September 18, 2020 • 54 mins
Melody Bray stops by once again to discuss activism, voting, voter supression, and pizza.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this is Annie an Samantha and welcome to Steph.
I've never told your production of I Heart Radio. Okay,
so I have just start with a question again, don't
I I mean you don't have to. I mean I
feel like it's tradition now, um, so let me ask.
(00:28):
Oh god, I have to hide where I'm like really struggling.
You know what, I have a good I have a
good one. Yesterday. What was your birthday? Today? Is even
though yes it's not that time frame as you're listening
whenever you listen, but yesterday was Andy's birthday? So Annie,
can you tell me what was the best thing you
(00:49):
did on your birthday during quarantine? Because we're still quarantine. Oh,
I actually turned out to be a lovely birthday. And
I think, um, I would say that the relief of
not having to plan a party, as much as I
love a party, was wonderful. And also I have an
insecurity that people just sort of forget about me and quarantine,
(01:13):
and they didn't. They really showed up. I didn't ask,
but people brought me beer, they brought me food, like
socially distanced, but it was really steeve. It was I'm
lucky to have a really good group of friends you included, Samantha. Yeah,
our celebration is coming a little later. Yeah. See, now
your question is so specific to me. Can't really answer
(01:35):
what was you did yesterday? This is why I did
this because I'm like, I don't I don't really want
to ask answer a question. The bust thing I did
yesterday I found a new game on my phone which
has all these different puzzles, and I'm like, you know what,
this is how I'm going to combat eld age dementia
because I'm struggling with the words. So that's the bust
(01:58):
thing I did yesterday. So yeah, anyway, I'm glad to
know that you had a good birthday and today because
I love when my friends come on. We have back
Melody Bray, who was with us earlier this season. I
guess every day, what is this the year earlier this year?
(02:20):
The timeframe, Oh my god, uh to talk to us
about the discrimination in housing and women and how it's
affecting us today and in the pandemic. And she is back. Welcome.
So I have this plot um of making sure that
Melody is always going to be kind of our extra
special friend who comes around every month or so every
(02:41):
few months or so to give us, give us a
friend that Melody. We you and I've known each other
for a long time, so of course it's gonna be
a little creepy because that's what I do. Come on,
you know me now, But yes, um, we are bringing
Melody back because we wanted to talk to you about
what it looks like to be an activist during this
(03:04):
political season without necessarily running within any elections, and what
it looks like and why it's important to do it
on a very local front um. And also because I
love you have nothing has slowed you down. This has
been a ridiculous time where everybody just kind of quit everything,
including me. I'm like, yeah, I'm done, I'm done being
all the things. But you have pushed forward and continue
(03:28):
to drive and push and be a voice during our
electoral season in Georgia, and you have created a new project,
a nonprofit. Can you talk to us about that a
little bit? Yeah? Well, for first I just have to
stop you. You referred to me as an activist, which
I have I to my knowledge, have not been called
an activist before, and just strikes me as like, I
(03:53):
don't know, it's it seems like such a like big
and weighty word like I just being myself as like
a person who sees gaps and fills them if possible,
or like gets a friend to fill them if I
can't do it. So, um, thank you for speaking so
(04:13):
highly of me. It just sounds weird coming out of
your mouth. For current projects is uh called the Georgia
Project And um, we are just a group of women
here in Atlanta who we've kind of been motivated by.
I'd say the hands down the best thing to come
(04:36):
out of Donald Trump's presidency in my view, is an
increased awareness and motivation and you know, people are actually
paying attention to what's going on around them more. Um So,
a couple of friends, um, Abbie Green, Katie White, they
decided they wanted to go hand out pizza and water
during the mid terms in light of the press cut
(05:00):
bridge that was coming out about then Secretary of State
Brian Kemp running against Stacy Abrams for governor UM and
then this past June with the primaries going on, and
everybody with eyes had the ability to see that we
had this convergence of events that we're going to turn
into some sort of debacle. On the day of the
(05:22):
primary um, Abby and Katie, along with another gown named
Adelaide Taylor, decided they were going to do their line
warming efforts again. And then meantime, I on another side,
was planning on doing my own little line warming effort,
and we kind of all like virtually met up. Like
some folks were like, hey, you you're doing this over here,
(05:43):
and another groups doing this over here. Why don't you
guys combine your superpowers and um, see what you can
do to provide food, water, COVID supplies two folks who
were standing in line, And in a matter of a
few days, we were able to raise eleven thousand dollars
to support our efforts to buy all those provisions for
(06:04):
folks in line. We hit sixty precincts around the metro
Atlanta area to support voters, and most importantly, I felt
like we brought like joy and encouragement to people standing
in line. It was hot. It was so hot that day.
If it wasn't hot, it was a deluge of rain.
(06:26):
It was one or the other, there's no in between.
We did that, and knowing that November three was coming up,
we decided we were going to pivot from election day
to a focus on election month, and so Georgia Project
feels like every person who votes early is a person
(06:48):
who is not in line on November three, And we
are raising money to be able to provide early voter
incentives to folks and then support those who are actually
comeing out on November three and providing resources to underrepresented
communities on absentee ballot packets. UM. Instructions on how to
(07:10):
do that where you're early voting locations are, um, what
some of these roles are on the ballot, how do
they affect your daily life? That kind of thing, um.
And we're doing it all through kind of food centric things,
So putting those packets in food bank boxes um to
go to underrepresented communities, or we'll be at the Marta,
(07:32):
which is our public transit system here, the Marta Farmers
markets targeting those communities being able to get absentee ballot
requests packets into their hands and then follow up the
next week when we're there again when they have a
question about the ballot, come back to us, talk to us,
you know, just being that kind of resource. I love
that so much, um, And just kind of go back
(07:55):
and talk a little bit about what happened in Georgia
because you have done a nice job on making it
a positive spin when all I saw was a disaster.
So in my pessimistic spin. So much like UM a
lot of other states, Georgia had a lot of confusion,
UM wasn't the UM, and a lot of problems in
(08:19):
the whole voting, the fact that they had closed down
locations and didn't give people enough time to uh really
prepare or nowhere to go one two. They also had
the long ass lines that took forever because either the
machines were faulty or the place was not did not
have enough machines. All these big, huge problems which like
ended up being an eight hour weight if not longer
(08:41):
for a lot of people. That the thought was they
were going to start to leave, which by the way,
that didn't happen. People were pissed and they wanted to vote,
and they were more determined, And I loved that UM
and it was it was a huge delay within in
a lot. Actually it opened up a big conversation about
the controversy of what is happening in these areas? Why
are these places being closed, why are they being neglected,
(09:04):
and why are people not being made aware of the
changes that are happening until the day of when it's
almost too late or more frustrating and making people turn away,
and you and these group of ladies came together to
make it a more positive experience, which was phenomenal, and
I love, love, loved hearing of that and then coming
in behind that and making it a preventative measure within November,
(09:27):
because we don't really have any solutions. There's no conversations
of real solutions right now outside of the fact that
yet the State Farm Arena, which opened up a lot
of space and a lot of opportunity, and we were
very grateful to have that. I know around the country
other arenas are starting to do the same UM trying
to give more opportunities for people to vote. But it
(09:48):
did open up this conversation of what is happening and
why are these specific areas being targeted, because it seemed
like when you started looking at UM people's complaints and
where do the complaints were coming from, it was were
populated urban areas which had a lot of complicated questions
coming out of it. And I didn't want to talk
to you about a little bit about what you saw
(10:09):
because you're also a lawyer who if I said, like
I have referred to your services before you have and
you've been very, very helpful. And you've also worked within
county government as well as have high UM, and you
have seen a lot of the small local stuff and
how it can be effective as well as how it
could be harmful if people don't understand what's happening within
(10:33):
those types of elections. So I want to talk about
all these things, including the fact, as we were talking
about a little bit part of the conversation about this
complicated process in order to vote in person, is it
a part of the bigger conversation of voter suppression. I
know you're working on anti suppression activism, and can you
(10:54):
kind of talk about what is happening what you see
as a problem. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean I think the
fact that the Georgia Project exists, I will be glad
when we shut down, when we no longer exist, that
you've got just four regular people who um see this
(11:15):
massive systemic issue and are having to like, at this point,
we're having a stamp drive where we collect stamps to
give to folks to mail things in. And there was
a moment when we were planning it, and we all
just started laughing at how ridiculous it is that we're
asking our parents and grandparents to cough up their stamps
(11:35):
in order to give it to other people to vote.
Like it. It just it kind of it just blows
my mind. Um, it blows my mind. So, getting to
what you're saying of of whether voter suppression is an
issue or not, it is a partisan This is a
partisan topic, and you largely fall on one part of
the line or the other depending on what party are
(11:57):
in in general, which I think is unfortunate because the
facts say something different. It's it's clear. So if you're
going to talk about voter suppression, you have to talk
about the more relatively recent Supreme Court ruling in Shelby
versus Holder that struck down Section five of the Voting
(12:18):
Rights Act. And that section was put in the Act
originally in order to force or mandate states anytime they
were going to make some sort of process change to elections,
they had to get some sort of federal approval of oversight.
And the ruling of the court essentially was that we've
made such strides since uh this Act was enacted in
(12:42):
nine that we don't really need that oversight anymore, ignoring
the logic that perhaps the fact that this act exists
is the reason we've made such great strides. And so
when evaluating weather so ppression exists, you have to really
focus on kind of the years leading up to Shelby
(13:05):
versus Holder, which was and compare from let's say ish
to present versus pre levels. And so for instance, in Georgia,
two fourteen polling places were closed in Georgia since and
(13:26):
of those places were in black counties or predominantly black counties.
