June 13, 2024 • 30 mins
That's exactly what NRA and the gun lobby are - taking advantage of crises and tragedies to sell guns to marginalized communities such as the LGBTQ+ community after the Pulse nightclub shooting. Jonathan Metzl returns to Woke AF Daily to discuss how we can organize and move forward.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Good morning, Peepsen, and welcome to Look f Daily with
me your girl, Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker.
So earlier this week, Hunter Biden was found guilty of
three felony counts as it pertains to the possession of
a gun when he was still apparently using or had
(00:36):
been busted for using drugs. Blah blah, blah blah. And
you know, the Right has been in an uproar over
Hunter Biden for the last I don't even know how
many years. And what pisses me off about this is
that Hunter Biden is like a lot of people in
(00:56):
the United States that have been addicted to drugs that
struggle with addiction. I mean, the opioid crisis in and
of itself has millions of people in this country in
a chokehold, right. You know, the pharmaceutical companies that started
the crisis knowing that their drugs were addictive, but you know,
(01:17):
Republicans allowed them to get off and not be sued
for the deaths and the addiction of so many. That
is all on a side. What frustrates me is that
the Democrats, when given blatant criminality, do not use their
(01:38):
power and position as folks with the ability to create
committee hearings, to draw in headlines, to bring America's attention
to those that are criminals, like the Kushner's. So Jared
and Ivanka right with no fucking expence, became advisors to
(02:01):
the president of the United States. You all know that
if Hillary Clinton had been president, Chelsea would have been
probably in a different country, right, nothing to do at
all with her mother's administration. We also know that no
other Democrat, no other person, frankly, had their children involved
(02:24):
in their administrations whatsoever, because of the blurred lines, because
of nepotism, because of a whole host of things that
don't apply to the Trumps. So following now, which I
think is ill timing in and of itself, but who
gives a fuck about ill timing and the way things
are perceived these days, when you can apparently do whatever
(02:45):
the fuck you want so long as you're white and
rich and male, which has always been the case in America,
But if your name is Trump or attached to Trump,
you can absolutely do whatever the fuck you want. So now,
two years following or three years really following the end
of the Trump administration, if you all remember Jared Kushner,
(03:08):
who again no experience, couldn't get security clearance, but that
was waved away by Donald Trump somehow became his Foreign
Affairs advisor. Don't really know how that happened or why,
but what we do know is that when Jared Kushner
walked away from the Trump administration, he didn't walk away
(03:29):
empty handed. He received two billion dollars from Mohammed bin Salam,
the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. During his time as
the Foreign Affairs Advisor, he told his father in law,
Donald Trump to embrace Saudi Arabia as an ally right,
(03:52):
which should raise concerns for everyone. I mean, I don't
have to remind you, and maybe I do about Jamal Koshogi,
the Report Order, the writer for the Washington Post who
was murdered and dismembered by MBS, and Trump didn't care, right,
He's like, oh, he's not an American, he was NBS
(04:14):
is a murderer. And that's just like one person that
we know about, right. We know that he abuses his
own people all of these things and does dirt, but nonetheless,
because of his deep pockets, the Trumps love that and
for whatever it was that he did while he was
advisor to Donald Trump. He became a very wealthy man
(04:37):
off of that. So now Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden,
Democrat from Oregon, has asked Kushner's firm, Affinity Partners, for
details about its investors on Wednesday, including the two billion
dollars it received from Saudi Arabian Government Public Investment Fund
in twenty twenty one. This is according to the Huffington Post,
(05:00):
and this is what is said by Chairman Widen quote.
Mister Kushner's limited track record as an investor, including his
non existent experience in private equity or hedge funds, raised
questions regarding the investment strategy behind the seating investments and
lucrative compensation that Affinity received from the Saudi PIF and
(05:23):
other sovereign wealth funds. This panel screens investments for the
Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund warned right warned against investing with
Kushner given his inexperience in finance, but the full board,
led by the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salam, overruled right.
(05:44):
So even his own even MBS's own people said, don't
invest with dude because he doesn't have a good track record.
We don't really know what he's up to, and MBS said, nah,
I got it. It's fine. Right. Goes on to say,
Kushner advised Trump on foreign affairs, guided his administration to
embrace Saudi Arabia as an ally, which I mentioned, and
(06:05):
remained in close contact even after NBS was implicated in
the dismembering of American journalist Jamal Kushogi. This comes from
widen quote. The Saudi PIF's decision to invest two billion
dollars in Infinity so soon after Kushner's departure from the
Trump White House raises concerns that the investment was a
(06:27):
reward for official actions Kushner took to benefit the Saudi government,
including preventing accountability for the Saudi government ordering the brutal
murder of journalists and American citizen Jamal Kushogi. Folks, this
should have happened in twenty twenty one. This investigation should
(06:50):
have been opened, not only by the Senate, right in
terms of hearings, after hearings of who benefited from the
Trump administration, who benefited monetarily right namely his fucking kids,
And it should have been wall to wall coverage there
should have been an investigation opened by the Department of
(07:13):
Justice in twenty twenty one. None of these things happened
because of politics, and this is where Democrats continue to
fucking fail all the time. Regardless of the actions that
Democrats were going to take, Republicans were going to say
that it's political, this is a witch hunt, this is retribution,
(07:37):
blah blah blah blah blah. But the fact is that
multiple crimes were staring the Senate and the Department of
Justice in the face. When Donald Trump got on that
helicopter and exited from the White House, Merrick Garland walked
into the DOJ with the Muelll Report sitting on his
(07:58):
fucking desk. Ten ways in which that motherfucker had obstructed justice.
