Let America Be America Again
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嘿 B F M。 IT goes without saying that this is not the type of episode that I thought I was gonna be recording today. I woke up about an hour ago, and right now, it's five A M.

On wednesday, november six, I woke up about an hour ago. I had gone to Better around ten, maybe eleven. Um honestly, I was super sleepy and I had taken something for my anxiety to mellow me out and mellow me out a little too hot. So I actually just took my book, took my bed to bed.

I might not even fAllen asleep before my my son, before my um almost five year old, but I woke up at four ish and pick up my phone like I imagine many of you guys did, saw the news, saw the latest news anyway the way it's going and you know really brought me back to twenty and sixteen IT was very similar. I had gone to bed because I couldn't bear the sadness and I woke up to a very different um reality that I had expected. And I walked out into my kitchen.

Um well, first I rolled over and I didn't see my husband and I saw my son in bed with us because of course he is because again, five years old and I I was like where my I work is in case I walked out into the kitchen and he was standing there in the middle of a like, spotless clean kitchen. Sparkling clean he had and cleaned the whole kitchen and the floors were clean and the countless were clean and he was just standing there in the kind of of my darkness and I I just looked at him and I said, baby, I can't believe this, I can't believe this and I just started to cry and I walked over to him and he put his arms around me. And my husband is very um he's he's not a super emotional like outward emotional guy.

Um I think like a lot of couples who you know you have one person who's on the more emotional side, the other person just like balancing them out and he definitely is that. He definitely mellows me out and honestly, in the past is something that kind of of me nuts because i'm super passionate and you know, i'm very vocal and I feel things very deeply and sometimes I can feel like I don't have you know, someone on the other side who like, kind of gets my energy and is more like exhausted by IT. And but there is there is like these magical moments in our relationship or I just kind of like, okay, I understand this is the baLance that I need so he put his arms around me and he he just said, listen, this is not the outcome that I expected or was hoping for but for the sake of the boys, please we can't let this.

We can't let this um or his word something like we can't let this. Get us to down. We have to keep going and we have to stay positive. And you just captain, for the good of the boys, please don't let this consume you so he said, please don't let this consume you. And I really needed to hear that, to be honest.

And I was that kind of quiet support and that quiet reminder of there is something bigger up play here um our children, our family and what am I willing to, how my how much am I willing to let feelings dictate my actions for the next hour, the next twenty four hours is the next week, the next year, the next four years? How deeply am I willing to let the feelings of dismay consume me because they are there? I feel that I cannot fucking.

No, i'm not even going to say that because I can believe IT because we did IT before um IT was always likely that the country was gonna go this way again. Um and so I believe IT when my husband said that I had to impact, and we just sort stood there in the kitchen in the dark for a while, and then he had been up. So as a fourth thirty, he went to bed and I I came down here and I SAT right where I met in the brand ambition studio and I looked at myself on the camera, you know, bathroom and no make up band, exhausted and nothing was gonna me.

Feel Better reading any news. nothing. But when I am in a space of lake. Emotional turmoil.

And when i'm in a space where I just am looking for purchase, you know, when I am looking for some purchase to hold onto some foot, hold something to like, keep me still. My husband's gone to bed now, so I turned to poetry. And B, A, M.

I have no script to follow during this episode. Again, this is not the kind of episode I ever thought I would record. But IT has brought me a lot of peace to just kind of sit here, reads in poetry and remind myself that.

There's still a lot of fight in me and there is still so much to fight for. And I don't want know one of the campaign slogans of commonly herr's and the Harris campaign that has been so effective has been this idea of or not going back. And I don't want to go back to the emotional wave of depression that overcame me in twenty sixteen after Donald trump won the first time.

I don't want to to go back because that to me accomplished very little. I think those like that depression, like I just don't have time to be depressed. I have two little kids, i've gotta show up for them.