Kemp In our current governor, but at the time with
Secretary of State, he uh had fifty four thousand voter
registrations that he put into quote pending status, which essentially
is like a voter purgatory where you you can neither
(13:48):
you're not denied that you can't vote, but you can't
also actually affirmatively vote. Eighty percent of those were people
of color. And as a side note, Stay Abrams lost
by five thousand votes, and fifty four thousand of those
were pening. Like you have fifty four thousand pending registrations
um provisional ballots that were cast of those were cast.
(14:13):
Of those where people of color and half of provisional
ballots were thrown out. So it's a crazy thing to
me to say that when looking at numbers like that,
that seventy of closures in my state we're closed in
predominantly black counties, and say that there's not some level
(14:35):
that's is well above flipping a coin and having some
sort of chance. Right, we're talking about math, right, Okay,
it's not you can't skew and I wasn't ready for
a math lesson. Listen, I suck at math. But if
even I can do a math equation, you know, it's
(14:56):
the most like basic of math problems that you could
I'm up. It's one of those common sense huh, this
does not match what is wrong here? Right? And so
even if you were to say, let's say, for arguments,
say it's not some nefarious, smoke filled room situation where
(15:17):
people are coming up with this plan, because arguably the
idea that any governmental entity is able to come up
with a comprehensive, incompetent plan about anything is a bit
of a stretch of imagination. Right at the very least,
you are seeing an issue and refusing to actually take
(15:38):
steps to help the issue, which to me is just
as bad, right, right. And I think that's a big
conversation of Okay, so we see something's wrong, only a
small people amount of people are really willing to talk
about why this is wrong? How do we make this
a change? And I know there's been a back and forth,
(15:58):
especially UM after John Lewis represented John Lewis passed away. UM,
one of the big conversations is if you really want
to honor him, you would talk about the voting rights
and how to fix it and vote on it, which
has been in a stalemate from what I understand a
long long time because of the majority leader who has
decided to table it as a whole other conversation in itself.
(16:20):
And obviously this is such a broad subject, uh, that
goes beyond just when we're talking about feminism in itself,
just how it breaks down all the system. But I
did want to talk about how who it is expecting, UM,
and when we talk about targeting and who is being suppressed,
one of the loudest voices as well as most fearful
like people are afraid of it seems like it's black women, UM,
(16:44):
and specifically women of color, but black women specifically because
you see things as we've talked about with Kepp and
I'm not gonna lie. There's a lot of things that's happening.
But whether it's going after a specific mayor who happens
to be a black woman when it comes to mask
mandates instead of everybody else who has the mask mandates UM,
as well as going after Stacy Abrams and her her
(17:05):
fight and her trying to find equal rights and fairness
in voting. That's a whole other conversation. But in itself,
we have a history and we actually had guests on
previous host Bridget came on talking about the fact that
within Twitter, black women were actually targeted to discourage in
voting at by whether it's they had fake accounts of
(17:27):
a black woman going after other black women, all these
things and and and it being said, the reason it
was allowed to happen is because people don't want to
believe that, or people refuse to believe that it's happening,
and because black women are so silenced that it is
accepted it is accepted. UM. So I didn't want to
talk about if you if you've known or seen or
(17:50):
have you had this conversation of why does it seem
that black women are a feared and trying to be silenced. Yeah,
I mean the first thing that came to my and
when you were talking about it, and feared is the right,
right term, Like there's a history of power and ability
to get things done behind black women particularly. It's almost
(18:14):
like we've been refined by fire um throughout centuries, and
those of us who are still here are a certain brand,
right um that survived to this date. And so the
first thing that I thought of was the Doug Jones
election in Alabama that has been largely attributed that you
(18:35):
have Doug Jones being elected to a traditionally Republican seat,
largely attributed to black women mobilizing, getting in their cars,
bringing people to polls, um telling their friends, motivating people,
was able to change something that everybody thought was just
(18:57):
never going to happen. So, if I am in a
seat of majority, and that that's any seat of majority,
We're not just talking about Republicans here, any position of power,
and I'm holding that seat or that position with my
bare knuckles, it's of course in my best interest to
figure out how to remove power from the hands of
(19:20):
those who are inherently, in their guts powerful people. If
they would just do something when they decide to do something.
And so I agree with you a that there are
you know, that Brian Kemp issue of him coming down
on Keisha Land's bottoms on mass mandates when there were
(19:42):
I believe five at that point five other mayors who
had done the same. Um. And of course Atlanta is
the largest city and more predominant city in Georgia, so
perhaps there was some level of virtue signaling of making her,
you know, an example for the rest of them. But
I just can't. Are we always supposed to believe in coincidences? Right?
(20:07):
I mean, that's kind of how it's been swept under
the rugby, like no, no, no no, no, no, it's not
a big deal. It's not because it's not what you think, um,
which is hilarious in itself. And it's really interesting because
when we're talking about going after a powerful women and
then women being especially black women, going out and telling
people you need to vote, we need to go out,
(20:28):
we need to do things, and actually doing things such
as driving people to the polls. UM. There's one case
that I didn't want to talk about, Crystal Mason, who
was a woman who voted as she was on parole
or community service parole, and she wasn't planning to vote
until her mom encouraged her to do so, so she did.
That ended up costing her her freedom because she was
(20:50):
not allowed to vote. They charged her with voter fraud.
And then, as I'm looking through all of the cases,
even if it was uh, there was another case with
Rosa Maria Ortega who was in Texas, who also a
green card, and she thought she was able to vote
and did and then did it again, not realizing that
she could do it twice. Was her like, I didn't
(21:11):
what I didn't understand? I could she was voting for
the Republican as in fact, the judge that charged her
and actually convicted her of voter fraud was when she
voted for which made me laugh at something that it's
not funny, I'm sorry, which made me have this conversation
like what the hell? And now she's being threatened to
(21:31):
being deported because she violated that even though she did
make it on a green card. So this whole conversation
of either side, it seems like women are either targeted
or at least somehow caught every damn time. This kind
of that question of how is it that women are
so easily convicted of these charges in order to be
(21:52):
made an example of. And have you seen that or
is that just me finding cases somehow? Yeah? I mean
I would say that if you're looking for cases that
are like that, you're going to find them. But I
do think that they are there for males as well.
Any minority group m is going to be taxed in
(22:15):
some way in this area, right in my right simply
because it goes back to what I was saying previously
of a power dining issue. Um, you know, as long
as the minorities voice is suppressed, and that minority women
definitely fall into that, but there's so many other categories
as well, So you know, I think that women, unfortunately
(22:39):
are just under this larger umbrella of wanting to allow
majority voices to take over spaces. We have some more
of our conversation with Melody, but first we have a
quick break for word from responsor. Yeah, we're back, thank you, sponsor.
(23:09):
Let's get back into it. And I didn't want to
kind of come back into because it's a back and
forth about is it is voting a right or is
it that same level of Hey, no taxation without representation
so when you have that back and forth, when we
look at those who have had charges, whether it is
a felony charge and are no longer allowed to vote,
(23:30):
and we saw in Florida, we're seeing in Florida the
back and forth and back and forth about who has
the right. Do you what do you see as is
this an issue that is about violating someone's rights or
do you think it's something bigger than that. I mean,
it is called the voting rights, a right right we
can we can start there that. You know, people with
(23:53):
bigger brains and more degrees than myself have come to
the conclusion that there is a right there. With Florida
in particular, I just found that entire scenario to be
it was almost like a double suppression right. So you've
got for those who aren't familiar with what happened, there
(24:15):
was an old law in Florida's like a hundred fifty
years old that prohibited any individuals who had been convicted
of a felony but it fully served their sentence, including
probation and parole, prohibited from voting. It was put on
the ballot for a vote, and Floridians overwhelmingly said, we
(24:38):
want to get rid of this law. Governor to Santis
then decides in response to that that he wants to
create a rule that you have to live. That's fine, Okay,
that's cool, but you have to have paid all of
your court fines and fees in order to vote. And
recently that was struck down by a federal judge as
(24:58):
essentially an old school poll tax. HM. So you've got
not just the fact that voters, people who have already
served time and already quote unquote repaid their debt to
society are not able to vote, but you also had
a vote that was put on the ballot that an
(25:19):
individual executive decided to overturn because he didn't like it.
So it's like, it's like some sort of inception suppression
that they're creating in Florida. I'm from Florida. We're creative much,
we come up with ways. So yeah, that and in
(25:39):
Florida's you know, they're not They're not the only ones
who have various rules on what the rights of folks
who have felony convictions are able to do. But the
idea that simply because you committed whatever level of crime
it was, if we have already determined that X amount
(26:01):
of years is the amount of time that we we
decide is worth you spending in jail or prison for this,
I don't understand why this residual thing has to carry
afterwards other than there's a lot of black people in jail, right,
And that was the other other conversation is when you
look statistically at who is being charged on felony level crimes,
(26:24):
whether it's they took a plea deal or is it
non violent, the numbers are that it is going to
be a person of color, that the higher percentage of
those who are convicted on those levels, not necessarily because
there doing more crimes, but because who is being convicted, right,
And that's and that's that conversation is this is a
(26:45):
larger scale of what is happening and why it is
coming to a conversation and coming to a head, even
why Kamala Harris is her nomination is being questioned in
general by the black population. And it makes sense, It
makes sense in conversations of who is being who is
being convicted, who is being arrested, who is being actually
(27:06):
seen as criminals versus you know, what is just being
done because it looks good, right, I guess it's a
better way to say it, the worst way to say that, maybe,
But yeah, that's kind of that large scale conversation of
who is coming after that, And we've seen many times
because drug charges can be felony charges and that that's
the end, and it's it's according to who has the
(27:29):
better representation, who has a better reputation. Even so, it's
kind of the all, right, who is being affected and
why do people seem to not care as much as
some others and why? That is an actual conversation that
needs to be had on an everyday level and not
just when it comes to voting. Yeah, I mean, I
(27:51):
feel like the prominence of that Florida issue just brought
to light the idea of all the downstream effects of
a felony can action, many of which are not tied
at all to the crime itself. So whether it's voting
or education and that that kind of access that you have,
(28:11):
our ability to get a job, all of those types
of things. Making sure that convicted felons are able to
get jobs afterwards, that's the hard stuff, right, reinstating their
voting right, like, that's that's low hanging free, that's easy
peasy stuff. But that's a signature in the story, the
(28:32):
signature an update of your where you live. Um yeah,
and again this is I know, Annie, we know we
talk about the fact that we bring up things that's
go like, it's a whole lot of those podcasts, a
whole other episode, and and that definitely is one of
those bigger episodes, especially when it comes to women who
are imprisoned and who are being affective because we also
(28:52):
can talk about the women who are being being imprisoned
for self defense I guess, but domestic violence and who
are called hard hardened criminals. And that's a whole other day.