But Merrick Garland decided to look the other way, not
because it was for the best interests of the American people,
but because it was about preserving an institution and the
perception of some type of fucking bipartisanship. If you break
(08:19):
the law, you should be investigated, you should be tried.
And so it was politics that stood in the way
of Democrats getting to work years before we would get
to this moment. Five months before fucking an election. Those
cases that had been put on ice right most recently
(08:43):
would have been moving ahead had they had the two
year fucking lead that they should have. It is politics
that has us in this precarious moment about to lose
our democracy, that rest squarely on the shoulders of timid
(09:03):
and tepid fucking Democrats who refuse to do their job
so that they can pretend like they are somehow the
adults in the room absolute bullshit. But I will keep
you abreast of where these hearings go. Coming up next
my conversation with our in house doctor who is back
(09:24):
with us, doctor Jonathan Metzel. We talk about gun ownership
in the LGBTQ community and the ways in which these
arms dealers pray upon fear and racism and bias. That
conversation is coming up next. It's been a couple of weeks,
(09:48):
but we are welcoming back to the show our in
house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. Jonathan, it's so good to
see you and have you back.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
It is pride here on WOKF, so happy pride, and
there are so many issues obviously that affect the LGBTQ
plus community, and one that I don't think that we
talk about enough is the gun issue inside of this
community and what happens when you have marginalized communities that
(10:24):
are targeted, which we have seen throughout you know, the decades,
We've seen horrific mass shootings, We've seen crimes against black
trans women in particular, that every time there is an
instance of violence against a particular community, there seems to
be an opening that gun manufacturers that the NRA see
(10:47):
to go after a new audience and kind of I
don't know, I guess capitalize on their fear.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
What have you seen in and around you know, the
lgbtqu U plus community and guns and how this community
has handled the issue of gun ownership.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I have a couple of colleagues at Vanderbilt who actually
work on this issue, and I'm going to reach out
to them after we talk today and see if I
can get kind of their more updated research, because I
know they're working on projects right now. They aren't even
published yet, but I would say that they did a
bunch of projects, like during the pandemic that found that,
for example, gay Tennesseeans were just as likely as everyone
(11:33):
else to buy guns during the pandemic. The risk of
guns suicide is really high in queer communities, and so
this question of suicide, which is an issue anyway, particularly
for trans communities, when you're in a place where it's
easier to get guns, you're just basically giving people the
easiest means of the most effective I hate that word,
(11:56):
means of suicide. So it's kind of like all the
regular is shoes, but they're just amplified. And so that's
kind of what if you're in a place where it's
easier to get guns, Like we used to think only
white men did mass shootings, but then it turned out
white men had access to the guns, and that was
part of I mean, there are other reasons too, obviously
that I write about. But when you have marginalized the
(12:19):
risk communities and easy access to firearms, they then see
similar or sometimes worse trends than you do in regular culture.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
You know what I find. So I guess shocking to me,
and I guess this is just based on like the
universe in the communities that like I'm a part of that.
When I think about the lgbt Q plus community, I
think of probably the most progressive set and the most
(12:49):
left leaning set right. And so when I think about
progressivism and those that are definitely more left leaning, I
think about being anti gun right. But then I also
know that this is a community that is consistently targeted, right,
that as we've seen over the last several years. I
mean I just saw a map the other day that said,
(13:11):
what like forty three states have anti trans policies on
the books, and that number just continues to rise. That
the more targeted you feel, the more likely you feel
that who is supposed to quote unquote protect you doesn't,
And so there's this need to protect yourself. Can you
speak to like the way that again, the fear mongering,
(13:36):
the targeting is kind of this cyclical, you know, feeding
the monster of feeling like you are so isolated and
alone that you must then you know, arm up.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Well, let me just say, because this is really the
million dark question, right. You never see there's tons of homophobia, transphobia,
everything else. But I will eat my computer mouse if
there's ever a law that says that people in those
groups can't buy guns. Right. In other words, what we
do is we target people. We people are tribalized, but
(14:14):
those are great for gun markets. In fact, those are
how gun markets are constructed. And so in What We've
Become my book, as you know, I talk about how
after the George Floyd murder there was a really conscious
effort to sell guns to black and Latino Americans using
the tagline that the police are not going to protect you,
(14:37):
and so you should arm up or the police could
kill you, or they're not going to come. So they
kind of use this, and then when Black Americans started
buying more guns, which they did after the Floyd murder,
then they had all these pictures of black people at
Black Lives Matter protests with guns, and then that would
be used to market guns to white people, saying, hey,
(14:57):
the black people have guns, you the white people need gun.
So you know who acts like this, They're called arm stealers. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And so part of what we see is that this
is arm stealing. That's usually that's a war, right, But
here we see it in the in the society. And
I think I told you this once off record, but
I'll save here that after October seventh, I was getting
(15:20):
a ton of social media stuff. I mean, Jews and
everybody else were really scared and really a tribalizing moment.