And I also think that we can feel our feelings, but I am very much unlike the we need to keep moving forward. Why do I feel like we need to keep marching forward? Where is that hope? What does Brown ambition mean in an age where we just elected this man again? What does that mean? IT means.

Did we think I was gonna be fucking easy. Did we think if we thought, and i'm part of that generation, you're part of that generation where you read about the civil rights movement and you read about Martin litho king, and surely to them, if you're lucky, read about IT in school, I certainly didn't. Not until later you read about Fanny lahaina.

You know, you live through the obama election, in my case, the first election I have voted in, I can understand how we would end up now devastated when we get an outcome that doesn't fit the narrative that we have been fed as children growing up in a post civil rates era. We haven't fed this idea that this is the natural order of things. We are ancestors.

Our grandparents are great grandparents. They fought these battles so that we would have a Better shot. And the lie or the the version of things that we have been believing for so long, and i'll speak for myself, maybe you guys agree, is that the fight was over and that there was this natural progression in the story where now we begin to win, now we begin to make gains.

And there's this update trajectory. But here's a reality, nothing worth fighting for, nothing as important as democracy and liberty and freedom and the rights to a dignified, happy and healthy life. Nothing about that should be easy to fight for or easy to protect.

We have to understand that IT is going to be a struggle. We have to get comfortable with the struggle. We need to get comfortable with the idea that it's not gonna be.

Let's turn this around. In four years, eight years, we've had two elections now where we've gotten really close to electing a woman. We have to keep going.

It's not gonna be easy. I wanted the end of the story to stop on that screen of carmela herr's, my god, water hero. I wanted to to see her with the confidence streaming down, walking away with the Victory.

I really wanted that too. But the story keeps going. This is a defeat.

Nothing worth IT comes without suffering. Suffering is a part of life. What we're feeling today is painful.

IT is depressing IT causes dismay. And you may be feeling that. And I feel IT too. And yet today, right now, I put on my dam lip liner, I put on my my scare, I SAT in this chair.

I hate record because I am here with all, and I understand what I really want you all to understand to, which is that this is the time more than ever to push forward. This is what IT was like for our generations before, to suffer and to fight and to claw back humanity, to claw back rights. And now we are being called in the same way to learn how to take these blows, to get knocked down and get the f back up.

And i'll tell you right now, be A M. I'm getting back up. In fact, I barely hit the ground. There is no place i'd rather be and a than a time like this.

Then on this stage, however, whatever size this stages, speaking to my B, A, F, M, because I need you all to know that i'm not giving up. I am showing up. okay?

I'm doing IT for you all. I'm doing IT for my kids. I'm doing IT for myself. I'm doing IT for i'm doing IT for the ancestors. I'm literally doing IT for the generations.

I came before us because at the first sign, multiple signs we've had, not the first sign of strife. And this may not be a firefight, and this may be a bloody, knocked down, drag out, multiple round beating. And we have to get back up and keep going. The enemy, the other side, they are stronger right now.

And yet I don't want the stories is not going to end with me crawling back into a hole, with me crying all day, with me not speaking to my family because I was so devastated and betrayed and felt betrayed by them in twenty sixteen, because many members of my family didn't have again voted for someone whose stands for everything that I believe is wrong with the world. I choose to walk a different path this time. I choose to keep my head up.

I choose to go forward in to the darkness, because this is when we are needed the most. okay? It's when our kids need us, is when we need each other.

Lin, my neighbors, I go on walks with monday, wednesday day. Bitch, we're going on for a walk. Okay, you am at the text I right now, because after i'm done recording this, we're going for a fucking walk, because we will walk on.

Suffering is a part of life, you all. And if there's one thing that I have learned this past year, IT, is that we can survive suffering. We can survive the pain, and we can push forward and keep going.

The pain can exist, but our behavior has everything to do with how much power we gave that pain. I choose to wake up, like I said, put on some lip liner, put on mascara and come speak to all. And right now, I want to share some poetry that i've been sitting here reading and has just been you washing over me and I hope that some of this provides you some comfort for me.

