Marsha Meekins Cheatham and Lisa Watson

[00:04] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Hello, Lisa. My name is Marsha Meekins Cheatham. I'm 70 years old. I'm a retired school teacher union official, and I used to live in Kansas. So we'll come back to that. Today's date is Wednesday, May 4, 2022. I am in Richmond, Virginia, actually a suburb of Richmond, Virginia, called Henrico county. And my conversation partner is Lisa And I'm meeting her for the first time. So I'm excited to speak with someone whose viewpoints are so different from mine.

[00:50] LISA WATSON: So do I just respond after I said that? Okay. So how are you, Marsha? My name is Lisa Watson. Today's date is May 4. Wednesday I am in. I'm from Kansas City, Kansas, and the name of my conversation partner is Marsha. And I heard Cheatham. I didn't hear the other name, and we don't have any relationship. We're meeting for the first time. Oh, I'm sorry. And a little bit about me. My bio is I am a midwesterner from Kansas. As I noted, I am a former atheist. I was one of the social justice warriors that you hear about on television all the time. But now I'm an evangelical Christian. I have college degrees in political science and psychology, and I worked for a lot of the liberal causes, including Planned Parenthood, on the board of the ACLU. I also was a union student for five years. So I saw you said you were a union worker. In 2008, I supported and campaigned for Hillary against Obama. And today I have changed my mind on almost every one of those issues. And I did that because I forced myself to have conversations like we're going to have today. And as a result, I now am a, I'm a Trump supporter. Looking forward to this conversation.

[02:24] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I am, too. I want to say I'm a little.

[02:27] LISA WATSON: Nervous, but don't be.

[02:32] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: What I've heard from you. When I said a union official, my title was UniServ director. And I worked for the Maryland State Education association for 20 years. So aside from my 20 years as a teacher in Virginia, I was a band director, and I'm a professional musician as well. When I moved to Maryland to work for the Maryland State Education Association, I worked in three different counties. But I said I used to live in Kansas. I lived in Johnson County. Merriam Merriam Kansas. That's next door. I did my internship at the, with the Kansas City Education association. So I lived in Merriam Kansas.

[03:19] LISA WATSON: How long did you live there?

[03:20] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: About four months.

[03:21] LISA WATSON: Okay. Okay. So I drive through meriam almost every day.

[03:27] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And when I was there, I spent all my time in Kansas City, Missouri, because that's where all the jazz was. And I'm. So my office workers were like, you go over there by yourself at night? I was like, yeah, that's where the clubs are. I take my little flute because I'm flautist Sit in with the bands and everything. So, yeah, I enjoyed my time.

[03:51] LISA WATSON: So right away, we have multiple things in common. Right away. Yeah. Black females. Both spent time in Kansas. Both worked in the union capacity, somewhat of a union capacity. So we have things. We have a lot of. I'm sure we have way more things in common than that. Did you get good barbecue while you were here?

[04:13] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: At the time, I was totally vegetarian.

[04:15] LISA WATSON: Oh.

[04:17] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: People would tease me about, you live in Kansas and you don't like. No, I don't like barbecue. I'm a vegetarian. Well, I'm a vegetarian now. That eats chicken, salmon. So that's not. I mean, I'm not a vegetarian anymore, but I still don't like barbecue. But when people came to visit me, I would take them somewhere to get some barbecue.

[04:40] LISA WATSON: Okay. It's like a wall. Okay.

[04:43] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: It's nice meeting you, Lisa. I am excited now because I was afraid you were going to be me.

[04:50] LISA WATSON: I can't. That I'm not gonna be.

[04:53] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I know.

[04:53] LISA WATSON: Yeah.

[04:54] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I can be, too, because of the job I had, but it's. It doesn't come natural. And when I say I'm liberal, I am very liberal, and conservatives scare me. They really do. They absolutely scare me. And I want to get away from that. I don't want to be afraid. I'm a great. I love conversation. So I want to find out how you went from being a liberal to being a Trump supporter. That is fascinating to me, and I want to understand it, because my son is Trump supporter, so.

[05:29] LISA WATSON: Well, tell them to call me.

[05:31] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I absolutely will. Absolutely will.

[05:35] LISA WATSON: Another interesting thing is a lot of this disconnect does come from more of the coastal geography issues versus our true beliefs and narratives that we believe in. Because I lived in Los Angeles for eight years, and so that's a good amount of time, and that's very. Yeah. And I was a liberal at the time, but because I was born and raised in the midwest, their beliefs about the midwest were outrageous to me. Not just a little bit off, but literally outrageous. Like, I was never afraid a day of my life, of living in Kansas. It never occurred to me, waking up every day and in fear of my life. And then the real, true disconnect was the crime in Los Angeles is outrageous. So if I was going, afraid. I would have been afraid there, not in Kansas. And I, and I thought I grew up. We didn't even have to lock our doors. But meanwhile, you're telling me these were actual people. I know that they have to sleep on the floor because of bullets, of drive by shootings, but I was the person that was supposed to be afraid of my home, where I came from. And I thought, wow, that's. I mean, that.