It was a polarizing crisis, and my Instagram was full
of gun ads and I'm like, what the hell? But
then I realized, like, oh, like you know, I said
somewhere I'm Jewish, and like all these Jews went out
(15:41):
and bought guns and then whatever. So crisis is an opportunity,
and especially when people are marginalized. And I guess you know,
the question is does owning a gun bring you equality?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
But I mean it's not even like does owning a
gun bring you equality? It's like does owning a gun
acquiesced like the year that you have? I think that
it would amplify it. Right, And so if crisis becomes
like a money making opportunity for these arms dealers, which
are one hundred percent right in that terminology, then what
(16:14):
would the marketing look like on the what is the
pr on the other side? Right? That disrupts this idea
that things are so bad you can't trust police, you
can't trust quote unquote public servants to protect you, so
you must protect yourself. Like how do folks go about
disrupting that? To break that cycle?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
The two main things that I advocate for, as you know,
at the end of what we've become, which people should get.
It's I hear great things, but I don't think that
disrupting the gun industry is just it sounds great, but
I guess should be. The three main things that I
focus on. Number one is that we have not in
(16:56):
any way pushed back hard enough on public carry, on
open can carry of long guns. And so part of
the issue is it's not just about the shootings. For me,
the shootings are like microcosms of these much bigger issues,
which is like the feeling that you need to be
armed against your neighbor. And so part of what I
talk about in the book is that we just because
(17:17):
the mass shootings, I mean, I'm sorry, open carry it
doesn't register data that links to death or injury. It's
not amenable to most guns safety regulations, right because it's
not injuries or death, which is what we're trying to prevent.
But I think that the it's the it's like the
end of civic space if everybody's armed and just waiting
(17:40):
for somebody to do a bad thing. And so what
I talk about is rebuilding civic space and ways that
make people feel safe. That's not even really about regulating guns,
it's more like street lights and green space and jobs programs.
And so for me, I'm like a structuralist, right that
in a way, if we if this is an issue
(18:01):
of public safety, people feeling safe, you know, invest in
the subways, which is why I'm sorry, like congestion pricing
didn't happen and stuff like that. But like all these things,
and if you don't invest in them, like the subway
feels a lot less safe because the lights are flickering
and it's.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Right and every time it rains, like it becomes an
entire flood.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
As if for me, number one is structure, Number two
is investing in public space. I just think the barn
door is long open about people owning guns in their homes.
That's the Heller decision two thousand and eight. We're not
going to get that back in our lifetime. But I
do think that investing in public safety and public space,
and then the third is having nothing to do with
(18:43):
the gun industry. It's actually the long game that got
the NRA in power in the first place, which is
that they paid attention to the judiciary and so for them,
they had people who no matter what the headline issue
was of the day, they were going to vote for
politicians who going to put judges in place, who were
going to do their agenda. And so for me, it's
(19:04):
also that we the right, really had a long game,
and right now the left needs a long game also,
which ends with doing something about the Supreme Court and
all these other courts.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
One of the things too, I get the desire for
us to say we want to dismantle the gun industry, right,
But I really like what you're talking about, which is
really about infrastructure and thinking about how we build community.
I've lived in, you know, two very different areas in
(19:38):
Brooklyn since I left Washington, d C. And moved to
New York. And I will tell you that the quote
unquote safest communities right that I have ever lived in,
and that I grew up in on Long Island, I
never saw police, like unless they were stopping literally at
the bagel store to get breakfast. I never saw pla
(20:01):
And this idea that creating environment, yes, like picking up
food like that was like there was no I had
no relationship because I and I will say this, I
lived in a majority white community growing up, and so
(20:22):
there was sidewalks and parks and you know, golf courses
and like and the like, and so the cops were
like not there. In the safest communities that I've ever
walked around in, whether they're in Brooklyn, on Long Island,
in Washington, d c. Or in other places, they are
largely more affluent, white areas where safety is a given,
(20:48):
and it's not because it's flooded with cops. And so
I never understand then the other side, which is that
I'm in a neighborhood that is underserved, that doesn't have
basic things like grocery stores and banks and what have you,
and they're like, Oh, this neighborhood is so unsafe, We'll
(21:08):
flood it with cops. And I'm just like, how does
that work? Because you see that what does what does
the community that doesn't need that doesn't require over policing have.
It has parks, it has sidewalks, it has grocery stores,
it has community centers, it has like things that connect
(21:31):
and build a community. So I'm just curious that, like
when when you see the differences, right, like you live
in Brooklyn too, you navigate and go around into the cities,
Like why when we're talking about how to create safe communities,
does that not translate between racialized communities for our representatives
(21:53):
and whomever.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yeah, there's a book called Dying of Whiteness that talks
about really and it talks about how people don't want
to invest in the other, even if it might help
everybody who they perceive as the other. And I think
this is another example. Right, the examples you give about
making neighborhoods feel safe is just the tip of the iceberg.
