obviously something that we're going to have to talk about.
We may even be leading to a generation of people
who start saying it's time to get unplugged. Jesse Jackson
Junior listening to Jesse Jackson Junior show Our very special
guest in this hour is doctor Q. Knie Quarter Lai
Coarte is our very special guest. He's the White House
correspondent for w for KBLA Talk fifteen to eighty. Our
very special contributor, Gina Towns will come forward with us
as well, Talk fifteen eighty in just a moment. I'm
Jesse Jackson Jr. Welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.
This is Fat Meat Fridays and the j Lunch Club
with our regular contributor on Friday's the creator of the
Jesse Jackson Junior Show, Gina Towns. Gina, welcome forward to
the show. Hie Jesse, and our very special guest in
this hour is nie Q, doctor Ortalie Quarte, who is
our White House correspondent at KBLA. Doctor Q, let me
ask you a question just before Gina shares with us
our happenings and black history on this particular date, Trump's
peace board at Dovels at the Dovels Economic Summit looks
like a real estate deal. I've always believed in a
two state solution in the Gaza strip, but when you
see the images and I challenge our listeners to google
peace Board, and to google New Gaza. Google New Gaza
and see the renderings of new Gaza. And I'm wondering
in this moment, doctor Q, how are the poor people
of Gaza going to be able to afford to live
in this arrangement? Why are they not part of the
so called peace board, Doctor Q.
Speaker 4: I think those are questions that need answers, and I
think it's pretty apparent. You know, there's a book that
I require that my students at Pepperdine University read over
the course of the semester. It's called Design Justice. And
one of the principles that the authors about at length
in that book is nothing for us without us, nothing
for us without us. And this is an organizing principle
that some of the most seasoned organizers have adhered to.
There doesn't seem to be much evidence of that. It
is deeply troubling that this plan to rebuild Gaza, this
plan to erect the Middle East Riviera, that it doesn't
seem to have any Palestinians that are playing a principal
role in this, that have a principal voice in this. Yes,
we're seeing folks from the Arab world that are a
part of this but you know, these are folks that
are doing their own bidding, and so this is something
that I think people of conscience are going to have
to watch very very closely. This is going to require
courage people to speak truth to power, and you know,
as not just Democrats, but anybody that's in opposition to this,
as they get out on the campaign trail, it's important
to remind people about the power of our example. Yes,
we need to bring prices down here at home, but
we can't underestimate the power of America's example abroad for
good and for evil, for good, you know, and for
the good of the narrow self interest of a privileged few.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking in this moment when doctor King says that
it's a time to break the silence, that a betrayal
of silence is taking place. As the renderings are obviously
of a futuristic gaza strip that mirrors flying into Manhattan
in fact a more modern Manhattan, or flying into Dubai,
but it simply does not refer the education level the
oppression that the Palestinian people have confronted for decades, and
it seems to me that they have no role in
the future of Jared Kushner's conceptual designs or what can
only be seen as a multi trillion dollar development a
riviera in the Gaza Strip.
Speaker 2: Gina, your thoughts, I think the whole thing is just
very bothersome in general, with the Gaza Strip, because I
had one of those old Bibles as a child where
Israel what is now known as Israel's Palestine, and that
name was changed and those people were moved pushed down
into the Gods Strip. And so now after a culpable
year of unmitigated bombing, death and destruction, it's time to rebuild.
And I saw some early sketch drawings of what it
could be might be. I mean, I think we all
knew from the time that Jared Kushner went that there
was a deal afoot, and certainly it does not include
the people who have been occupying that land. But the
fact is that those people were occupying another land even
before we got to this point.
Speaker 1: Doctor Q. I can't help but reflect in this moment
that the sixty seven thousand people in this conflict are
going to be a people without a home, that they
are going to be potentially refugees in their own land.
And somewhere I read that justice delayed is justice denied.
That somehow peace is not merely the absence of noise,
but the presence of love and the presence of justice.