But I'm not gonna go into it just today today, UM,
but I did with all of those things that we
were talking about. Obviously, you and your ladies have found
one way of fighting against voter suppression and through the
(29:15):
Georgia Project. What are some other ways that you would
advise everyone around the country in the US, UM to
continue to fight. What would be some of your recommendations
or resources. I don't know, I'm a professional. UM yeah,
I would recommend first and foremost, do you know who
(29:36):
your election officials aren't Like your your state oversees the election, UM,
but your county administers the elections and stuff like when
you don't get your ballot when you're standing on a
long line. That's the county official at the best of
the state, so the state's not off the hook. But
(29:57):
do you know your election commissioner is do you remember
voting for them at some point? Perhaps you know? Um,
do they have public meetings? What have they been doing
between now and November three? Are they having those meetings?
Can are their public comments? Just listen in you know.
I feel like that on a on a very small
scale level, is a pretty easy one to hit. UM.
(30:21):
Check your voter registration status. There's plenty of purging a
voter rules, and you want to make sure that whether
it's just showing up on an early voting day or
the day of or submitting your absentee ballot, you want
to be sure that you're on those rules. So check
your status today. Coming up with a voting plan today,
Are you doing it by absentee ballot? If you are,
(30:44):
have you requested it? If you have, is it coming,
has it arrived? When it gets your vote, then don't
wait until you know. I think in Georgia, November three,
of course is general election. Absentee ballot request deadline is
November two, Like, no need to wait till November two,
(31:06):
Let's just do it today. Let's do it today, right, Um.
And then there's if you're not in a battleground state, UM,
votes Save of America is doing. You can adopt a
battleground state. You can text bank, um if you order
phone bank if you're good on the phone. But if
you feel a little awkward about that, you can text
bank to battleground states to get out the vote. To
(31:29):
encourage people to do exactly what I'm saying right now.
That's the kind of stuff that you can do literally
sitting on your couch from your own um, in the
midst of quarantine, to be able to encourage people to
just use their voice. Um. John Lewis again he was
in just such a hero to me, and he had
(31:51):
said that voting is one of our most precious gifts
and the idea that folks who came before me, who
look just like me, they laid down, they were willing
to lay down their lives. They risked so much for
this one thing. The least that I can do is
(32:13):
go take advantage of that thing. So vote. I miss
him now, I kind of want to go back because
you did talk about um absentee voting, and I just
kind of wanted to have a quick conversation because I
know our representatives have been letting us know that the
(32:34):
Center for Voting Information has been sending out absentee ballots
to people and it actually is a real thing. So
for those who are getting those, I got, But can
you kind of talk to people about again why it
is important that if you need to, and also check
and see if your state isn't allowing it, because it
(32:54):
is a conversation about absentee voting. Yeah, so in the
midst of this pandemic, a lot of people just don't
have the ability to go into a voting booth um
or even before this pandemic, some people can't stand in
line outside for long periods of time in order to
go into a voting vote. So absentee voting, make sure
(33:17):
that UM, you read the instructions that are provided with
them and follow them to a t UH to make
sure that your vote is counted. Most Secretaries of State
have a website where you can then log on and
track your absentee ballot so you can put it in
the United States Postal Service box and just mail it normally.
(33:39):
What I would say is a better step is to
locate where absentee ballot boxes have been placed in your city,
and those boxes are secure boxes, at least in Georgia,
they're required to have seven video monitoring. They have to
be in well let areas, so there's no like tampering
with the box. Putting it in that box means it
(34:01):
goes directly to your elections office, as opposed to going
through the post office to the elections office. When it's received,
you're able to go on the website and see it's
been received, it's been actually counted toward you. Just tracking it,
I think is is very important. Um. And if it
comes to November two and you've tracked it and it
(34:22):
hasn't been logged, take your butt down to the polling
place pat Like Michelle said, pack yourself a brown bag
lunch and hop into line. If you're in Georgia, Georgia
fifty project, we'll see you in line with some food. Um.
But go go down there and actually vote in person
to make sure that just because you miss the absentee ballot,
(34:45):
you're not missing out on the opportunity to speak up
on your own behalf. Um, and speaking of the ballot,
can you, because you've already kind of jumped into about
a local elections and why that is really important and
local issues, can you talk on that a little bit
as well. Yeah, So, as I said previously, election your
(35:06):
elections are administered locally. Um. All those cute little old
lady poll workers, they run through the election board, they
get their training through the election board. Um. The machines
that are being utilized at polling locations, Uh, they are
provided by the state. But who's setting those things up?
(35:29):
Who's actually making sure Like in our case, some of
those lines were really long because there weren't wasn't paper
for the election machines. All of that is administered on
the local level. And so the more that we pay
attention to what is going on at the local level,
the more that we're able to see perhaps the people
(35:50):
that were putting in positions that oversee these things, maybe
they're not the right people. And just because it's lowered
down on the ballot, we think it's a less important job.
And I feel like what you're talking about what effects
our day to day lives. Oftentimes it's those really you know,
(36:10):
down ballot races that are going to affect your day
to day life, Like how long is this line that
I'm waiting in? We do have a little bit more
for your listeners, but wait, we have one more quick
break for word from our sponsor and we're back. Thank
(36:41):
you sponsor. We had just our official runoff in Georgia
and it included Sirisova as it included the Superior Court
in Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia, which is a big hub.
And as we know, there's a big conversation about defunding
police and what that looks like and or not defunding
and or rehabilitating whatever it may be. But it comes
(37:02):
to the fact that we need to look at our
leaderships and we have voice when it comes to making
sure we have the right leadership for whatever that is,
whether it's also the council, all of that, and it's
a big bunch of stuff, like they are the ones
that use our money. And I would say, like, we
can definitely blame the government for a lot of things,
but you can't blame them for our own lack of
(37:24):
education on what those rules are, how important they are,
and how to vote in light of that thing. So
you know, be sure to pull up your ballots before
you get there, um on November three, or whenever you
early vote, have your ballots open when you're doing your
absentee filling out your absentee ballot, and start researching. Go
(37:45):
go on Google, Google echo his names. See see what
comes up. You know, it's not hard to find, uh,
scandals and shenanigans and all the back room stuff like
it's it's on there, it's on. We have the benefit
of the internet, use it right. Hopefully we'll have correct information.
That's the other part, so reading out the false verses truth.
(38:07):
But yeah, it's important that we do take the time
to study it and look at it, UM. And I
love also, as I was getting ready to have this
interview in this conversation, because it is such a big
topic right now, it's so important, UM, that I found
an organization called the Higher Heights Leadership Fund who specifically
(38:27):
work with black women in black leadership and trying to
bring as many strong black women into a leadership position,
whether it's political or elected officials. And I love that.
And they kind of created a movement called hashtag black
women Vote, And it is the bigger conversation of this
is a powerful group of women who can change the
(38:47):
results of an election and have been ignored or have
been suppressed and trying to come together in one way
or another. It is not necessarily trying to sway you think,
it's just trying to get people out to vote. And
how important that is for our our nation. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
And when you just think about the things that are important.
(39:11):
I'm not going to say that, you know, black women
are a monolith and we all think the same way.
But I can say, at least myself, my mother, you
know black women in my life, that we have these conversations.
The topics that consistently come up are ones like safety, schooling,
(39:33):
access to education, access to food, good healthy food near
your homes, and those things are important for everybody, right,
But it comes up consistently when I'm talking to my people.
And so if you know, something like hashtag black women vote,
(39:54):
If black women are able to use their voice in
those ways, we all benefit because we all should be
caring about education and safety and healthy food near near
our homes, like those are the things that lead to
a thriving a thriving city, a thriving citizen, right right.