[06:55] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Were you born in Kansas City?

[06:56] LISA WATSON: Yeah, yeah. Born in.

[06:58] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Where did you, where'd you go to school?

[07:00] LISA WATSON: I'm in Kansas City. Kansas City, Kansas?

[07:03] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Uh huh.

[07:03] LISA WATSON: You mean the name of the school?

[07:05] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: No, no, your college. What college did you go to?

[07:07] LISA WATSON: Oh, I went, I started out college in Los Angeles, so that's how I ended up being there. But I ended up graduating from UMKC in Kansas City, so again, and then I lived, I moved back to Los Angeles a few years after graduation, so I lived there twice, two different segments. So one with a college student. So it was a little bit of a more insulated environment, but then as an adult with a job and my own place and things like that, but it was pretty similar, the experiences, the disconnect. Now, of course, you're young, you're living in LA, you're there, you're not there for, like, purposes. But a lot of what I believe was formed in college, not formed in my home, it shifted a lot being in college. It was somewhat of that indoctrination process that we hear about. I am a living, breathing example of that. That is true that your ideas get challenged and shaped a lot by professors who are older, they have more power than you, they have more stature than you, and you sort of venerate their PhDs, and then you're not receiving both sides of the equation. So start to adopt things that aren't necessarily vetted, not even well vetted. So when you then go and vet them, which I didn't do, as in my youth, when I went to vet them, I didn't agree with them. I didn't agree. I only agree with the surface. Sometimes I call it like dominoes, you know, how things have to be logical. So one domino falls on another domino. So when I studied things, I actually said, well, there was only one domino. I sort of agreed with the first domino, but then none of the other ones did I agree with. So therefore, it was a logical conclusion for me to change my mind on a lot of different things because the facts just didn't bear out what I used to believe. Now, I didn't have a surface understanding. I wasn't a surface liberal as in my bio. I explained it was depth. I was living and walking out a lot of these liberal values, not even knowing what it all entails. So I know you. You triggered me a little bit in your. No, no, no. I love it. You triggered me a little bit, because your main. Your big question was, you know, about black lives matter. So I think it's ideal that we have two black people having this conversation about it, where we both have diametrically opposing ideas about it. But, and I've asked a lot of, believe it or not, the main people I have the disconnect with regarding black lives matter are white liberals. I don't know. I barely know black people that support black lives matter. I drive through Kansas, and I see black lives matter signs in all the white liberal suburbs. I never see them in the hood. So I'm being challenged constantly by white liberals about black lives matter. I'm being called a racist about black lives matter. Like. Like, that's a disconnect in and of itself. So I've asked them one consistent question. Now, it was always white. Well, it wasn't always white people. Everybody that supported, I've asked them the exact same question. I've gotten 100% so far, the exact same answer. So, in all honesty, I'm going to ask you a question. Have you ever been to their website? Did you look at what their values were on their website?

[10:48] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I didn't know they had a website.

[10:50] LISA WATSON: Come on, man. Everybody.

[10:53] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Let me. Let me get a word in here. Because. Because you said a couple of things that I should have been writing down, but I was, like, riveted. I think sometimes what you may not realize when you're talking to someone is their view of it is. What's the word I want to use? Ideal. An ideal matter. That's where I am. Yeah. You know, and so it's hard to understand, why would somebody think my life doesn't matter? You know, life matters. But now that you're saying something about this website, I'm gonna have to go look, because I don't know anything about.

[11:37] LISA WATSON: It, and now I'm 100%. Because I never met a person who told me they went to their website and looked at what they said their values were. Because on your website, it's like you have a campaign. Any candidates gonna say, I've believe in the following. I believe in, you know, open borders or closed borders or whatever. So they had a little campaign website of everything that they were their tenants, and right in the center right at the top, it said they believe in the destruction of the nuclear family. And I said, what? What? Look it up. You said you were going to look it up. They.

[12:09] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Oh, I am. I am. Definitely.

[12:11] LISA WATSON: They took it off in 2020, but it was up for years. Years.

[12:16] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: It couldn't have been years, because the term hasn't been around that long. I mean.

[12:20] LISA WATSON: Oh, yeah, it came out, like, in 2015. So for, like, five years. That was on their website saying they believe in the destruction of the nuclear family. And I thought, whoa, I don't. So remember how we talked about the dominoes, where I said, I agree with the first domino, and then I was off to the races. So the first domino touched on, you said, of course, black lives matter. That's the first domino. But then when I would dig into it and I said, wait a minute, they say they believe in the destruction of the nuclear family. Then they said they were trained Marxists. I don't believe in Marxism, and I don't believe in the destruction of the nuclear family. So I can't say I believe this. So does that make sense? So it's not anybody. A black person clearly isn't going to say that black lives don't matter. But I had three facts that were indisputable. I never met a person who had been to their website. I had never met a person who said they believed in the destruction of the nuclear family. And I never met people who said that they were trained Marxists, because there's a lot of meaning behind being a trained Marxist. It's not that you have some sympathies, like, you and I were the union. That's completely different than trained Marxism. So I could not. That was my logical conclusion. To say, there's no way I can support this, because there's something else.