These are also sustaining principles that we believe in organizing
because the end that we seek is pre existent in
the means, meaning we give some thought to the end
that we want to accomplish towards this idea of a
beloved community. I don't see that taking place here.
Speaker 4: I don't see it taking place in the near term.
It is worth noting that four Palestinians have been killed
in Gods that as Trump has launched this Board of Peace,
it sounds like, you know, America is committed to living
in an alternative universe. Al Jazeera reporting that a number
of medical sources are saying that at least four people
have been killed in the Palestinian civil defense. They reported
that on the death of an infant from hypothermia and
Central Gaza. While President Trump has unveiled his Board of Peace,
they're not experiencing peace there. And I think it's important
that people really understand this, that, you know, to create
this delusion that we're creating this body that is committed
to ushering in an era of peace in the region.
When there is no peace on the ground right there,
We're not dealing in reality, you know.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 4: At some point we're gonna have to reconcile that, because
I don't see the kind of long term security in
the region if we don't reconcile that. To think that
the young people that are coming up right now that
are exposed to all of this, the young people that
are coming up that are living in poverty right now,
the young people that will be forced to live a
life as refugees, young people who may never go back
to the place the only place that they've known is
their home. To think that people just pack up and
move and don't have a word to say about it,
don't have a feeling about it, don't have a trauma
experience related to it, that is divorced from reality. And
we better get this reality check sooner than later so
as to give the region a chance to have the
kind of security that we all hope that it would have,
to have a kind of peace that Trump is trying
to create this illusion of At the moment.
Speaker 1: I'm Jesse Jackson Junior listening to Jesse Jackson Junior show
this is Fat Meat Fridays with Gina Towns, our regular contributor,
and our very special guest in this hour is none
other than our White House correspondent, Doctor Cortelai Nie Cordlai
Corte More. We come forward on kV Late Talk fifteen eighty.
I'm Jesse Jackson Junior. Welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson
Junior Show on kV Late Talk fifteen to eighty, and
I want to welcome our regular contributor on Fat Meat Fridays,
Miss Gina Towns, the creator of the Jesse Jackson Junior Show. Gina,
Welcome forward, Gy Jesse, Hey, Ny Hey, Doctor Anna or Ty,
our White House correspondent, is also joining us. Uh. In
our final segment, I'd like you, if you don't mind,
doctor Q, for you to transition and pivot the conversation
to We've seen chaos in the world, but we're also
seeing chaos domestically. Nothing quite like what's taking place in Minneapolis,
Minnesota have I ever seen in my sixty years. What
are you hearing from Capitol Hill to the White House
on the nature of the chaos and what it could
mean for the midterms.
Speaker 4: Well, just yesterday I had a chance to be in
conversation with Bishop Joseph W. Tulton. He is the founder
of Interconnected Justice. He's also a former Senior Advisor for
Religious and Global Affairs in the US State Department, and
his body of work has really focused on the rise
of white Christian nationalism, and so part of what we
are seeing on the ground in places like Minneapolis, you know,
are folks peddling in that white nationalism, white Christian nationalism.
I think, you know, the focal point of the DOJ
arrest of Nakeema Levy Armstrong, civil rights attorney and activists
who showed up at a church in Minneapolis where the
pastor is alleged to be doubling as acting director of
ICE in the in the area, and I think it
raises some really significant questions in terms of the conflict
of interest. You know, there are people that go to
the church seeking refuge. It's not unusual for churches to
be thought of as sanctuaries or you know, folks who
are down on their luck, for folks that are in
need of support and services. And so the fact that
this alleged connection between this acting ICE director and his
role as the pastor of this church, it is heavily problematic,
and this is just the story that we have learned about.
It makes you wonder how many other churches across America
have pastors or assistant pastors, deacons, deaconesses that are somehow,
you know, tied into the ICE apparatus. You might remember,
due to the passage of the so called Big Beautiful Bill,
ICE has more funding now than they have ever had
in their history, and so they have so much money
to throw at not just official ICE agents, but folks
willing to cooperate with ICE. And that is deeply troubling.