(40:16):
And and in issues like that, specifically, you know, I
keep coming back because this is so, this is what
I did. I did state in county government for the
longest time, and the fact of the matter is our
state is one of the highest for Black women dying
from childbirth, infant mortality. Thank you in for mortality here
and all all of those things. It's just kind of
(40:37):
a bigger conversation of what we need to look at
why it is important that we see this as a
representation of what is needed, in the change that is needed,
in the representation that is needed, because for so long
we ignored it, too long, and in some areas are
still ignoring it and still not willing to talk about
the fact that this is an underlying social issue, This
(40:59):
is an underlying poitical issue that needs to be talked about,
that needs to be uncovered, that needs to be dissected
to see why it's happening in the first place. So
one of the things I would say, which this might
be this might be a controversial position, but I think
that one of the reasons why it's difficult for us
to get below the surface is because there's naturally going
(41:22):
to be a defensiveness that comes up when having that
discussion because essentially, like going back to what we're saying
about voter suppression, if I come to you with those
stats and I say, this is a race based issue
and if you don't see that, um, that means you
(41:44):
are a racist. We no longer are having a conversation
about voter suppression. Now we're having a conversation about whether
I'm a racist. Um. And same thing, like you're just
talking about like if we're not going to talk about
what maternal mortality and its relation to race, and that's
a health care issue, and if you don't want to
(42:05):
address that, you are now anti woman. Um, We're now
talking about that as opposed to what can we do
to solve this health care issue? And so I feel
like there's a need to pivot the conversation away from
trying to assign some level of internal motivation to the
(42:28):
person and more like can we just talk about the facts,
Like can we just talk about this is an issue?
Can we just agree that this is something we should
be tackling. And I don't have to make that the
a judgment on you as a human being. And I
know that you know, I'm sure there are folks that
(42:49):
are like, well, that's just some mealy mouth garbage way
of going about doing this, because you're not calling a
spade a spade for me in particular. You could call
it whatever you want. The point is I want less
black women dying in childbirth and if we can achieve that,
then whatever right right. And the thing that's one of
the big conversations my Coworkercordey, and I had who she
(43:12):
is a black woman who worked in the same field
as I, and we had to have this whole conversation
of what does it look like when we reframe a
conversation and that's what she kept saying, rebranded so that
it seems nicer. But the fact of the matter is
when it comes to people being defensive, sometimes that is
what has to happen. Unfortunately, when all you really want
(43:33):
to do is shake and be like, stop being a dick.
That's what I want to say, but you know that
doesn't work. Um, and it is it's kind of that
fine line of who compromises to what conversation and but
what is the outcome of that conversation? And it just
and it's it's it's interesting to me that the people
(43:53):
who are the ones who are most likely to compromise
are those who are the most affected because they just
want to change. I get that. I definitely get the
counter argument. It's like, well, why am I always the
one who has to contort myself into all these ways
in order to maneuver through these spaces? Listen, That's just
how it is, right, Like, if we want to get
(44:15):
things done, if we want to actually move the needle,
then sometimes you're going to have to do extra work.
My mom told me that from the very beginning, just
like you're gonna have to work harder for longer than
other people, just getting used to it and keep doing it,
and hopefully by myself and people like me doing that,
the people coming up behind me work a little less
(44:36):
hard the next time around. I love that exactly, and
it's unfortunate that that's where we have to be. But yeah,
I absolutely hear that, but it's frustrating. Yeah, I'm just
saying it. Uh, Andy, I've taken over the conversation again,
So do you so why let me there? Why do
(44:59):
you keep letting me do this? You know what I
really need to work on, And this is true. I
cannot interrupt people. I can't do it. So I'm just
like just do it. It's like online to do list,
I promise Jamaican like Jamaican culture. If you don't, if
you don't learn the art of interruption, you will never
(45:21):
speak in a family the entire time, your entire life,
never get a word in rambles at the corner and
never said a thing, and I will ramble. I will
keep going on my little tirade. You know this, so
you have I like your tirades though, UM, I guess
(45:41):
going off of that. Um, First of all, I had
many many friends who sent me very happy text messages
on voting day with the pizza, so it was a
big hit. Um. If you for someone listening who maybe
wants to get involved, as we've been saying, in politics,
but not necessarily by running and you we've talked about
(46:03):
text banking and phone banking, and um, I love food
is the way to people's hearts, of course. UM I
guess what do you have any advice for people who
are may be intimidated about how to do something like
what you did, like logistics, or it could be the
most basic of things. Yeah, what I'd say is that
(46:25):
there's something like Georgia Project in most cities, like we're
not We're not special. Were we just happen to be
here in Atlanta doing it. UM find that, find that group,
and we are always looking for people to help us.
Speaking on behalf of all of those groups. So we
have folks who their videographers and they they raise their
(46:48):
hand and said, like we can do promo videos for
you and sizzle reels. Like they're not they're used to
not being seen or have to be out, but they've
been able to use their particular fular gift and skill
to help us. So think about what is that thing
that you like doing, Like, what's that thing that gets
you geeked? And proactively approach that organization with like, hey,
(47:13):
here's something I'm good at. Can I help you with
that thing? And for the most part, the smaller groups
are going to take you up on that. If you're
going to some large like I'm going to go to
the Democratic Party of my state, you might get a
responsive email saying thanks for emailing us UM. But for
(47:34):
these smaller grassroots organizations, if one of the things that
it's difficult for all of us to do is just
fielding all of these emails when it's just a general
like hey, I'd like to help. If you come in
with i'd like to help, and I do this. Do
you have a need for this? They will say, uh, yeah, no,
(47:54):
we yes, yes, give us that so that that would
be my encouragement. Awesome, Yeah, I think that's that's great.
I think people are really fired up about it, which
makes sense. So I know our listeners are got some
pretty awesome listeners. Uh, and I'm excited to see what
they'll do. I know they're very skilled listeners too. I'm
(48:16):
sure use those skills for good and not evil folks. Yes,
that's a really good advice. Um. So is there anything
else that you want to talk to us about or
anything we missed a melody? I think that Um. I
mean it's a very like we kind of went all
(48:38):
over the place there a little bit, but you know
that's how I do, how you do do? Yeah, Um,
I hope that you know, I can come back on
after November three, perhaps in some time in December, and
we have like a lofty conversation about how all these
all these efforts actually turned out to benefit voters. Voter
(49:00):
turnout absolutely definitely, will um. And you had mentioned a
little bit earlier about having your own podcast. Can you
kind of tell us about that. Yeah, I am starting
a rolling out of podcast. We come out next month.
It's called Civic s I V I K. And it's
focusing on local Atlanta politics. Again going back to how
(49:22):
important that is. Um. What I found during this last
primary was that folks just didn't know what they didn't know.
But once I let them know I had issued a
voter guide. UM. Once I let folks know, like, hey,
this is what a what a d A does, This
is what a sheriff does. By the way, this is
(49:44):
what our d A did, this is what our shaiff
has done. That all of a sudden that people empowered
with that knowledge were more motivated to go out and vote.
So I started this podcast wanting to talk myself and
my friend Coleman would just talking normally about politics, not
(50:04):
talking heads and you know, big words. And we're all
consultants for various parties, just regular people talking about political shenanigans. Um.
And it's been fun. It's been fun. I'm excited about it.
Who doesn't love Yeah, it depends on the shenanigan. I
(50:27):
think that's great. I'll never forget the first time I
voted and it was something was on the ballot. That
was like, I mean, so many paragraph song and I
must have stood there and read it like five times
and I still didn't know. Like the legal ease was
just so intense. I was like, I'm not even sure
that's good? Right, Yes, yes, yes, those voter questions yes,
(50:52):
oh man um and yeah to inform people of that
beforehand too. Yeah, it's some of these are written in
such a way that there's no way for a regular
person to discern what the property answer is supposed to be.
It's ridiculous. So yeah, civical cover stuff like that. Awesome,
(51:16):
look out for that. Yeah, thanks for the shout out.
So where can people find you? Melody all upon the interwebs?
Oh that sounds so broad. Are you talking to me personally? Yeah,
you personally whatever you want to working in the quarters
of the interwebs. I would encourage folks, if you want
(51:37):
to support what we're doing here in Georgia, go to
Georgia dot org um. You can donate there. Um, you
can send us stamps for our stamp campaign, or you
can donate monetarily one of the you know, sponsor a
restaurant um that is helping us in our early voter push.
And that supports local business while also supporting voters. Um
(52:01):
So Georgia dot org. Sweet, thank you so much for
being with us, Melody. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's
always a fun time. And I'm gonna have our as
a constant correspondence for US constant correspondent. She's a correspondent
for our our network. I don't know. I have no
idea what any of the things I saidment, I have
(52:24):
no idea what the things correspondent from London wherever. So
that brings us to the end of this interview. I
one day I'm going to eat Melody in person. One day.
I feel like I think we've had this conversation before.
You guys missed each other the last time. But one day,
(52:44):
when we're out of pandemic, it will happen. We will
all come together. Because my I think she's just such
a great uh. It's just full of information that is fantastic.
And as as a person who's been in law, who's
been around the back when it comes to buy laws
and conversations and voting and understanding that language, there than me,
uh who I have to follow people like her and
(53:07):
other people who are specialized in this type of conversations
that I think she's just a wealth knowledge that I
love that we have on tap because she is fantastic.
Thank you Melody, Yes, and um all great advice everything
she said. Like I said, I got my absentee ballot
yesterday and it came with a cool graph that showed
(53:27):
my voting record, like and he said I was above average,
and I was like, oh, how I'm easily a piece. Now.
It just means I vote more than average in my
count game. It means it's nothing special at all. But yeah,
I would love to hear what everybody else is doing
out there. I know we talk a lot about our
local stuff because if I find it fascinating just to
(53:49):
see what's happening. And George's kind of slowly turning into
a swing state, hopefully more and more. And um, I
know the senator race in Georgia has gotten pretty heated
it and pretty close, so it's kind of interesting to
see it. I want to hear what's going on around
the country as well, So please let us know what's
happening with you all. Yes, yes, and you can send
(54:10):
that information to our email, which is stefinitely a mom
stuff at I heart me you dot com. You can
also find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast or
on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks It's
always to our super producer Andrew Howard, Thanks Hamburger Guy.
Thanks to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You.