[13:38] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Has some of that changed over the years? Because that just sounds bizarre to me. Really bizarre.

[13:46] LISA WATSON: Okay. Why do you think it's bizarre?

[13:49] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I think it's bizarre that someone would call themselves a trained Marxist or destruction. And I think those. Those things. Not what you're saying.

[14:00] LISA WATSON: Not you.

[14:01] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I'm saying those two things seem bizarre to me. And.

[14:04] LISA WATSON: Okay, so let me ask you.

[14:06] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Antiphical, antithetical to caring about somebody's life. So that's where I am. I care, and I think people should. We should care about everybody's life. So all that other stuff, where did that come from?

[14:20] LISA WATSON: Let me ask you, do you support the destruction of the nuclear family?

[14:24] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Hell, no. Of course not. Excuse my french, but no.

[14:29] LISA WATSON: Why not?

[14:31] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Why would I be? Seriously, why would I. Why am I all blurry? And you two are so clear. I'm just noticing my videos. Very blurry.

[14:41] LISA WATSON: I know. He probably has that ring light, right, Ben?

[14:44] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Oh, is that what.

[14:47] LISA WATSON: You don't have the ring light? Ben, come on. Where you. I got the ring light.

[14:51] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: You think it's a light thing?

[14:53] LISA WATSON: Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is.

[14:57] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Okay.

[14:58] LISA WATSON: The mean way.

[14:59] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Just.

[15:00] LISA WATSON: You look clean right here. You look clear right here. Okay, so you don't have another agreement.

[15:11] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Yeah, absolutely. So. So putting aside that, you know, it's interesting, um, the doctor that I go. I go to a concierge doctor, and he and I can sit and talk politics for hours. I just love talking to him. But he was telling me, one of his nurses who always gives me my shots of Tammy, he said, tammy's a Trump supporter. And I was like, really? He said, you might want to talk to her. And she asked me to explain black lives matter to her. Now that you're telling me that next time I see her, I will have been to the website and have additional information because I didn't have the full picture. All I thought it was was a slogan, right? You know, like, black is beautiful. There's no black is beautiful website. You know, it's just black is beautiful. So remember that from. I'm probably considerably older than you, but when I was in my early twenties, I guess that's when that term black is beautiful came out. And it was just a slogan. And we were. We had it on our t shirts, and we were in college. We're all glad to have that, but I never thought about you. Well, websites weren't even around them. Really shocked. And I am going to do a deeper dive, because now that you're saying that, it's making me think of some other things I've heard. Like, why would people think black lives don't matter? And it's connected to what you were just saying, which is just, like I said, bizarre.

[16:49] LISA WATSON: Right, right. So you're a teacher. So. And you're a teacher of a certain generation. You know, like my mom's generation there. She's a teacher from the south. She considers herself southern, moved to Kansas as an adult. And the respect of teachers. My mother still refers to her teachers as misses this and misses that. And we reunion. And she would see teachers. I mean, like, my mother could have been 50 years old, and here we would meet one of her teachers, and she would never call this lady by her first name. So these are the type of values that I would get mocked living on the coast like, living in LA, these are the things that they thought was, were weird about people who were from the midwest or the southeast, because I met people who called their own parents by their first name.

[17:42] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Oh, that's legit.

[17:43] LISA WATSON: People who, they would swear like a sailor in front of their parents. I met people who literally, in college age, they could have sex partners in their parents home. So I, even though I was a liberal, I always had these two sides of, well, I was raised a certain way, and so I'm rooted in something. But, you know, being progressive, I adapted a lot of these ideals. So when I see that somebody says, parents don't have authority over what their children learn, well, I automatically go back to what I thought. You know, growing up is just. What do you mean? Parents don't have authority over what their children learn. Of course, even if we just looked at it as a taxpayer issue, the taxpayer should have authority over what the schools do because they're financing it. And the government works for us. We don't work with the government. So a lot of things just seem like they've recently been turned upside down. And it's not that we changed. I don't feel like, as a Trump supporter, that my values are different from original american values. I've asked people, hey, you tell me, by me supporting the second amendment, how is that different than anybody? 100 years ago, 200 years ago, from the founding of the country, when do people not have this so called right? So that means you're the one that's coming up with something new, not me. From the founding of the country, the nuclear family was venerated, so I didn't change. You're the one that's coming up with a new idea, not me. So from the founding of the country, people being able to start their own businesses and control their own destiny, that was normal. Nobody was saying I'm a Marxist, and that, that people shouldn't be able to have free markets flowing through their lives, in their communities. That's what pays for everything. So I didn't change. You changed. So again, to me, Trump was saying everything that was consistent with what I, what I. What was original to the country.