(22:15):
I mean, there's this great sociologist, Patrick Sharky, I think
he's at Princeton now, who talks about how when you
start doing that, those neighborhoods become incredibly economically viable. It's
actually like it's great economic policy. And then you have
more taxpayers, more people paying into the system, more people
(22:36):
paying into public transportation. That's also true, Like there's the
McKenzie and Black Economic Forum that talks about how companies
that have the most diversity are the most prosperous and
all these kind of things. And so they're just as
zillion examples. And I don't know's the history of the
(22:58):
color line, right, But it's not just that. It's also anxiety, fear,
fear that like that bad stuff's kind of spill over
into your neighborhood, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
So common sense just is not common because the spillover
would absolutely happen if you don't stop the spread. And
how do you stop the spread? By putting an investment
into areas that have been historically underinvested, there won't be
spillover if they have all of the same things that
you have over here.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, no, I mean, I mean considering considering that, that's
the some argument of like all of my scholarship could
I could not agree more. And the other thing is
we get into these binaries that are maybe not helpful,
like capitalism. Anti capitalism is one example, but like what
I'm talking about is like incredibly capitalists, right. I mean,
(23:50):
it's it's good to have new markets with new internet
providers and new supermarket chains. It's good to think about
guns safety in a way that actually is economically viable.
I mean, smart guns, technology that only recognizes the hand
of the shooter, et cetera. And so I just think that,
(24:13):
I mean, it's hard to think of a term other
than dying of whiteness for this because it's it's not
you know, but that's kind of where we're at. But
I mean, look at this congestion pricing thing, right, I mean,
it wasn't popular.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I think we'll explain it because not everybody lives in
New York.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
I mean, it was not handlbil, but they were going
to tax people who drive into New York because there's
way too much traffic, and then use that money to
invest in infrastructure, transit lines, extending public transportation to Harlem,
fixing the freaking G train, which is need of fixing
all these things. And this is not the only example,
(24:48):
but it's kind of like at times where people people
become irrational when they're asked to pay for something that's
for somebody else. And the thing is, it's not just
about race. It is about I mean, it is about
race a lot, but it's not just about race. I mean,
I'm from Kansas City. They just had this big referendum
about should we extend to one cent tax on sales
(25:12):
to pay for the football stadium for the Kansas City
Chiefs whoever re loves and everybody rallied and said we're
not spend any money when they are all these billionaires.
And now the Chiefs are almost certainly going to move
out of Missouri and so done again, people would probably
be like, oh, man, we should have vote voted for that.
But when it's like, oh, people are being asked to
pay for infrastructure, there's an assumption that the money is
(25:35):
somewhere else or someone's gaming the system. It just it
feels like it feels like a weird you know. The
book I'm writing now is about Amazon not coming to
New York and that whole thing, and like it's like
we kind of rally around rejecting or divesting or dismantling things,
but it's harder to think about, like, Okay, then how
(25:57):
are we going to build them? So I know this
is along answer, but it seems like it follows through
a lot of these stories.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
You know. So basically Americans have no sense of community
when you look at other areas, right, And I think
because always popping up on my Instagram, are you know
what innovations are happening in Japan? What it looks like
the high speed trains in Switzerland and like all around
the world. And I think that again, there's a lot
of the veil lifting from Americans in terms of the
(26:28):
lie of American exceptionalism, because in nowhere, shape or form
do people from other countries come here who are not
from developing countries and look at our infrastructure and think
to themselves, oh, look at Americas, so ahead of the
fucking curve, like it absolutely is not. But what you
have in these other countries is very much a sense
of pride, connectivity and community in look at what we
(26:51):
are building and doing together. And I think that the
rugged individualism that lie that has built a man Erica
right that everyone is an island onto themselves, has gone
to a disservice to our being able to actually compete
in this area.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Don't tell anybody this is a total secret, but my
new book, the title is called Dismantle Everything, and it's
about exactly exactly the point you just made, which is
that kind of community is structural, right, people see and
like structure makes people feel like they're not always in
competition with each other. And so we were not investing
in the structures that make people feel like they're on
(27:33):
even remotely on the same side. And then you get
this crazy tribalism and everything else that's happening. I mean,
you know, and it's led to a lot of innovation.
I mean, we invented the slurpee at seven eleven and I.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Don't even think that we invented it, Like, I can't
even take like, I'm like, did we really Like, I'm
certain that that was probably stolen too, it's part of
us reason, You're right exactly. I'm like, I'm sure that
that was not invented here. But it's just this idea.
I think that it really does go back to the
lack of community and the lack of sense of community
(28:09):
and the responsibility of community. I mean, we can look
at COVID, right, we had the absolute wrong, maniacal, egomaniac,
you know, fascist president at a time when Americans needed
to come together more than ever right to support one
another and to be and let me just say, outside
(28:30):
of the diabolical nature of the Trump administration, there were
a lot of stories of people coming together and people
doing what was necessary in their buildings, in their community
to help one another during that really horrible time. But
with a lack of leadership from the top about the
responsibility of building community. I honestly, you know, maybe I'm crazy,
(28:56):
but outside of Obama, I really can't think of another
president that really was about what really was community minded.
And as a reminder, Obama was a community organizer, and
so I don't like maybe efty, but I don't really
think so, because again that was like largely racist.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I don't know if you think about like what we
did as we entered World War One, you know, like
there were all these community sharing things. You know, people
didn't eat meat on Friday and weet on Wednesday. We
created the Federal Reserve, We created all of these regulations
to help farmers. Then we had like a you know,
(29:35):
economic collapse after it. But there have been moments when
we have like a common enemy where we kind of
come together. But I hope it doesn't take that right
now because the common enemy is speaking our very own
language right now.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
So yeah, well, my friend, we will leave it there today,
but appreciate having you back.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
It's good to be back. So thank you everybody for
thank you for this community. Honestly, it's great.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
That is it for me today, Dear friends on woke
A app as always power to the people and to
all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.