Protection of iHeart Radio for more podcast from iHeart Radio,
but it's the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast where you listen
(54:31):
to your favorite shows
Hey, this is Annie an Samantha and welcome to Steph.
I've never told your production of I Heart Radio. Okay,
so I have just start with a question again, don't
I I mean you don't have to. I mean I
feel like it's tradition now, um, so let me ask.
(00:28):
Oh god, I have to hide where I'm like really struggling.
You know what, I have a good I have a
good one. Yesterday. What was your birthday? Today? Is even
though yes it's not that time frame as you're listening
whenever you listen, but yesterday was Andy's birthday? So Annie,
can you tell me what was the best thing you
(00:49):
did on your birthday during quarantine? Because we're still quarantine. Oh,
I actually turned out to be a lovely birthday. And
I think, um, I would say that the relief of
not having to plan a party, as much as I
love a party, was wonderful. And also I have an
insecurity that people just sort of forget about me and quarantine,
(01:13):
and they didn't. They really showed up. I didn't ask,
but people brought me beer, they brought me food, like
socially distanced, but it was really steeve. It was I'm
lucky to have a really good group of friends you included, Samantha. Yeah,
our celebration is coming a little later. Yeah. See, now
your question is so specific to me. Can't really answer
(01:35):
what was you did yesterday? This is why I did
this because I'm like, I don't I don't really want
to ask answer a question. The bust thing I did
yesterday I found a new game on my phone which
has all these different puzzles, and I'm like, you know what,
this is how I'm going to combat eld age dementia
because I'm struggling with the words. So that's the bust
(01:58):
thing I did yesterday. So yeah, anyway, I'm glad to
know that you had a good birthday and today because
I love when my friends come on. We have back
Melody Bray, who was with us earlier this season. I
guess every day, what is this the year earlier this year?
(02:20):
The timeframe, Oh my god, uh to talk to us
about the discrimination in housing and women and how it's
affecting us today and in the pandemic. And she is back. Welcome.
So I have this plot um of making sure that
Melody is always going to be kind of our extra
special friend who comes around every month or so every
(02:41):
few months or so to give us, give us a
friend that Melody. We you and I've known each other
for a long time, so of course it's gonna be
a little creepy because that's what I do. Come on,
you know me now, But yes, um, we are bringing
Melody back because we wanted to talk to you about
what it looks like to be an activist during this
(03:04):
political season without necessarily running within any elections, and what
it looks like and why it's important to do it
on a very local front um. And also because I
love you have nothing has slowed you down. This has
been a ridiculous time where everybody just kind of quit everything,
including me. I'm like, yeah, I'm done, I'm done being
all the things. But you have pushed forward and continue
(03:28):
to drive and push and be a voice during our
electoral season in Georgia, and you have created a new project,
a nonprofit. Can you talk to us about that a
little bit? Yeah? Well, for first I just have to
stop you. You referred to me as an activist, which
I have I to my knowledge, have not been called
an activist before, and just strikes me as like, I
(03:53):
don't know, it's it seems like such a like big
and weighty word like I just being myself as like
a person who sees gaps and fills them if possible,
or like gets a friend to fill them if I
can't do it. So, um, thank you for speaking so
(04:13):
highly of me. It just sounds weird coming out of
your mouth. For current projects is uh called the Georgia
Project And um, we are just a group of women
here in Atlanta who we've kind of been motivated by.
I'd say the hands down the best thing to come
(04:36):
out of Donald Trump's presidency in my view, is an
increased awareness and motivation and you know, people are actually
paying attention to what's going on around them more. Um So,
a couple of friends, um, Abbie Green, Katie White, they
decided they wanted to go hand out pizza and water
during the mid terms in light of the press cut
(05:00):
bridge that was coming out about then Secretary of State
Brian Kemp running against Stacy Abrams for governor UM and
then this past June with the primaries going on, and
everybody with eyes had the ability to see that we
had this convergence of events that we're going to turn
into some sort of debacle. On the day of the
(05:22):
primary um, Abby and Katie, along with another gown named
Adelaide Taylor, decided they were going to do their line
warming efforts again. And then meantime, I on another side,
was planning on doing my own little line warming effort,
and we kind of all like virtually met up. Like
some folks were like, hey, you you're doing this over here,
(05:43):
and another groups doing this over here. Why don't you
guys combine your superpowers and um, see what you can
do to provide food, water, COVID supplies two folks who
were standing in line, And in a matter of a
few days, we were able to raise eleven thousand dollars
to support our efforts to buy all those provisions for
(06:04):
folks in line. We hit sixty precincts around the metro
Atlanta area to support voters, and most importantly, I felt
like we brought like joy and encouragement to people standing
in line. It was hot. It was so hot that day.
If it wasn't hot, it was a deluge of rain.
(06:26):
It was one or the other, there's no in between.
We did that, and knowing that November three was coming up,
we decided we were going to pivot from election day
to a focus on election month, and so Georgia Project
feels like every person who votes early is a person
(06:48):
who is not in line on November three, And we
are raising money to be able to provide early voter
incentives to folks and then support those who are actually
comeing out on November three and providing resources to underrepresented
communities on absentee ballot packets. UM. Instructions on how to
(07:10):
do that where you're early voting locations are, um, what
some of these roles are on the ballot, how do
they affect your daily life? That kind of thing, um.
And we're doing it all through kind of food centric things,
So putting those packets in food bank boxes um to
go to underrepresented communities, or we'll be at the Marta,
(07:32):
which is our public transit system here, the Marta Farmers
markets targeting those communities being able to get absentee ballot
requests packets into their hands and then follow up the
next week when we're there again when they have a
question about the ballot, come back to us, talk to us,
you know, just being that kind of resource. I love
that so much, um, And just kind of go back
(07:55):
and talk a little bit about what happened in Georgia
because you have done a nice job on making it
a positive spin when all I saw was a disaster.
So in my pessimistic spin. So much like UM a
lot of other states, Georgia had a lot of confusion,
UM wasn't the UM, and a lot of problems in
(08:19):
the whole voting, the fact that they had closed down
locations and didn't give people enough time to uh really
prepare or nowhere to go one two. They also had
the long ass lines that took forever because either the
machines were faulty or the place was not did not
have enough machines. All these big, huge problems which like
ended up being an eight hour weight if not longer
(08:41):
for a lot of people. That the thought was they
were going to start to leave, which by the way,
that didn't happen. People were pissed and they wanted to vote,
and they were more determined, And I loved that UM
and it was it was a huge delay within in
a lot. Actually it opened up a big conversation about
the controversy of what is happening in these areas? Why
are these places being closed, why are they being neglected,
(09:04):
and why are people not being made aware of the
changes that are happening until the day of when it's
almost too late or more frustrating and making people turn away,
and you and these group of ladies came together to
make it a more positive experience, which was phenomenal, and
I love, love, loved hearing of that and then coming
in behind that and making it a preventative measure within November,
(09:27):
because we don't really have any solutions. There's no conversations
of real solutions right now outside of the fact that
yet the State Farm Arena, which opened up a lot
of space and a lot of opportunity, and we were
very grateful to have that. I know around the country
other arenas are starting to do the same UM trying
to give more opportunities for people to vote. But it
(09:48):
did open up this conversation of what is happening and
why are these specific areas being targeted, because it seemed
like when you started looking at UM people's complaints and
where do the complaints were coming from, it was were
populated urban areas which had a lot of complicated questions
coming out of it. And I didn't want to talk
to you about a little bit about what you saw
(10:09):
because you're also a lawyer who if I said, like
I have referred to your services before you have and
you've been very, very helpful. And you've also worked within
county government as well as have high UM, and you
have seen a lot of the small local stuff and
how it can be effective as well as how it
could be harmful if people don't understand what's happening within
(10:33):
those types of elections. So I want to talk about
all these things, including the fact, as we were talking
about a little bit part of the conversation about this
complicated process in order to vote in person, is it
a part of the bigger conversation of voter suppression. I
know you're working on anti suppression activism, and can you
(10:54):
kind of talk about what is happening what you see
as a problem. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean I think the
fact that the Georgia Project exists, I will be glad
when we shut down, when we no longer exist, that
you've got just four regular people who um see this
(11:15):
massive systemic issue and are having to like, at this point,
we're having a stamp drive where we collect stamps to
give to folks to mail things in. And there was
a moment when we were planning it, and we all
just started laughing at how ridiculous it is that we're
asking our parents and grandparents to cough up their stamps
(11:35):
in order to give it to other people to vote.
Like it. It just it kind of it just blows
my mind. Um, it blows my mind. So, getting to
what you're saying of of whether voter suppression is an
issue or not, it is a partisan This is a
partisan topic, and you largely fall on one part of
the line or the other depending on what party are
(11:57):
in in general, which I think is unfortunate because the
facts say something different. It's it's clear. So if you're
going to talk about voter suppression, you have to talk
about the more relatively recent Supreme Court ruling in Shelby
versus Holder that struck down Section five of the Voting
(12:18):
Rights Act. And that section was put in the Act
originally in order to force or mandate states anytime they
were going to make some sort of process change to elections,
they had to get some sort of federal approval of oversight.
And the ruling of the court essentially was that we've
made such strides since uh this Act was enacted in
(12:42):
nine that we don't really need that oversight anymore, ignoring
the logic that perhaps the fact that this act exists
is the reason we've made such great strides. And so
when evaluating weather so ppression exists, you have to really
focus on kind of the years leading up to Shelby
(13:05):
versus Holder, which was and compare from let's say ish
to present versus pre levels. And so for instance, in Georgia,
two fourteen polling places were closed in Georgia since and
(13:26):
of those places were in black counties or predominantly black counties.