[19:49] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Let me ask you something. Something you said I. You said your mother is in her fifties.

[19:54] LISA WATSON: No, no, no. I said, my mother's in her seventies.

[19:57] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Oh. I was getting ready to say I could be your mother's mother. No. Okay. No, because I just turned 70.

[20:04] LISA WATSON: But we got a little question here from Ben.

[20:08] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Yeah.

[20:08] LISA WATSON: Yeah.

[20:10] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: So I was kind of alluding to where I was, and I was surprised when the camera turned on and I saw a black woman, I'm like, oh, okay. So here's why I'm excited to actually talk to you, because, first of all, you're talking to me like you want. You want us to have this conversation. You're not yelling in my face and telling me what a horrible person I am, because I believe that people, women have choice, should have choice. Okay, so we've got these diametrically opposed views on some things, but I. You were raised by a mother who taught you to respect her, to respect your elders. I'm hearing that. So was I. A lot of my views were shaped in my home with my parents. I grew up with a mom and a dad, you know, nuclear family, or five of us. We weren't rich, but we weren't destitute. Dad worked, mom stayed at home, you know, traditional stuff. When I went away to college, my first two years, I was at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia. All girls, relatively liberal, white, all white. You know, there were 15 black women on campus. I got scholarships. So, you know, my dad said, you're going to Merritt Washington. I wanted to go to Virginia State with all my friends, but of course my dad said, no, you're going where they give you money. You know, he had five children to put through college. So anyway, so a lot of my liberal views were formed in college, but I did have classmates who were, right now, I would see them as Trump supporters, very different. But the majority of the people in my circle were very liberal, and I learned a lot because it was such a different experience from high school. My high school was all black. My neighborhood was all black. I went to summer school with white kids, and it was fine. I mean, nobody was fighting, cussing, hitting, spitting, nothing of that. We were just kids going to school. But when I went to Mary Washington, living on campus and everybody in the dorm is white, it was a different experience. But I had been a really good student in school, so I was prepared for the rigor and the structure and all of that. But like I said, a lot of my liberal views maybe were formed by, oh, I lived in an upper class dorm, so my dorm mates were older, and I learned a lot from them. My freshman year was the first time they had, you know, we just celebrated Earth Day. Last month was the first earth day, and I remember the first Earth day, being out on the highway, picking up trash and just feeling empowered. These 18 year old girls out here cleaning their environment. You know, just, had I been at Virginia State, I don't know. That we would have done that then. I remember going to anti Vietnam rallies, and I was like, oh, man. Yes, Vietnam. Wrong. We shouldn't be there. When I transferred junior year to Virginia State, come to find out, my friends from high school who were all at Virginia State, they had been doing the same thing. They were protesting the Vietnam war shocked me because we had classmates that either went to college or went into the service, and they were in Vietnam at that time. So that. That's a lot, you know, stuff that happened way before your time. But in my teenage years, late teenage years, the Vietnam war was as big a thing as yesterday. You know, the protests and stuff that were going on around what happened, what's going on in the Supreme Court. I was a part of those kind of rallies, but we were. We were. It was environment number one, like I said, the first birthday, and number two, anti Vietnam. And right then was my. My sophomore. Junior year was when Roe v. Wade sank. It's 50 years old, right? So it had just gotten passed when I was in college. So I'm seeing stuff from my college days now, like you said, changing. Yes, I am absolutely pro choice. My husband and I were having this conversation yesterday. He was like, I understand what they're fussing about. I said, well, yes, we're pro life. Of course I'm pro life. Why would I be pro deaf? But I'm also pro choice, and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that because I had this running disconnect with my older brother because he is anti abortion. But it's always interesting to me when men weigh in so much on women and what they can do with their bodies. That's. I found. What's the word I want to say interesting, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that.

[26:00] LISA WATSON: Oh, we got a lot. You got to come here. We're going to have to eat some barbecue.

[26:07] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: We're going to have to continue this conversation.

[26:10] LISA WATSON: We do have barbecue chicken. Okay. And salmon.

[26:14] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I will eat barbecue chicken, yes.

[26:17] LISA WATSON: Okay. So let's tear this apart a little bit. So, remember I said everything was how I informed myself originally, and then I feel like I got a little lessons that I learned, very difficult lessons about digging into and not just having these surface movements. So I was one of those people who was on those marches. I rode a bus from Kansas all the way to DC, and I've attended the marches. Okay. I interned at Planned Parenthood. I was crazy. I don't feel that way anymore. I feel like there's a lot more nuance and a lot of challenges, particularly for black people. So just like I asked you the initial question, have you ever been to the Black Lives Matter website? You didn't even know they had a website then you're a little concerned about the things that they did have on the website. So now I got challenged in the past. Did I know what the Negro project was? So did you know what that is? The Negro project? Have you heard of it?