It's you know I don't have living Green parents um so I don't have and this is maybe a time when it's so it's a reason to reach out to any elders you have in your life and just look for their support because you know what, our elders know what that fight was like and they probably will have some words of support for us. They didn't have a easy we thought maybe we were on the other side. We were not.

We got to continue that fight. We have to find that inspiration. We have to find the will to keep fucking going.

Maybe ours will be the generation that gets the shit done. But no matter what, there's no way IT was never gonna a fight to preserve what we've had to win. We had to defend what generations before works so hard for.

And we have to get comfortable with the idea that we are in defense mode. Okay, alright, i'm gonna read um in which one. right.

I'm going to start with. Links and hues, let amErica be amErica again. I'll post a link to this in the shower notes.

Let amErica be amErica again. Let IT be the dream IT used to be. Let IT be the pioneer on the plane seeking a home where he himself is free. AmErica never was amErica to me. Let amErica be the dream the dreamers dreamed.

Let IT be that great, strong land of love where never kings connive nor tyre scheme that any man be crushed by one above IT never was amErica to me. Or let mayland be a land where liberty is crowned with no false patriotic reef. But opportunity is real and life is free.

Equality is in the air we breathe. There's never been equality for me, nor freedom in this homeland of the free. Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor White, full and pushed apart. I am the negro bearing slavery scars. I am the red man driven from the land. I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek in finding only the same old stupid plan of dog eat dog of mighty crushed the week.

I am the Young man full of strength in hope, tangled in that ancient endless chain of profit power gain and grab the land of, grab the gold of, grab the ways of satisfying need of work. The men of take the pay of owning everything for one's own greed. I am the farmer, the bonds man to the soil.

I am the worker's sold to the machine. I am the negro servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean hungry. Yet today, despite the dream beaten yesterday, oh, pioneers, I am the man who never got ahead the poorest st worker border through the years.

Yet i'm the one who drummed our basic dream in the old world, while still a surf of kings, who draped a dream so strong, so brave, so true, that even yet, it's mighty daring things in every brick and stone, in every feral turn that made amErica the land IT has become. Oh, i'm the man who sail those early seas in search of what I meant to be my home for I am the one who left dark ireland shore and pollin plane and englands gracy lay and torn from black africa stran. I came to build a homeland of the free.

The free? Who said the free? Not me, surely not me. The millions on relief today. The millions shut down when we strike. The millions who have nothing for our pay for all the dreams we've dreamed and all the songs we've sun and all the hopes we've held and all the flags we've hung, the millions who have nothing for our pay except the dream that's almost dead today.

I'll let amErica be amErica again, the land that never has been yet and yet must be the land where every man is free, the land that's mine, the poor man's indian negro, me, who made america, whose wet and blood, whose faith and pain, whose hand at the foundry, whose pour in the rain, must bring back our mighty dream again. sure. Call me and ugly name you choose.

The steel of freedom does not stain from those who live like leeches on the people's lives. We must take back our land again. America, oh yes, I say a plane. AmErica never was amErica to me. And yet, I swear, this south amErica will be out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, the rape in rat of graph, in stealth and lies. We, the people, must redeem the land, the minds, the plants, the rivers, the mountains and the end pain, all all the stretch of these great Green states, and make amErica again.

I can think of a Better, I can think of a more beautiful, heartbreaking, defiant poem than this from links on hews. Let amErica be amErica again. That's exactly how I feel.

Sometimes poetry is just the perfect way for expression and maybe for all you find that peace in scripture and if there are any scriptures that have been or poems or quotes or something that you lean on in hard times. I mean, i'm like happy to free all to send those to me. Brand ambition podcast I G M O 点 com you can D M me on I G brand ambition podcast， but this poem, oh baby, i'm put them in a frame.

Let amErica be amErica again. It's so true, full of strength and hope. But who said free? Not me, surely not me.