Good morning, Peepsen, and welcome to Look f Daily with
me your girl, Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker.
So earlier this week, Hunter Biden was found guilty of
three felony counts as it pertains to the possession of
a gun when he was still apparently using or had
(00:36):
been busted for using drugs. Blah blah, blah blah. And
you know, the Right has been in an uproar over
Hunter Biden for the last I don't even know how
many years. And what pisses me off about this is
that Hunter Biden is like a lot of people in
(00:56):
the United States that have been addicted to drugs that
struggle with addiction. I mean, the opioid crisis in and
of itself has millions of people in this country in
a chokehold, right. You know, the pharmaceutical companies that started
the crisis knowing that their drugs were addictive, but you know,
(01:17):
Republicans allowed them to get off and not be sued
for the deaths and the addiction of so many. That
is all on a side. What frustrates me is that
the Democrats, when given blatant criminality, do not use their
(01:38):
power and position as folks with the ability to create
committee hearings, to draw in headlines, to bring America's attention
to those that are criminals, like the Kushner's. So Jared
and Ivanka right with no fucking expence, became advisors to
(02:01):
the president of the United States. You all know that
if Hillary Clinton had been president, Chelsea would have been
probably in a different country, right, nothing to do at
all with her mother's administration. We also know that no
other Democrat, no other person, frankly, had their children involved
(02:24):
in their administrations whatsoever, because of the blurred lines, because
of nepotism, because of a whole host of things that
don't apply to the Trumps. So following now, which I
think is ill timing in and of itself, but who
gives a fuck about ill timing and the way things
are perceived these days, when you can apparently do whatever
(02:45):
the fuck you want so long as you're white and
rich and male, which has always been the case in America,
But if your name is Trump or attached to Trump,
you can absolutely do whatever the fuck you want. So now,
two years following or three years really following the end
of the Trump administration, if you all remember Jared Kushner,
(03:08):
who again no experience, couldn't get security clearance, but that
was waved away by Donald Trump somehow became his Foreign
Affairs advisor. Don't really know how that happened or why,
but what we do know is that when Jared Kushner
walked away from the Trump administration, he didn't walk away
(03:29):
empty handed. He received two billion dollars from Mohammed bin Salam,
the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. During his time as
the Foreign Affairs Advisor, he told his father in law,
Donald Trump to embrace Saudi Arabia as an ally right,
(03:52):
which should raise concerns for everyone. I mean, I don't
have to remind you, and maybe I do about Jamal Koshogi,
the Report Order, the writer for the Washington Post who
was murdered and dismembered by MBS, and Trump didn't care, right,
He's like, oh, he's not an American, he was NBS
(04:14):
is a murderer. And that's just like one person that
we know about, right. We know that he abuses his
own people all of these things and does dirt, but nonetheless,
because of his deep pockets, the Trumps love that and
for whatever it was that he did while he was
advisor to Donald Trump. He became a very wealthy man
(04:37):
off of that. So now Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden,
Democrat from Oregon, has asked Kushner's firm, Affinity Partners, for
details about its investors on Wednesday, including the two billion
dollars it received from Saudi Arabian Government Public Investment Fund
in twenty twenty one. This is according to the Huffington Post,
(05:00):
and this is what is said by Chairman Widen quote.
Mister Kushner's limited track record as an investor, including his
non existent experience in private equity or hedge funds, raised
questions regarding the investment strategy behind the seating investments and
lucrative compensation that Affinity received from the Saudi PIF and
(05:23):
other sovereign wealth funds. This panel screens investments for the
Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund warned right warned against investing with
Kushner given his inexperience in finance, but the full board,
led by the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salam, overruled right.
(05:44):
So even his own even MBS's own people said, don't
invest with dude because he doesn't have a good track record.
We don't really know what he's up to, and MBS said, nah,
I got it. It's fine. Right. Goes on to say,
Kushner advised Trump on foreign affairs, guided his administration to
embrace Saudi Arabia as an ally, which I mentioned, and
(06:05):
remained in close contact even after NBS was implicated in
the dismembering of American journalist Jamal Kushogi. This comes from
widen quote. The Saudi PIF's decision to invest two billion
dollars in Infinity so soon after Kushner's departure from the
Trump White House raises concerns that the investment was a
(06:27):
reward for official actions Kushner took to benefit the Saudi government,
including preventing accountability for the Saudi government ordering the brutal
murder of journalists and American citizen Jamal Kushogi. Folks, this
should have happened in twenty twenty one. This investigation should
(06:50):
have been opened, not only by the Senate, right in
terms of hearings, after hearings of who benefited from the
Trump administration, who benefited monetarily right namely his fucking kids,
And it should have been wall to wall coverage there
should have been an investigation opened by the Department of
(07:13):
Justice in twenty twenty one. None of these things happened
because of politics, and this is where Democrats continue to
fucking fail all the time. Regardless of the actions that
Democrats were going to take, Republicans were going to say
that it's political, this is a witch hunt, this is retribution,
(07:37):
blah blah blah blah blah. But the fact is that
multiple crimes were staring the Senate and the Department of
Justice in the face. When Donald Trump got on that
helicopter and exited from the White House, Merrick Garland walked
into the DOJ with the Muelll Report sitting on his
(07:58):
fucking desk. Ten ways in which that motherfucker had obstructed justice.