Kemp In our current governor, but at the time with
Secretary of State, he uh had fifty four thousand voter
registrations that he put into quote pending status, which essentially
is like a voter purgatory where you you can neither
(13:48):
you're not denied that you can't vote, but you can't
also actually affirmatively vote. Eighty percent of those were people
of color. And as a side note, Stay Abrams lost
by five thousand votes, and fifty four thousand of those
were pening. Like you have fifty four thousand pending registrations
um provisional ballots that were cast of those were cast.
(14:13):
Of those where people of color and half of provisional
ballots were thrown out. So it's a crazy thing to
me to say that when looking at numbers like that,
that seventy of closures in my state we're closed in
predominantly black counties, and say that there's not some level
(14:35):
that's is well above flipping a coin and having some
sort of chance. Right, we're talking about math, right, Okay,
it's not you can't skew and I wasn't ready for
a math lesson. Listen, I suck at math. But if
even I can do a math equation, you know, it's
(14:56):
the most like basic of math problems that you could
I'm up. It's one of those common sense huh, this
does not match what is wrong here? Right? And so
even if you were to say, let's say, for arguments,
say it's not some nefarious, smoke filled room situation where
(15:17):
people are coming up with this plan, because arguably the
idea that any governmental entity is able to come up
with a comprehensive, incompetent plan about anything is a bit
of a stretch of imagination. Right at the very least,
you are seeing an issue and refusing to actually take
(15:38):
steps to help the issue, which to me is just
as bad, right, right. And I think that's a big
conversation of Okay, so we see something's wrong, only a
small people amount of people are really willing to talk
about why this is wrong? How do we make this
a change? And I know there's been a back and forth,
(15:58):
especially UM after John Lewis represented John Lewis passed away. UM,
one of the big conversations is if you really want
to honor him, you would talk about the voting rights
and how to fix it and vote on it, which
has been in a stalemate from what I understand a
long long time because of the majority leader who has
decided to table it as a whole other conversation in itself.
(16:20):
And obviously this is such a broad subject, uh, that
goes beyond just when we're talking about feminism in itself,
just how it breaks down all the system. But I
did want to talk about how who it is expecting, UM,
and when we talk about targeting and who is being suppressed,
one of the loudest voices as well as most fearful
like people are afraid of it seems like it's black women, UM,
(16:44):
and specifically women of color, but black women specifically because
you see things as we've talked about with Kepp and
I'm not gonna lie. There's a lot of things that's happening.
But whether it's going after a specific mayor who happens
to be a black woman when it comes to mask
mandates instead of everybody else who has the mask mandates UM,
as well as going after Stacy Abrams and her her
(17:05):
fight and her trying to find equal rights and fairness
in voting. That's a whole other conversation. But in itself,
we have a history and we actually had guests on
previous host Bridget came on talking about the fact that
within Twitter, black women were actually targeted to discourage in
voting at by whether it's they had fake accounts of
(17:27):
a black woman going after other black women, all these
things and and and it being said, the reason it
was allowed to happen is because people don't want to
believe that, or people refuse to believe that it's happening,
and because black women are so silenced that it is
accepted it is accepted. UM. So I didn't want to
talk about if you if you've known or seen or
(17:50):
have you had this conversation of why does it seem
that black women are a feared and trying to be silenced. Yeah,
I mean the first thing that came to my and
when you were talking about it, and feared is the right,
right term, Like there's a history of power and ability
to get things done behind black women particularly. It's almost
(18:14):
like we've been refined by fire um throughout centuries, and
those of us who are still here are a certain brand,
right um that survived to this date. And so the
first thing that I thought of was the Doug Jones
election in Alabama that has been largely attributed that you
(18:35):
have Doug Jones being elected to a traditionally Republican seat,
largely attributed to black women mobilizing, getting in their cars,
bringing people to polls, um telling their friends, motivating people,
was able to change something that everybody thought was just
(18:57):
never going to happen. So, if I am in a
seat of majority, and that that's any seat of majority,
We're not just talking about Republicans here, any position of power,
and I'm holding that seat or that position with my
bare knuckles, it's of course in my best interest to
figure out how to remove power from the hands of
(19:20):
those who are inherently, in their guts powerful people. If
they would just do something when they decide to do something.
And so I agree with you a that there are
you know, that Brian Kemp issue of him coming down
on Keisha Land's bottoms on mass mandates when there were
(19:42):
I believe five at that point five other mayors who
had done the same. Um. And of course Atlanta is
the largest city and more predominant city in Georgia, so
perhaps there was some level of virtue signaling of making her,
you know, an example for the rest of them. But
I just can't. Are we always supposed to believe in coincidences? Right?
(20:07):
I mean, that's kind of how it's been swept under
the rugby, like no, no, no no, no, no, it's not
a big deal. It's not because it's not what you think, um,
which is hilarious in itself. And it's really interesting because
when we're talking about going after a powerful women and
then women being especially black women, going out and telling
people you need to vote, we need to go out,
(20:28):
we need to do things, and actually doing things such
as driving people to the polls. UM. There's one case
that I didn't want to talk about, Crystal Mason, who
was a woman who voted as she was on parole
or community service parole, and she wasn't planning to vote
until her mom encouraged her to do so, so she did.
That ended up costing her her freedom because she was
(20:50):
not allowed to vote. They charged her with voter fraud.
And then, as I'm looking through all of the cases,
even if it was uh, there was another case with
Rosa Maria Ortega who was in Texas, who also a
green card, and she thought she was able to vote
and did and then did it again, not realizing that
she could do it twice. Was her like, I didn't
(21:11):
what I didn't understand? I could she was voting for
the Republican as in fact, the judge that charged her
and actually convicted her of voter fraud was when she
voted for which made me laugh at something that it's
not funny, I'm sorry, which made me have this conversation
like what the hell? And now she's being threatened to
(21:31):
being deported because she violated that even though she did
make it on a green card. So this whole conversation
of either side, it seems like women are either targeted
or at least somehow caught every damn time. This kind
of that question of how is it that women are
so easily convicted of these charges in order to be
(21:52):
made an example of. And have you seen that or
is that just me finding cases somehow? Yeah? I mean
I would say that if you're looking for cases that
are like that, you're going to find them. But I
do think that they are there for males as well.
Any minority group m is going to be taxed in
(22:15):
some way in this area, right in my right simply
because it goes back to what I was saying previously
of a power dining issue. Um, you know, as long
as the minorities voice is suppressed, and that minority women
definitely fall into that, but there's so many other categories
as well, So you know, I think that women, unfortunately
(22:39):
are just under this larger umbrella of wanting to allow
majority voices to take over spaces. We have some more
of our conversation with Melody, but first we have a
quick break for word from responsor. Yeah, we're back, thank you, sponsor.
(23:09):
Let's get back into it. And I didn't want to
kind of come back into because it's a back and
forth about is it is voting a right or is
it that same level of Hey, no taxation without representation
so when you have that back and forth, when we
look at those who have had charges, whether it is
a felony charge and are no longer allowed to vote,
(23:30):
and we saw in Florida, we're seeing in Florida the
back and forth and back and forth about who has
the right. Do you what do you see as is
this an issue that is about violating someone's rights or
do you think it's something bigger than that. I mean,
it is called the voting rights, a right right we
can we can start there that. You know, people with
(23:53):
bigger brains and more degrees than myself have come to
the conclusion that there is a right there. With Florida
in particular, I just found that entire scenario to be
it was almost like a double suppression right. So you've
got for those who aren't familiar with what happened, there
(24:15):
was an old law in Florida's like a hundred fifty
years old that prohibited any individuals who had been convicted
of a felony but it fully served their sentence, including
probation and parole, prohibited from voting. It was put on
the ballot for a vote, and Floridians overwhelmingly said, we
(24:38):
want to get rid of this law. Governor to Santis
then decides in response to that that he wants to
create a rule that you have to live. That's fine, Okay,
that's cool, but you have to have paid all of
your court fines and fees in order to vote. And
recently that was struck down by a federal judge as
(24:58):
essentially an old school poll tax. HM. So you've got
not just the fact that voters, people who have already
served time and already quote unquote repaid their debt to
society are not able to vote, but you also had
a vote that was put on the ballot that an
(25:19):
individual executive decided to overturn because he didn't like it.
So it's like, it's like some sort of inception suppression
that they're creating in Florida. I'm from Florida. We're creative much,
we come up with ways. So yeah, that and in
(25:39):
Florida's you know, they're not They're not the only ones
who have various rules on what the rights of folks
who have felony convictions are able to do. But the
idea that simply because you committed whatever level of crime
it was, if we have already determined that X amount
(26:01):
of years is the amount of time that we we
decide is worth you spending in jail or prison for this,
I don't understand why this residual thing has to carry
afterwards other than there's a lot of black people in jail, right,
And that was the other other conversation is when you
look statistically at who is being charged on felony level crimes,
(26:24):
whether it's they took a plea deal or is it
non violent, the numbers are that it is going to
be a person of color, that the higher percentage of
those who are convicted on those levels, not necessarily because
there doing more crimes, but because who is being convicted, right,
And that's and that's that conversation is this is a
(26:45):
larger scale of what is happening and why it is
coming to a conversation and coming to a head, even
why Kamala Harris is her nomination is being questioned in
general by the black population. And it makes sense, It
makes sense in conversations of who is being who is
being convicted, who is being arrested, who is being actually
(27:06):
seen as criminals versus you know, what is just being
done because it looks good, right, I guess it's a
better way to say it, the worst way to say that, maybe,
But yeah, that's kind of that large scale conversation of
who is coming after that, And we've seen many times
because drug charges can be felony charges and that that's
the end, and it's it's according to who has the
(27:29):
better representation, who has a better reputation. Even so, it's
kind of the all, right, who is being affected and
why do people seem to not care as much as
some others and why? That is an actual conversation that
needs to be had on an everyday level and not
just when it comes to voting. Yeah, I mean, I
(27:51):
feel like the prominence of that Florida issue just brought
to light the idea of all the downstream effects of
a felony can action, many of which are not tied
at all to the crime itself. So whether it's voting
or education and that that kind of access that you have,
(28:11):
our ability to get a job, all of those types
of things. Making sure that convicted felons are able to
get jobs afterwards, that's the hard stuff, right, reinstating their
voting right, like, that's that's low hanging free, that's easy
peasy stuff. But that's a signature in the story, the
(28:32):
signature an update of your where you live. Um yeah,
and again this is I know, Annie, we know we
talk about the fact that we bring up things that's
go like, it's a whole lot of those podcasts, a
whole other episode, and and that definitely is one of
those bigger episodes, especially when it comes to women who
are imprisoned and who are being affective because we also
(28:52):
can talk about the women who are being being imprisoned
for self defense I guess, but domestic violence and who
are called hard hardened criminals. And that's a whole other day.