[27:16] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Yeah, but it's not in the front of my brain right now. So.

[27:20] LISA WATSON: So it was a project that was constructed by Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood in the 1930s. So all of the papers are public now. They're online. It's called the Negro Project. And part of her Planned Parenthood movement was. She was in what was called the eugenics movement, and she. They believe that white supremacy. She had meetings with the KKK that they don't dispute. So I only want to talk about things that are not in dispute. It's no dispute.

[27:49] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Could you say her name again? I'm just taking notes.

[27:51] LISA WATSON: Margaret and Sanger. S a N G E R. Margaret Sanger. The Negro project. And this is the part of Planned Parenthood's foundation going back all the way to the thirties as they thought that there was superiority of races. So they wanted birth control and abortion as a tool. And she. Her words, not mine. She quote, we don't want it to get out that we want to exterminate the black race because some of their more, like, uppity members would get upset. So you can look up the exact quote. But she said, her quotes, she wants to exterminate the black race. Her quote, blacks are human weeds. Her quotes, not mine. So there's no way that I can have an honest conversation without that, because that's the foundation of what she was building. So now when you see it as a tool, at first it was, oh, rah, rah, rah. It's my right. Now, when you get a new dimension. Wait a minute. This was a tool? There's another dimension to this conversation then. Black women are about 7% of the population, but 86% of Planned Parenthood's clinics are in black communities. Why. Why aren't they all in jewish communities? Why aren't they all in hispanic or white community? Why would. I mean, that's targeting. So when you add all of those in, just me staying in this fear, I don't even have to go to my religious beliefs, how they shifted, just that I couldn't support this organization because of that. So I got more reasons why but those right there, that's what I usually start with. And again, I never meet anybody who's heard of the negro project. I never meet anybody who. Who has heard these quotes from Margaret Sanger. I never meet anybody who knows that 86% of their clinics are in the black community. I never meet anybody who has a full breadth of understanding. And when you add those in, it's hard for a black person to not at least start chewing on, is there something bigger going on than the pro choice aspect? Also, when I was with Planned Parenthood, there was a slogan, and it was, keep abortion safe, legal, and rare. Well, 66 million isn't rare. So anybody that's an honest broker would say, 66 million isn't rare. We have access to more birth control than ever in the history of humanity. So why are people not using the birth control? We wouldn't. Abortion would be rare if people were using birth control. So we're in a. We're in a tug, and it's fair to talk about, you know, some libertarian ideals, but now we're at a point where we're talking about abortion after the baby is born. Are you familiar with that argument that now some liberals are arguing that you can have the abortion, the baby is outside of your body, and you can still have. You can still kill the baby? So you look those up, and if you agree with all of those, then it makes sense for you to hold that position. But if you start to disagree based on me having fair, honest broker information being presented to me and presented to you, then you might change your mind. You talked about abortion, and then you talked about the other issue. I don't know what other issues. The environment. I ain't falling for that one, either. Marshall, you falling for that one? Okay. I mean, every. I can go to scripture and say that the Lord said that the earth is. We need to take care of the earth. We need to be good managers of the earth. So I feel like 30% of the environmental stuff. There's a lot of overlap that everybody can agree with. I frame a lot of my environmental concerns in terms of efficiencies, like, well, who wouldn't want to recycle? Because if you already have an item and you can just reuse that item. I mean, my grandmother talked about that in the Depression era. Even my great grandmother was alive until I was 21. So obviously, nobody was naming it environmentalism. When people were just reusing items, it was just logical to reuse items. But again, that's the first domino, that's the first logic. And then you dig into things. Then I find out that 90% of the items that I put in the recycling bin, they end up in the landfill. 90%. So you can check that number for yourself. So how's that environmentalism, if 90% of the items are going to end up in the landfill? But meanwhile, we're still having to pay all of these bills for this recycling. So it just seems like it turns into a. A full employment council for people to make millions of dollars and we're not getting any efficiencies. And then I would say my biggest, biggest, biggest issue this came up recently with Elon Musk buying Twitter and Tesla and all of this because I would never drive a Tesla. Sorry, Elon, I really like you, but I'm never going to drive a Tesla. And I just had one conversation for ONE of my people who's really into the teslas and electric vehicles, and I said, you know what? I am on the emergency call list for my nieces and nephews. If something happens at school, they're supposed to call me. So let's just say I get a call, they say, can you pick up Brandon? I say, yes. I run and jump in the car, and I don't have ANy gas. I run to the gas station, five minutes, fill up my car, go pick HIM up. If I have an electric vehicle and it is not charged, do you know it takes hours and hours and hours to charge it? So I'm not going to be stuck in an emergency situation, needing to plug in a car and wait for it to get charged. I heard it takes 20 hours to plug it up if you have to plug it up into a regular socket in your house. So I'm not going to trade me being able to fill up a car in five minutes to even needing an hour to get enough electricity just to run a quick errand to go pick him up. That doesn't make any sense to, to me. So if you agree and you want to have a 20 hours fill up, I'm going to take a five minute fill up. So does that make sense that people may not agree?