We, the people, must redeem the land, the minds, the plants to rivers, the mountains in the endless pain. Make amErica great again. That was the slogan that they've used to defeat us, make amErica again.

Links on who says make amErica again. AmErica never wants amErica to me, and yet I swear this auth amErica will be. 哇哦。

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I want to read another poem, a shorter one, also by links and hues. Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken wing bird that cannot lie. Hold fast to dreams for when dreams go, life is a barren field frozen with snow.

I was dreams by links in hues B, A family. We have to hold fast to our dreams, and maybe you need a day to be beaten down. But baby, i'm getting back up.

I can't be down for too long. I'm too Young. We are too Young. We have too much time ahead of us.

We have time to fight and to make the world Better for our children and for each other. We have to fight. We have to keep fighting. IT was never gonna be easy. We can't give up.

IT was always gonna this hard, okay, we were playing ourselves if we thought we were gonna wake up and that was gonna the end of the fight. But that's not how stories get to end in the real world. okay? It's not a ninety minute movie.

It's not a book. We are living through history and real time and history, and our right to survive IT is something we have to keep fighting for. We have to keep fighting for democracy.

Civil, civil liberties, bodily autonomy, social justice, it's worth IT education for our children, safe schools for our children is worth IT. We have to keep fighting. We really do, guys.

IT was never gonna be easy. We cannot feel defeated right now. This is a battle in the grand scheme of things, and we have to keep fighting.

We cannot give up. I am petrified that too many of us are gonna a be beaten down and pushed down and broken by what has happened. And I just, I needed to know for me, Brown ambition is not that.

Brown ambition is the fact that we wake the fuck up and we get the fuck back in the street, that we keep fighting. Brown ambition is everything that we do in spite of the chAllenges that we face. And I have been sitting here for nine years saying that, and i'll be damned if i'm gona walk back on that message.

Not today. B. A, M. Now, maybe soon, too soon for somebody to hear this. But one of the things that I have been thinking, sitting here trying to like cope with this news is that it's never been more important for us to show a peaceful transfer power than in this moment. IT really hasn't.

In a lot of ways, if there had to be a loser tonight, I think that we are the best losers for this moment, because we value democracy. We know how important is. We will petrified of what would happen if Harris had won, and they're be such a long fight, because they would have said that I was rigged.

They would have said that I was fraud. They would have said, don't trust these elections. They would have continued to build on this narrative of how we can't trust democracy. And if we just let this transfer of power happen and we move forward, I just want to leave that less than I want to leave that impression.

I want to make sure that we don't take any more chips at a democracy, and you make any more cracks in the foundation that we believe in by fighting this and by not accepting the results, are not certifying the election we need. Like the peaceful transfer power is what makes american democracy something to be revered. And IT has been beaten to a bloody pope, the idea of democracy in this country. And I just feel, I feel a type of way about what could continue to happen, the damage that we could do if we don't accept this and let there be a peaceful transfer power. so.

I really wanna read this poem I know you have before. Before, can you be a woman of color in this country and not have either? Performed, read, done? A school book report on this poem by the great via Angelo.

Still, I rice. You may write me down in history with your bitter twist, ted lies. You may traub me in the very dirt, but still like dust, I rise. Does my sac upset you.

Why are you beset with gloom? Because I walk like i've got oil wells pumping in my living room, just like the moons, and like sons with the certainty of tides, just like hope springing high still. Alright, did you want to see me broken by head and lowered eyes, shoulders falling, downing tear drops, weakened by my soul for cries? Does my heartiness offend you?

Don't you take IT awful hard cause I laugh like i've got gold mines dig in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words. You may cut me with your eyes. You may kill me with your hatefulness.

But still, like air all rise, does my sexiness upset you? Does IT come as a surprise that I dance like i've got diamonds at the meeting of my eyes out of the huts of history. Shame I rise up from the past that rooted in pain.