But Merrick Garland decided to look the other way, not
because it was for the best interests of the American people,
but because it was about preserving an institution and the
perception of some type of fucking bipartisanship. If you break
(08:19):
the law, you should be investigated, you should be tried.
And so it was politics that stood in the way
of Democrats getting to work years before we would get
to this moment. Five months before fucking an election. Those
cases that had been put on ice right most recently
(08:43):
would have been moving ahead had they had the two
year fucking lead that they should have. It is politics
that has us in this precarious moment about to lose
our democracy, that rest squarely on the shoulders of timid
(09:03):
and tepid fucking Democrats who refuse to do their job
so that they can pretend like they are somehow the
adults in the room absolute bullshit. But I will keep
you abreast of where these hearings go. Coming up next
my conversation with our in house doctor who is back
(09:24):
with us, doctor Jonathan Metzel. We talk about gun ownership
in the LGBTQ community and the ways in which these
arms dealers pray upon fear and racism and bias. That
conversation is coming up next. It's been a couple of weeks,
(09:48):
but we are welcoming back to the show our in
house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. Jonathan, it's so good to
see you and have you back.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
It is pride here on WOKF, so happy pride, and
there are so many issues obviously that affect the LGBTQ
plus community, and one that I don't think that we
talk about enough is the gun issue inside of this
community and what happens when you have marginalized communities that
(10:24):
are targeted, which we have seen throughout you know, the decades,
We've seen horrific mass shootings, We've seen crimes against black
trans women in particular, that every time there is an
instance of violence against a particular community, there seems to
be an opening that gun manufacturers that the NRA see
(10:47):
to go after a new audience and kind of I
don't know, I guess capitalize on their fear.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
What have you seen in and around you know, the
lgbtqu U plus community and guns and how this community
has handled the issue of gun ownership.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I have a couple of colleagues at Vanderbilt who actually
work on this issue, and I'm going to reach out
to them after we talk today and see if I
can get kind of their more updated research, because I
know they're working on projects right now. They aren't even
published yet, but I would say that they did a
bunch of projects, like during the pandemic that found that,
for example, gay Tennesseeans were just as likely as everyone
(11:33):
else to buy guns during the pandemic. The risk of
guns suicide is really high in queer communities, and so
this question of suicide, which is an issue anyway, particularly
for trans communities, when you're in a place where it's
easier to get guns, you're just basically giving people the
easiest means of the most effective I hate that word,
(11:56):
means of suicide. So it's kind of like all the
regular is shoes, but they're just amplified. And so that's
kind of what if you're in a place where it's
easier to get guns, Like we used to think only
white men did mass shootings, but then it turned out
white men had access to the guns, and that was
part of I mean, there are other reasons too, obviously
that I write about. But when you have marginalized the
(12:19):
risk communities and easy access to firearms, they then see
similar or sometimes worse trends than you do in regular culture.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
You know what I find. So I guess shocking to me,
and I guess this is just based on like the
universe in the communities that like I'm a part of that.
When I think about the lgbt Q plus community, I
think of probably the most progressive set and the most
(12:49):
left leaning set right. And so when I think about
progressivism and those that are definitely more left leaning, I
think about being anti gun right. But then I also
know that this is a community that is consistently targeted, right,
that as we've seen over the last several years. I
mean I just saw a map the other day that said,
(13:11):
what like forty three states have anti trans policies on
the books, and that number just continues to rise. That
the more targeted you feel, the more likely you feel
that who is supposed to quote unquote protect you doesn't,
And so there's this need to protect yourself. Can you
speak to like the way that again, the fear mongering,
(13:36):
the targeting is kind of this cyclical, you know, feeding
the monster of feeling like you are so isolated and
alone that you must then you know, arm up.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Well, let me just say, because this is really the
million dark question, right. You never see there's tons of homophobia, transphobia,
everything else. But I will eat my computer mouse if
there's ever a law that says that people in those
groups can't buy guns. Right. In other words, what we
do is we target people. We people are tribalized, but
(14:14):
those are great for gun markets. In fact, those are
how gun markets are constructed. And so in What We've
Become my book, as you know, I talk about how
after the George Floyd murder there was a really conscious
effort to sell guns to black and Latino Americans using
the tagline that the police are not going to protect you,
(14:37):
and so you should arm up or the police could
kill you, or they're not going to come. So they
kind of use this, and then when Black Americans started
buying more guns, which they did after the Floyd murder,
then they had all these pictures of black people at
Black Lives Matter protests with guns, and then that would
be used to market guns to white people, saying, hey,
(14:57):
the black people have guns, you the white people need gun.
So you know who acts like this, They're called arm stealers. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And so part of what we see is that this
is arm stealing. That's usually that's a war, right, But
here we see it in the in the society. And
I think I told you this once off record, but
I'll save here that after October seventh, I was getting
(15:20):
a ton of social media stuff. I mean, Jews and
everybody else were really scared and really a tribalizing moment.