[34:46] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I have no interest in electric cars.

[34:50] LISA WATSON: Right? So now I'm supposed to give up gas? Why am I giving up gas? I'm not going to give up gas.

[34:55] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Well, I think, too, that maybe in, in time there will be something else. You know, I mean, things constantly change. And I noticed up the mall near, near my house, they've got this one section with all of these, I guess, things where you plug up and who's gonna sit there for 20 hours, I guess you put. You plug your car in and run and shop, maybe, but, well, I mean.

[35:22] LISA WATSON: It'S like charging your phone. You can charge it a little bit and get a little bit of minutes. A little bit, you know, so it's incremental. I just as. I. I was never gonna get one anyway, but I just, you know, the conversation is so popular right now about electric vehicles and things like that. And I just looked into it and I thought, you know, if I run out of gas again, I'm five minutes from a gas station almost anywhere in America, versus you have to find those little stations to charge a video where the man said that they are not consistent. Like, every gas station I go to, I can use the gas, right? But he said that each one of them is owned by different companies. So you have to download an app for each individual company. So there could be 20 different companies if you were driving across the country. So you find one of the charging stations and you say, oh, there's one at the mall. I'll pull over to the mall. Then I find out, wait a minute, I have ABC app. This one needs XYZ app. So now I have to download that app, create a new account, put my credit card on that one, then plug in. All right, this is a little cuckoo nuts.

[36:31] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Pay for the electricity.

[36:32] LISA WATSON: Yeah, you pay for it. Electricity is not free. Nothing's free. So you're paying for it just like you're paying for gas. I imagine it's a little cheaper, but, you know. Oh, you touched on something else that I thought was really interesting. The Vietnam war. So, yeah, this is before my time. I guarantee you, if I would have been against it, no matter which side of the political spectrum, I'm against it, because to me, it's not America's direct interest. I'm anti communist. So I'm not supporting trained Marxism, and I'm not supporting communism. But I don't think that this is our sphere. But the problem that most conservatives have is we just feel like we've lost honest brokers in America. When I believed all the things I used to believe, I believe I was an honest broker. I could lay out why I believed this, and then somebody else could tell, tell me why they believe the other thing. And sometimes they got really heated, which is fun to live in a free country where you can do that. But now I just. Most liberals are not like you. They are. You're not even allowed to say certain things. And I'm like, I was with these liberal organizations because I thought that their belief systems were founded in the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, free market. These were the family and the church. These were the cornerstones of America. So you don't have to agree with the church and you can sort of not agree with free market. But when you start saying you don't agree with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights with these in the Declaration of Independence, this is the foundation for anything. This is the foundation for our rule of law. So if you can tell me that you were against Vietnam, but now you're for Ukraine, what's the difference?

[38:20] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I never said I was for you.

[38:21] LISA WATSON: Not you, not you. But I'm challenging people on it where I'm like, well, wait a minute, these.

[38:27] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: This, let me just say this. Some of, I think what you hear now, when people are commenting on what's going on in other parts of the world, you gotta realize the information distribution system now is so different from the way it was when I was growing up. So you might not remember this name, Walter Cronkite.

[38:55] LISA WATSON: Yeah.

[38:56] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I was a political science back in the day. The news correspondent would just tell you what happened. Oh, my God, you're kidding. There was, there was no. His opinion and, you know, extra commentary was just, this is what happened. You know, President Johnson got shot. I mean, President Kennedy got shot. I remember those days. And it wasn't sensationalized. So the Vietnam war, they talked about it. They showed some video clips. We knew it was wrong. We shouldn't have been there. But with this, this conflict, you're seeing in real time, so much more stuff than we saw. So people's opinions can be formed by which news organization they listen to. So you can listen to the account on one station and then listen to it on another station and get a completely different idea. So people saturate themselves with one side or the other, and they lose the ability to think for themselves or to see the other person's point of view. One of the reasons, I like your question, Ben. I wanted to hear, how did you come? This is fascinating to me for you to have said you were on the liberal spectrum, and then because of your own research and conversations and whatever, you're completely different. Now, that's fascinating to me because you're an intelligent woman, educated woman. So you're not coming at it from. See what I see, what I fear is a lot of the folks who agree with, let me just say, Trump, they're coming at it. Not like you're coming at it. Where you have thought this through. You have researched, you have, you know, you have done the deep dive to find out why people are saying what they're saying. People just come at it because they think he hates black people, he hates women, he hates gays, he hates Muslims, he hates Hispanic. And as long as he hate who I hate, then I support him. Not realizing some of the things that you're saying. I don't. For me, I don't understand how somebody can support him. I'm not talking about you. I understand where you're coming from. But I've seen and talked and heard from people who are saying such horrible things about people who are just different from them. Like, they, you're different, but you also don't have a right to have your own ideas and your own opinions. And if you're different, you're automatically wrong. So everybody who's a Trump supporter is not coming at it from your intelligent viewpoint. They're coming at it because they think he's racist and they're racist.