I rise. I'm a black ocean living and White welling and swelling I bear in the tide, leaving behind nights of chair and fear. Eye rise into a daybreak that's wonderous, sly, clear eye rise, bringing the gifts that my ancestors give.

I am the dream in the hope of the slave. I rise, I rise. I rise. Love Y, B, A, M. Keep going, i'm here for you.

Send me email, comment, see one social, but even more so than just pregnant bian, reach out to your friends, your family, your neighbours today. Show up. Bring them a cup of coffee, bring them something to share.

Sit on the front porch, take care of each other, talk, let IT out like, let's feel the feelings, all right. But then we had to get back up and keep moving. There is still too much to fight for.

IT was never gonna that easy. We have to keep fucking going, alright. And now award from our sponsors at Better.

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How I behave and I took, I went for a walk, I went the walk with my neighbourliness. There was something that came to me on our walk that I was like, uh, okay, I want, I want to let B, F, M. Hear this for me, and I hope that we're telling ourselves this.

We did everything we could. We showed up, we shown out. We linked arms with one another.

We held each other down to the incredible, be beautiful women, the brave women who started the movement win with black women, to the allies who gathered behind us to support commonly harto com ala. Harris. You, my queen, were an extraordinary candidate.

You made a soul proud. You made a so proud, and you should Carry your heads so high. You did that was a far less fucking campaign.

You can tell me anything about how that was a full less campaign if we were ever gonna have a shot hill of winning. Commonly, Harris was the right person. I'm so proud that SHE got as far SHE did.

Now here's the thing. What this can remind us is how I know that this goes against everything that we have been taught, that we have so much power that our voices matter, all of that. But the math tells a different story.

There are not enough of us. There are more of them than us. Let the word minority sink in. Thirteen percent of amErica is african american.

Of that thirteen percent, half of that is women of color, black women, right? How is six percent supposed to fight? How is six percent supposed to call back from an eighty seven percent majority? how? How the numbers are not on our side. But let me talk to you, the majority. This defeat lays at your feet.

I don't want to to hear the, well, black men, well, immigrants, while linos like we need to stop casting blame at how our little numbers we should be able to afford to have some of our own, have different political beliefs and vote the other direction and win. Okay, so I don't want us to be pointing the finger at one another, the blame I squarely at the feet of the majority White america. This is what you wanted.

That is what you've given us. Yes, our voices matter, but we can't overcome this wave. We can overcome White supremacy and the increasing shift of america.

I won't even say increasing the shift of amErica to the right. We can literally, we don't have the numbers to do that by ourselves. We don't win an election like this without the majority, without White americans, male and female, standing up and doing the right damn thing.

And that is where the blame lies. And I won't stand for a second of us feeling bad about what we did. We I saw your fighting. I saw your volunteering. I saw ya calling your aunt, your sisters, your cousins.

Do you need to write to the polls, you know, run in the car polls, given free uber rides and lift rides like we put so much skin in the game, we did everything we possibly could. This is not our fault. We have to keep fighting.

But let's not get IT fucking twisted. We can do this shit by ourselves. Allies need to ally.

Allies need to step the f up. What you did wasn't good enough. So lets keep pushing.

I want to be sure that when we are sitting down to do this, post more time and decide what happens next, that we are not pointing the blame or saying that IT was some lack on our parts because I know for a fact that we showed up, we showed out, and to the allies who did do the right thing. Thank you. You did enough.

But now the burden of pushing forward and reaching to the majority to get them to come to the right side, that can't fall only at our feet IT will IT can't. We can't let them think that we're going to clean this up, that black women, we can save this election. I got bullshit.

We can do IT without the majority. We don't have the numbers. Okay, this is giving me peace. I hope IT brings you peace. We have done enough, ladies, we have done enough.

For now, we will keep fighting, because what other f choice do we have? But we can Carry the blame in the burden of progress on our own, back by yourselves. Thank you, love and peace.

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