It was a polarizing crisis, and my Instagram was full
of gun ads and I'm like, what the hell? But
then I realized, like, oh, like you know, I said
somewhere I'm Jewish, and like all these Jews went out
(15:41):
and bought guns and then whatever. So crisis is an opportunity,
and especially when people are marginalized. And I guess you know,
the question is does owning a gun bring you equality?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
But I mean it's not even like does owning a
gun bring you equality? It's like does owning a gun
acquiesced like the year that you have? I think that
it would amplify it. Right, And so if crisis becomes
like a money making opportunity for these arms dealers, which
are one hundred percent right in that terminology, then what
(16:14):
would the marketing look like on the what is the
pr on the other side? Right? That disrupts this idea
that things are so bad you can't trust police, you
can't trust quote unquote public servants to protect you, so
you must protect yourself. Like how do folks go about
disrupting that? To break that cycle?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
The two main things that I advocate for, as you know,
at the end of what we've become, which people should get.
It's I hear great things, but I don't think that
disrupting the gun industry is just it sounds great, but
I guess should be. The three main things that I
focus on. Number one is that we have not in
(16:56):
any way pushed back hard enough on public carry, on
open can carry of long guns. And so part of
the issue is it's not just about the shootings. For me,
the shootings are like microcosms of these much bigger issues,
which is like the feeling that you need to be
armed against your neighbor. And so part of what I
talk about in the book is that we just because
(17:17):
the mass shootings, I mean, I'm sorry, open carry it
doesn't register data that links to death or injury. It's
not amenable to most guns safety regulations, right because it's
not injuries or death, which is what we're trying to prevent.
But I think that the it's the it's like the
end of civic space if everybody's armed and just waiting
(17:40):
for somebody to do a bad thing. And so what
I talk about is rebuilding civic space and ways that
make people feel safe. That's not even really about regulating guns,
it's more like street lights and green space and jobs programs.
And so for me, I'm like a structuralist, right that
in a way, if we if this is an issue
(18:01):
of public safety, people feeling safe, you know, invest in
the subways, which is why I'm sorry, like congestion pricing
didn't happen and stuff like that. But like all these things,
and if you don't invest in them, like the subway
feels a lot less safe because the lights are flickering
and it's.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Right and every time it rains, like it becomes an
entire flood.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
As if for me, number one is structure, Number two
is investing in public space. I just think the barn
door is long open about people owning guns in their homes.
That's the Heller decision two thousand and eight. We're not
going to get that back in our lifetime. But I
do think that investing in public safety and public space,
and then the third is having nothing to do with
(18:43):
the gun industry. It's actually the long game that got
the NRA in power in the first place, which is
that they paid attention to the judiciary and so for them,
they had people who no matter what the headline issue
was of the day, they were going to vote for
politicians who going to put judges in place, who were
going to do their agenda. And so for me, it's
(19:04):
also that we the right, really had a long game,
and right now the left needs a long game also,
which ends with doing something about the Supreme Court and
all these other courts.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
One of the things too, I get the desire for
us to say we want to dismantle the gun industry, right,
But I really like what you're talking about, which is
really about infrastructure and thinking about how we build community.
I've lived in, you know, two very different areas in
(19:38):
Brooklyn since I left Washington, d C. And moved to
New York. And I will tell you that the quote
unquote safest communities right that I have ever lived in,
and that I grew up in on Long Island, I
never saw police, like unless they were stopping literally at
the bagel store to get breakfast. I never saw pla
(20:01):
And this idea that creating environment, yes, like picking up
food like that was like there was no I had
no relationship because I and I will say this, I
lived in a majority white community growing up, and so
(20:22):
there was sidewalks and parks and you know, golf courses
and like and the like, and so the cops were
like not there. In the safest communities that I've ever
walked around in, whether they're in Brooklyn, on Long Island,
in Washington, d c. Or in other places, they are
largely more affluent, white areas where safety is a given,
(20:48):
and it's not because it's flooded with cops. And so
I never understand then the other side, which is that
I'm in a neighborhood that is underserved, that doesn't have
basic things like grocery stores and banks and what have you,
and they're like, Oh, this neighborhood is so unsafe, We'll
(21:08):
flood it with cops. And I'm just like, how does
that work? Because you see that what does what does
the community that doesn't need that doesn't require over policing have.
It has parks, it has sidewalks, it has grocery stores,
it has community centers, it has like things that connect
(21:31):
and build a community. So I'm just curious that, like
when when you see the differences, right, like you live
in Brooklyn too, you navigate and go around into the cities,
Like why when we're talking about how to create safe communities,
does that not translate between racialized communities for our representatives
(21:53):
and whomever.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yeah, there's a book called Dying of Whiteness that talks
about really and it talks about how people don't want
to invest in the other, even if it might help
everybody who they perceive as the other. And I think
this is another example. Right, the examples you give about
making neighborhoods feel safe is just the tip of the iceberg.
(22:15):
I mean, there's this great sociologist, Patrick Sharky, I think
he's at Princeton now, who talks about how when you
start doing that, those neighborhoods become incredibly economically viable. It's
actually like it's great economic policy. And then you have
more taxpayers, more people paying into the system, more people
(22:36):
paying into public transportation. That's also true, Like there's the
McKenzie and Black Economic Forum that talks about how companies
that have the most diversity are the most prosperous and
all these kind of things. And so they're just as
zillion examples. And I don't know's the history of the
(22:58):
color line, right, But it's not just that. It's also anxiety, fear,
fear that like that bad stuff's kind of spill over
into your neighborhood, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
So common sense just is not common because the spillover
would absolutely happen if you don't stop the spread. And
how do you stop the spread? By putting an investment
into areas that have been historically underinvested, there won't be
spillover if they have all of the same things that
you have over here.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, no, I mean, I mean considering considering that, that's
the some argument of like all of my scholarship could
I could not agree more. And the other thing is
we get into these binaries that are maybe not helpful,
like capitalism. Anti capitalism is one example, but like what
I'm talking about is like incredibly capitalists, right. I mean,
(23:50):
it's it's good to have new markets with new internet
providers and new supermarket chains. It's good to think about
guns safety in a way that actually is economically viable.