[42:12] LISA WATSON: I never found that to be true. I have been to multiple rallies. I've traveled the country to go to the rallies. They are so much fun. It's like going to a family reunion. And I have never met one person who didn't have the same, like, logical conclusion for why they were supporting him. Their support usually comes down to one thing, that we have moved so far away from the foundations of the country.

[42:39] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: And I heard that viewpoint. I got that. What I don't get, what happened on January 6, where do you stand on that? Because that was just frightening.

[42:51] LISA WATSON: I believe that the media is, for the most part, lying about what happened on January 6. I believe that there are 14,000 hours of video that is not being released. So the minute I, the number one thing that we need to all look for, no matter where you stand in America, there's one thing that's our friend, transparency. So the minute somebody's instinct is to shut somebody down, somebody's instinct is to delete information or their instinct is to withhold information. Now, clearly, you know, national security is one tiny thing, but that's not 99% of the world. So I need more information. I need more voices, I need more opinions, I need more diversity of thought. If you're lifting all of those things up, that's when I'm going to know you're an honest broker. So everything to me is, comes down to sort of a test. You know, the scripture says, test every spirit. So I'm testing people first to figure out if they're an honest broker. There's not one bone in your body that I feel like during this conversation that you're not an honest broker. So when you're talking to honest brokers, you can get somewhere, you can come to agreement. But when you dealing with people who are willing to lie, manipulate and steal to make sure that they can hold on to power, that's when we lose the country. So that's it. So I had to change my mind on things, and there were really complex mazes that I had to go through. One big one is Trump's big thing, dealing with the border. So you and I are a bit of a luxury. You're more of a luxury than me. College educated. So in my family, four siblings, I'm the only one that has a college degree. So for me to have a lot of my liberal principles, they were based in a luxury. So what are the chances that I'm going to be in competition with an illegal alien for a job? Pretty much zero. But one day, way, way later, you know, I'm going around liberal the whole time. Liberal ideas are based a lot in luxuries. So I have a luxury to know. I can always get white collar jobs where you need a college degree. But meanwhile, one of my brothers, he worked in restaurants his whole life. He's married, you know, and he's got kids. Is he competing with illegal aliens to work as chefs? And, yeah, he is. So I have a luxury to have a cavalier attitude about something that is directly impacting my brother's ability to put food on the table and maintain his household, where a lot of, you know, my nephews are lucky, my niece and nephew are lucky to have a mom and a dad in the household. So the minute, you know, a man, the minute a man can't make money, all of a sudden he's out the door. So he's got to hold on in this competitive environment where the competition is overwhelming him. So the wages he's. His ability to get higher wages are directly impacted by this. My other brother, he works construction. Is he in direct competition with illegal aliens? Right. So I had a luxury to have a certain attitude where my brothers, they're holding on by the skin of their teeth. They're barely hanging on. Again, he's married. His wife has passed away, but he's married, three children. So I'm casually supporting a policy that's killing the people in my own family. My sister, she lived on welfare a lot of her life. Then she had went to work. Guess what she was doing? She was working in hotels, cleaning and working in hotels. Is she in direct competition with illegal aliens? So for me to be able to look in the mirror for decades and not even see that I am supporting policies that are harming my own siblings. The same people I sit across the table with at Thanksgiving and I don't even see them.

[46:53] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: You know, I gotta tell you, you really opened my eyes to something because I never thought about it that way. I remember having a conversation online with one of my cousins who made a really horrible statement about immigrants, but she was coming at it the way you're talking about because her position as a CMA nurse, CNA, put her in direct competition. My brothers and sisters and I, there are five of us. Four. Three have masters. I have a bachelor's. My other brother who went to MIT in the sixties, okay, guy, he didn't get his degree, but he went back later and got some kind of degree in religion. So he's a preacher. He's the one that I was saying was anti abortion. And I would imagine that his views were formed the same way yours were. And I never thought about. I never thought of myself as. As having. What was the term you use? I like that. And I got to write it down. A liberal. What was that? You said something. Was it.

[48:08] LISA WATSON: Was it a mindset or my narratives or.