And so that's what I'm hearing the most about from
folks in DC and places like Minneapolis and out in
the field and places across the country.
Speaker 2: Gina, Sure, they defunded SNAP and defunded health care for
Americans who needed in order to build this budget. And
so this is what we have now. And I want
to go back to what you said, because I saw
Don when he landed in Minneapolis, and there was a
guy who spoke to him there and the guy said,
I'm so glad you're here and basically said, you know,
be careful, and Don was like, well, what's that about?
And he says, well, things are really not what people
don't understand what's going on here. It's not like maybe
it was in Los Angeles or DC, or even Chicago
for that matter. This is this is really a lot
and people are scared. So, you know, I was just
as you guys were talking. This militarization and focus on
materialism is certainly something that doctor King prophetically talked about.
And every so often there's a rise in this. It's
almost like we have to go back, you know, every
sixty years, every hundred years, and you know, fight this
battle all over again. And I don't know that it
will ever stop. What do you think me?
Speaker 4: You know, look, I think it is a righteous fight.
It is a fight that we have been fighting for
centuries in this country biblically speaking, even longer than that.
It is a righteous fight. But speaking of righteous fight,
I just want to connect the dots for a second,
because there's a whole conversation happening around qualified immunity. And
you might remember that the president and Vice president have
said and then they didn't say, and then they said
that they supported full immunity for ice officers. Well, I
just want to remind our audience of leaders learners and
listeners that back in twenty twenty, when folks had taken
to the streets in places like Minneapolis and Los Angeles
and Chicago and DC and New York and so many
places across the country calling for justice, calling for the
passage of the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, I
just want to remind folks that one of the major
components of that bill was reforming qualified immunity for officers.
There are some that wanted to get rid of it altogether.
There are some that wanted to lower the threshold by
which it could apply. But imagine, imagine if we had
gotten that done in twenty twenty. Imagine what tools local
law enforcement and other agencies would have to work with
to rein in these ice officers off the rails. And
so this is just a reminder that there's sometimes there's
legislation out there. And you know this better than most
Jesse Jackson Junior, as a former member of Congress and
soon to be member of Congress again, you know this
better than anybody else. That there are folks that somehow
get in their head that there are pieces of legislation
that narrowly only benefit black people and seem to forget
the history that we've had in this country of fighting
for legislation that not just moves our people forward closer
to liberation, but moves America forward. And so if America
celebrates it's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, commemorates it, we
need to do a look back and a look forward.
We need to learn from what we didn't get done
into and how it's playing out in the now, so
that we can stop it from happening ever again.
Speaker 1: Now that's a word of hope if I ever heard one,
that doesn't get much clearer than what doctor Q said.
Nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act didn't just benefit black people.
It also led to the Americans with Disability Act. It
also led to the civil right to marriage for two
persons who are in love and care deeply and profoundly
for each other. It led to access for the disabled
to get into buildings and to build ramps and to
build sidewalks that allow people to traverse and take advantage
of their basic civil and human rights. It's given rights
to veterans and to even white men. It was illegal
to be a police officer in Alabama and Mississippi and
certainly a state trooper if you weren't at least six
foot two. So even short white men were discriminated against
without the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four. When
you think about this question of qualified immunity, doctor Q,
you hit its spot on the head. They shot that
woman in her face, and they also now have warrantless
searches of people's homes, meaning they can kick in the
door not only of black and brown people, but they
can kick in the doors of white folks. Doctor King, American.
Speaker 4: It's an American and we need to call it out
before our nation succumbs to this perversion of our constitution.
Speaker 1: Our very special guest has been doctor Nie Cordelaike Corte,
and you're listening to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show and
Fat Met Fridays with Gina Towns More. When we come
forward on KBLA Talk