I mean, smart guns, technology that only recognizes the hand
of the shooter, et cetera. And so I just think that,
(24:13):
I mean, it's hard to think of a term other
than dying of whiteness for this because it's it's not
you know, but that's kind of where we're at. But
I mean, look at this congestion pricing thing, right, I mean,
it wasn't popular.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I think we'll explain it because not everybody lives in
New York.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
I mean, it was not handlbil, but they were going
to tax people who drive into New York because there's
way too much traffic, and then use that money to
invest in infrastructure, transit lines, extending public transportation to Harlem,
fixing the freaking G train, which is need of fixing
all these things. And this is not the only example,
(24:48):
but it's kind of like at times where people people
become irrational when they're asked to pay for something that's
for somebody else. And the thing is, it's not just
about race. It is about I mean, it is about
race a lot, but it's not just about race. I mean,
I'm from Kansas City. They just had this big referendum
about should we extend to one cent tax on sales
(25:12):
to pay for the football stadium for the Kansas City
Chiefs whoever re loves and everybody rallied and said we're
not spend any money when they are all these billionaires.
And now the Chiefs are almost certainly going to move
out of Missouri and so done again, people would probably
be like, oh, man, we should have vote voted for that.
But when it's like, oh, people are being asked to
pay for infrastructure, there's an assumption that the money is
(25:35):
somewhere else or someone's gaming the system. It just it
feels like it feels like a weird you know. The
book I'm writing now is about Amazon not coming to
New York and that whole thing, and like it's like
we kind of rally around rejecting or divesting or dismantling things,
but it's harder to think about, like, Okay, then how
(25:57):
are we going to build them? So I know this
is along answer, but it seems like it follows through
a lot of these stories.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
You know. So basically Americans have no sense of community
when you look at other areas, right, And I think
because always popping up on my Instagram, are you know
what innovations are happening in Japan? What it looks like
the high speed trains in Switzerland and like all around
the world. And I think that again, there's a lot
of the veil lifting from Americans in terms of the
(26:28):
lie of American exceptionalism, because in nowhere, shape or form
do people from other countries come here who are not
from developing countries and look at our infrastructure and think
to themselves, oh, look at Americas, so ahead of the
fucking curve, like it absolutely is not. But what you
have in these other countries is very much a sense
of pride, connectivity and community in look at what we
(26:51):
are building and doing together. And I think that the
rugged individualism that lie that has built a man Erica
right that everyone is an island onto themselves, has gone
to a disservice to our being able to actually compete
in this area.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Don't tell anybody this is a total secret, but my
new book, the title is called Dismantle Everything, and it's
about exactly exactly the point you just made, which is
that kind of community is structural, right, people see and
like structure makes people feel like they're not always in
competition with each other. And so we were not investing
in the structures that make people feel like they're on
(27:33):
even remotely on the same side. And then you get
this crazy tribalism and everything else that's happening. I mean,
you know, and it's led to a lot of innovation.
I mean, we invented the slurpee at seven eleven and I.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Don't even think that we invented it, Like, I can't
even take like, I'm like, did we really Like, I'm
certain that that was probably stolen too, it's part of
us reason, You're right exactly. I'm like, I'm sure that
that was not invented here. But it's just this idea.
I think that it really does go back to the
lack of community and the lack of sense of community
(28:09):
and the responsibility of community. I mean, we can look
at COVID, right, we had the absolute wrong, maniacal, egomaniac,
you know, fascist president at a time when Americans needed
to come together more than ever right to support one
another and to be and let me just say, outside
(28:30):
of the diabolical nature of the Trump administration, there were
a lot of stories of people coming together and people
doing what was necessary in their buildings, in their community
to help one another during that really horrible time. But
with a lack of leadership from the top about the
responsibility of building community. I honestly, you know, maybe I'm crazy,
(28:56):
but outside of Obama, I really can't think of another
president that really was about what really was community minded.
And as a reminder, Obama was a community organizer, and
so I don't like maybe efty, but I don't really
think so, because again that was like largely racist.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I don't know if you think about like what we
did as we entered World War One, you know, like
there were all these community sharing things. You know, people
didn't eat meat on Friday and weet on Wednesday. We
created the Federal Reserve, We created all of these regulations
to help farmers. Then we had like a you know,
(29:35):
economic collapse after it. But there have been moments when
we have like a common enemy where we kind of
come together. But I hope it doesn't take that right
now because the common enemy is speaking our very own
language right now.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
So yeah, well, my friend, we will leave it there today,
but appreciate having you back.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
It's good to be back. So thank you everybody for
thank you for this community. Honestly, it's great.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
That is it for me today, Dear friends on woke
A app as always power to the people and to
all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.
Host
Danielle Moodie
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