But I'm not gonna go into it just today today, UM,
but I did with all of those things that we
were talking about. Obviously, you and your ladies have found
one way of fighting against voter suppression and through the
(29:15):
Georgia Project. What are some other ways that you would
advise everyone around the country in the US, UM to
continue to fight. What would be some of your recommendations
or resources. I don't know, I'm a professional. UM yeah,
I would recommend first and foremost, do you know who
(29:36):
your election officials aren't Like your your state oversees the election, UM,
but your county administers the elections and stuff like when
you don't get your ballot when you're standing on a
long line. That's the county official at the best of
the state, so the state's not off the hook. But
(29:57):
do you know your election commissioner is do you remember
voting for them at some point? Perhaps you know? Um,
do they have public meetings? What have they been doing
between now and November three? Are they having those meetings?
Can are their public comments? Just listen in you know.
I feel like that on a on a very small
scale level, is a pretty easy one to hit. UM.
(30:21):
Check your voter registration status. There's plenty of purging a
voter rules, and you want to make sure that whether
it's just showing up on an early voting day or
the day of or submitting your absentee ballot, you want
to be sure that you're on those rules. So check
your status today. Coming up with a voting plan today,
Are you doing it by absentee ballot? If you are,
(30:44):
have you requested it? If you have, is it coming,
has it arrived? When it gets your vote, then don't
wait until you know. I think in Georgia, November three,
of course is general election. Absentee ballot request deadline is
November two, Like, no need to wait till November two,
(31:06):
Let's just do it today. Let's do it today, right, Um.
And then there's if you're not in a battleground state, UM,
votes Save of America is doing. You can adopt a
battleground state. You can text bank, um if you order
phone bank if you're good on the phone. But if
you feel a little awkward about that, you can text
bank to battleground states to get out the vote. To
(31:29):
encourage people to do exactly what I'm saying right now.
That's the kind of stuff that you can do literally
sitting on your couch from your own um, in the
midst of quarantine, to be able to encourage people to
just use their voice. Um. John Lewis again he was
in just such a hero to me, and he had
(31:51):
said that voting is one of our most precious gifts
and the idea that folks who came before me, who
look just like me, they laid down, they were willing
to lay down their lives. They risked so much for
this one thing. The least that I can do is
(32:13):
go take advantage of that thing. So vote. I miss
him now, I kind of want to go back because
you did talk about um absentee voting, and I just
kind of wanted to have a quick conversation because I
know our representatives have been letting us know that the
(32:34):
Center for Voting Information has been sending out absentee ballots
to people and it actually is a real thing. So
for those who are getting those, I got, But can
you kind of talk to people about again why it
is important that if you need to, and also check
and see if your state isn't allowing it, because it
(32:54):
is a conversation about absentee voting. Yeah, so in the
midst of this pandemic, a lot of people just don't
have the ability to go into a voting booth um
or even before this pandemic, some people can't stand in
line outside for long periods of time in order to
go into a voting vote. So absentee voting, make sure
(33:17):
that UM, you read the instructions that are provided with
them and follow them to a t UH to make
sure that your vote is counted. Most Secretaries of State
have a website where you can then log on and
track your absentee ballot so you can put it in
the United States Postal Service box and just mail it normally.
(33:39):
What I would say is a better step is to
locate where absentee ballot boxes have been placed in your city,
and those boxes are secure boxes, at least in Georgia,
they're required to have seven video monitoring. They have to
be in well let areas, so there's no like tampering
with the box. Putting it in that box means it
(34:01):
goes directly to your elections office, as opposed to going
through the post office to the elections office. When it's received,
you're able to go on the website and see it's
been received, it's been actually counted toward you. Just tracking it,
I think is is very important. Um. And if it
comes to November two and you've tracked it and it
(34:22):
hasn't been logged, take your butt down to the polling
place pat Like Michelle said, pack yourself a brown bag
lunch and hop into line. If you're in Georgia, Georgia
fifty project, we'll see you in line with some food. Um.
But go go down there and actually vote in person
to make sure that just because you miss the absentee ballot,
(34:45):
you're not missing out on the opportunity to speak up
on your own behalf. Um, and speaking of the ballot,
can you, because you've already kind of jumped into about
a local elections and why that is really important and
local issues, can you talk on that a little bit
as well. Yeah, So, as I said previously, election your
(35:06):
elections are administered locally. Um. All those cute little old
lady poll workers, they run through the election board, they
get their training through the election board. Um. The machines
that are being utilized at polling locations, Uh, they are
provided by the state. But who's setting those things up?
(35:29):
Who's actually making sure Like in our case, some of
those lines were really long because there weren't wasn't paper
for the election machines. All of that is administered on
the local level. And so the more that we pay
attention to what is going on at the local level,
the more that we're able to see perhaps the people
(35:50):
that were putting in positions that oversee these things, maybe
they're not the right people. And just because it's lowered
down on the ballot, we think it's a less important job.
And I feel like what you're talking about what effects
our day to day lives. Oftentimes it's those really you know,
(36:10):
down ballot races that are going to affect your day
to day life, Like how long is this line that
I'm waiting in? We do have a little bit more
for your listeners, but wait, we have one more quick
break for word from our sponsor and we're back. Thank
(36:41):
you sponsor. We had just our official runoff in Georgia
and it included Sirisova as it included the Superior Court
in Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia, which is a big hub.
And as we know, there's a big conversation about defunding
police and what that looks like and or not defunding
and or rehabilitating whatever it may be. But it comes
(37:02):
to the fact that we need to look at our
leaderships and we have voice when it comes to making
sure we have the right leadership for whatever that is,
whether it's also the council, all of that, and it's
a big bunch of stuff, like they are the ones
that use our money. And I would say, like, we
can definitely blame the government for a lot of things,
but you can't blame them for our own lack of
(37:24):
education on what those rules are, how important they are,
and how to vote in light of that thing. So
you know, be sure to pull up your ballots before
you get there, um on November three, or whenever you
early vote, have your ballots open when you're doing your
absentee filling out your absentee ballot, and start researching. Go
(37:45):
go on Google, Google echo his names. See see what
comes up. You know, it's not hard to find, uh,
scandals and shenanigans and all the back room stuff like
it's it's on there, it's on. We have the benefit
of the internet, use it right. Hopefully we'll have correct information.
That's the other part, so reading out the false verses truth.
(38:07):
But yeah, it's important that we do take the time
to study it and look at it, UM. And I
love also, as I was getting ready to have this
interview in this conversation, because it is such a big
topic right now, it's so important, UM, that I found
an organization called the Higher Heights Leadership Fund who specifically
(38:27):
work with black women in black leadership and trying to
bring as many strong black women into a leadership position,
whether it's political or elected officials. And I love that.
And they kind of created a movement called hashtag black
women Vote, And it is the bigger conversation of this
is a powerful group of women who can change the
(38:47):
results of an election and have been ignored or have
been suppressed and trying to come together in one way
or another. It is not necessarily trying to sway you think,
it's just trying to get people out to vote. And
how important that is for our our nation. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
And when you just think about the things that are important.
(39:11):
I'm not going to say that, you know, black women
are a monolith and we all think the same way.
But I can say, at least myself, my mother, you
know black women in my life, that we have these conversations.
The topics that consistently come up are ones like safety, schooling,
(39:33):
access to education, access to food, good healthy food near
your homes, and those things are important for everybody, right,
But it comes up consistently when I'm talking to my people.
And so if you know, something like hashtag black women vote,
(39:54):
If black women are able to use their voice in
those ways, we all benefit because we all should be
caring about education and safety and healthy food near near
our homes, like those are the things that lead to
a thriving a thriving city, a thriving citizen, right right.
(40:16):
And and in issues like that, specifically, you know, I
keep coming back because this is so, this is what
I did. I did state in county government for the
longest time, and the fact of the matter is our
state is one of the highest for Black women dying
from childbirth, infant mortality. Thank you in for mortality here
and all all of those things. It's just kind of
(40:37):
a bigger conversation of what we need to look at
why it is important that we see this as a
representation of what is needed, in the change that is needed,
in the representation that is needed, because for so long
we ignored it, too long, and in some areas are
still ignoring it and still not willing to talk about
the fact that this is an underlying social issue, This
(40:59):
is an underlying poitical issue that needs to be talked about,
that needs to be uncovered, that needs to be dissected
to see why it's happening in the first place. So
one of the things I would say, which this might
be this might be a controversial position, but I think
that one of the reasons why it's difficult for us
to get below the surface is because there's naturally going
(41:22):
to be a defensiveness that comes up when having that
discussion because essentially, like going back to what we're saying
about voter suppression, if I come to you with those
stats and I say, this is a race based issue
and if you don't see that, um, that means you
(41:44):
are a racist. We no longer are having a conversation
about voter suppression. Now we're having a conversation about whether
I'm a racist. Um. And same thing, like you're just
talking about like if we're not going to talk about
what maternal mortality and its relation to race, and that's
a health care issue, and if you don't want to
(42:05):
address that, you are now anti woman. Um, We're now
talking about that as opposed to what can we do
to solve this health care issue? And so I feel
like there's a need to pivot the conversation away from
trying to assign some level of internal motivation to the
(42:28):
person and more like can we just talk about the facts,
Like can we just talk about this is an issue?
Can we just agree that this is something we should
be tackling. And I don't have to make that the
a judgment on you as a human being. And I
know that you know, I'm sure there are folks that
(42:49):
are like, well, that's just some mealy mouth garbage way
of going about doing this, because you're not calling a
spade a spade for me in particular. You could call
it whatever you want. The point is I want less
black women dying in childbirth and if we can achieve that,
then whatever right right. And the thing that's one of
the big conversations my Coworkercordey, and I had who she
(43:12):
is a black woman who worked in the same field
as I, and we had to have this whole conversation
of what does it look like when we reframe a
conversation and that's what she kept saying, rebranded so that
it seems nicer. But the fact of the matter is
when it comes to people being defensive, sometimes that is
what has to happen. Unfortunately, when all you really want
(43:33):
to do is shake and be like, stop being a dick.
That's what I want to say, but you know that
doesn't work. Um, and it is it's kind of that
fine line of who compromises to what conversation and but
what is the outcome of that conversation? And it just
and it's it's it's interesting to me that the people
(43:53):
who are the ones who are most likely to compromise
are those who are the most affected because they just
want to change. I get that. I definitely get the
counter argument. It's like, well, why am I always the
one who has to contort myself into all these ways
in order to maneuver through these spaces? Listen, That's just
how it is, right, Like, if we want to get
(44:15):
things done, if we want to actually move the needle,
then sometimes you're going to have to do extra work.
My mom told me that from the very beginning, just
like you're gonna have to work harder for longer than
other people, just getting used to it and keep doing it,
and hopefully by myself and people like me doing that,
the people coming up behind me work a little less
(44:36):
hard the next time around. I love that exactly, and
it's unfortunate that that's where we have to be. But yeah,
I absolutely hear that, but it's frustrating. Yeah, I'm just
saying it. Uh, Andy, I've taken over the conversation again,
So do you so why let me there? Why do
(44:59):
you keep letting me do this? You know what I
really need to work on, And this is true. I
cannot interrupt people. I can't do it. So I'm just
like just do it. It's like online to do list,
I promise Jamaican like Jamaican culture. If you don't, if
you don't learn the art of interruption, you will never
(45:21):
speak in a family the entire time, your entire life,
never get a word in rambles at the corner and
never said a thing, and I will ramble. I will
keep going on my little tirade. You know this, so
you have I like your tirades though, UM, I guess
(45:41):
going off of that. Um, First of all, I had
many many friends who sent me very happy text messages
on voting day with the pizza, so it was a
big hit. Um. If you for someone listening who maybe
wants to get involved, as we've been saying, in politics,
but not necessarily by running and you we've talked about
(46:03):
text banking and phone banking, and um, I love food
is the way to people's hearts, of course. UM I
guess what do you have any advice for people who
are may be intimidated about how to do something like
what you did, like logistics, or it could be the
most basic of things. Yeah, what I'd say is that
(46:25):
there's something like Georgia Project in most cities, like we're
not We're not special. Were we just happen to be
here in Atlanta doing it. UM find that, find that group,
and we are always looking for people to help us.
Speaking on behalf of all of those groups. So we
have folks who their videographers and they they raise their
(46:48):
hand and said, like we can do promo videos for
you and sizzle reels. Like they're not they're used to
not being seen or have to be out, but they've
been able to use their particular fular gift and skill
to help us. So think about what is that thing
that you like doing, Like, what's that thing that gets
you geeked? And proactively approach that organization with like, hey,
(47:13):
here's something I'm good at. Can I help you with
that thing? And for the most part, the smaller groups
are going to take you up on that. If you're
going to some large like I'm going to go to
the Democratic Party of my state, you might get a
responsive email saying thanks for emailing us UM. But for
(47:34):
these smaller grassroots organizations, if one of the things that
it's difficult for all of us to do is just
fielding all of these emails when it's just a general
like hey, I'd like to help. If you come in
with i'd like to help, and I do this. Do
you have a need for this? They will say, uh, yeah, no,
(47:54):
we yes, yes, give us that so that that would
be my encouragement. Awesome, Yeah, I think that's that's great.
I think people are really fired up about it, which
makes sense. So I know our listeners are got some
pretty awesome listeners. Uh, and I'm excited to see what
they'll do. I know they're very skilled listeners too. I'm
(48:16):
sure use those skills for good and not evil folks. Yes,
that's a really good advice. Um. So is there anything
else that you want to talk to us about or
anything we missed a melody? I think that Um. I
mean it's a very like we kind of went all
(48:38):
over the place there a little bit, but you know
that's how I do, how you do do? Yeah, Um,
I hope that you know, I can come back on
after November three, perhaps in some time in December, and
we have like a lofty conversation about how all these
all these efforts actually turned out to benefit voters. Voter
(49:00):
turnout absolutely definitely, will um. And you had mentioned a
little bit earlier about having your own podcast. Can you
kind of tell us about that. Yeah, I am starting
a rolling out of podcast. We come out next month.
It's called Civic s I V I K. And it's
focusing on local Atlanta politics. Again going back to how
(49:22):
important that is. Um. What I found during this last
primary was that folks just didn't know what they didn't know.
But once I let them know I had issued a
voter guide. UM. Once I let folks know, like, hey,
this is what a what a d A does, This
is what a sheriff does. By the way, this is
(49:44):
what our d A did, this is what our shaiff
has done. That all of a sudden that people empowered
with that knowledge were more motivated to go out and vote.
So I started this podcast wanting to talk myself and
my friend Coleman would just talking normally about politics, not
(50:04):
talking heads and you know, big words. And we're all
consultants for various parties, just regular people talking about political shenanigans. Um.
And it's been fun. It's been fun. I'm excited about it.
Who doesn't love Yeah, it depends on the shenanigan. I
(50:27):
think that's great. I'll never forget the first time I
voted and it was something was on the ballot. That
was like, I mean, so many paragraph song and I
must have stood there and read it like five times
and I still didn't know. Like the legal ease was
just so intense. I was like, I'm not even sure
that's good? Right, Yes, yes, yes, those voter questions yes,
(50:52):
oh man um and yeah to inform people of that
beforehand too. Yeah, it's some of these are written in
such a way that there's no way for a regular
person to discern what the property answer is supposed to be.
It's ridiculous. So yeah, civical cover stuff like that. Awesome,
(51:16):
look out for that. Yeah, thanks for the shout out.
So where can people find you? Melody all upon the interwebs?
Oh that sounds so broad. Are you talking to me personally? Yeah,
you personally whatever you want to working in the quarters
of the interwebs. I would encourage folks, if you want
(51:37):
to support what we're doing here in Georgia, go to
Georgia dot org um. You can donate there. Um, you
can send us stamps for our stamp campaign, or you
can donate monetarily one of the you know, sponsor a
restaurant um that is helping us in our early voter push.
And that supports local business while also supporting voters. Um
(52:01):
So Georgia dot org. Sweet, thank you so much for
being with us, Melody. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's
always a fun time. And I'm gonna have our as
a constant correspondence for US constant correspondent. She's a correspondent
for our our network. I don't know. I have no
idea what any of the things I saidment, I have
(52:24):
no idea what the things correspondent from London wherever. So
that brings us to the end of this interview. I
one day I'm going to eat Melody in person. One day.
I feel like I think we've had this conversation before.
You guys missed each other the last time. But one day,
(52:44):
when we're out of pandemic, it will happen. We will
all come together. Because my I think she's just such
a great uh. It's just full of information that is fantastic.
And as as a person who's been in law, who's
been around the back when it comes to buy laws
and conversations and voting and understanding that language, there than me,
uh who I have to follow people like her and
(53:07):
other people who are specialized in this type of conversations
that I think she's just a wealth knowledge that I
love that we have on tap because she is fantastic.
Thank you Melody, Yes, and um all great advice everything
she said. Like I said, I got my absentee ballot
yesterday and it came with a cool graph that showed
(53:27):
my voting record, like and he said I was above average,
and I was like, oh, how I'm easily a piece. Now.
It just means I vote more than average in my
count game. It means it's nothing special at all. But yeah,
I would love to hear what everybody else is doing
out there. I know we talk a lot about our
local stuff because if I find it fascinating just to
(53:49):
see what's happening. And George's kind of slowly turning into
a swing state, hopefully more and more. And um, I
know the senator race in Georgia has gotten pretty heated
it and pretty close, so it's kind of interesting to
see it. I want to hear what's going on around
the country as well, So please let us know what's
happening with you all. Yes, yes, and you can send
(54:10):
that information to our email, which is stefinitely a mom
stuff at I heart me you dot com. You can
also find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast or
on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks It's
always to our super producer Andrew Howard, Thanks Hamburger Guy.
Thanks to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You.
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but it's the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast where you listen
(54:31):
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