[48:11] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: No. Well, luxury, right? Luxury of having a liberal mindset. I gotta write that down. I'm also a toastmaster and I'm always looking for speech contests, you know, topics. But a luxury of a liberal mindset. Just. I'm forming another competition. Speech in my mind. But I've learned a lot from you. What? I would like to think that because you were liberal and now you're evangelical, I have friends that are atheists, and one of them, I mean, we're tight, tight, tight, tight. Those kind of conversations. The same thing. The same openness I have to her being an atheist and would never think of not being her friend because of that. It's the same with Muslims. I have friends that are buddhist because I feel like that your religion doesn't affect my life, so why would I hate you? Because it's different from mine. Okay. You see what I'm saying? So your thought. I'm not. When I say your. I'm not saying Lisa I'm just saying somebody else's. Okay. I've learned a lot listening to you, and I. God knows I would love to talk to you again because you just. You're giving me a different way at 70 years old of looking at a lot of things. I'm not saying that I'm going to ever support Trump because I won't. But I will try to understand the people who support him, like you, who are still intelligent. You seem to have a big heart. You. My view of people who suggested him, supported him, were, um. I get. I don't even know how to say they were formed, but the kind of people who, uh. Near my house, not far from my house, there's a biker bar, and they flat fly a great big old confederate flag. I noticed the other day it's. It's been gone for a couple of months, but it was there for years. And, um, those kind of people I would love to have this kind of conversation with. Why are you.

[50:35] LISA WATSON: I've had them all. I've had the conversation. So we leave best friends. Okay. Okay.

[50:41] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I want to know why you're flying a confederate flag. Knowing that it hurts me. You see what I'm saying? So. So when you're. You've had a conversation with someone flying a conservative confederate flag, have you come to understand why they. Why they would display something that's so obviously painful to a whole segment of the population? Small?

[51:07] LISA WATSON: I mean, it's not painful to me because I could care less about a piece of fabric when I.

[51:12] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: That's one way to look at it.

[51:14] LISA WATSON: Fabric. It is not bothering me. The symbolism, it has dual symbolism. And that's really what it comes down to. So a little thing I remember, like, my cousins watching this tv show and they had the. With the confederate flag on and nobody said a word about it. So to me, this became a recent talking point where the thing that confederate flag has been around clearly 150 years after the civil war. So nobody was talking about it.

[51:41] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: 100 years of hazard, was that it? They had.

[51:44] LISA WATSON: Yeah. I'm like, I remember. Are you? They had the t shirt, they had everything. Nobody challenged that. Black people were walking around wearing the confederate flag. Because one of the things that we have to have a country, and as humanity is, we have to get to a certain point where we can have a dispassionate review of history. So when, if I read about the chinese wall, like, I want to see the wall of China before I die, I'm like, I just want to see it. But I'm not going to be caught up in the fact that it was built by slave labor. It's not going to bother me to walk on the chinese wall. I'm going to be in awe of what humanity achieved with this 5000 miles wall and not caught up in. Well, you know, this was built by slave labor. So now I can't enjoy this wall. I'm still in awe. I have a dispassionate awe for it. So everything. I can't be caught up in Thomas Jefferson's intimate affairs. When I'm reading the declarative independence and I'm reading these things, and I'm like, I'm in awe of ability to reason out why people are the role of the government and the role of the individual. Okay, so we got a good question. One last question. What, if anything, gives us hope about the future, specifically the political future? Well, I'm a conservative, so we're on a bit of a roll right now. So I'm cheery. I'm Jerry the Elon Musk bought Twitter. I am a rabid constitutionalist. I learned one lesson, and this is. I learned a lot of lessons, but this is one of my favorite ones. I don't even know how this came to me. So free speech, you know, this is the foundation for America's constitution, the first amendment. It's first for a reason. And one day I was thinking about, you know, saying things and how it is so called hurts people. And I was like, you know what? We're going to be a mature country when we learn that free speech is not about your mouth. Free speech is about your ears. It means I'm going to hear things I don't like, and that's how I know I'm free. The Klan can march, and I'm going to be like, the fact that the Klan is marching, that's how I know I'm free. When the Klan can't march, I'm not free, because I'm the next one on the chopping block of not being able to march. And that's where we are right now. When the Klan can post tweets, I'm free. That's why I was with the Aclu. That's why I was a civil libertarian, because when I figured out everybody can say whatever they want to say, that's how I know I can say whatever I want to say. So that's why I'm cheery about Elon Musk buying Twitter and turning it upside down. So I'm. I'm hopeful about the future, because we're gonna be on. We're gonna be on an interesting ride here for a while, Marcia, so are you.

[54:49] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I am not. No.

[54:53] LISA WATSON: Come on.

[54:54] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: No. I have faith that it's gonna work out the way God wants it to work out. But I think between getting where God wants it to be, there's going to be some pain. Because there's pain. There's a lot of pain right now. There's a lot of pain because people aren't listening to each other. I want to hear your heart just as much as your mind. I've heard your heart today, and I. That gives me hope more so than whatever Elon Musk and other rich people are doing. I don't care what they're doing. That's doesn't affect me. But having an opportunity to just start this conversation with I used to live in Kansas gives me hope that there's going to be other conversations. I've learned something from you. I wish I could say that I shared some information with you that maybe touched you, but I don't think I did. I don't think I shared anything that because you used to look at things the way I did, and you changed. My goal was not to change you or anything, but to share and have you understand why I think like I think. And I don't think I have been as expressive about it as you have. You've done a great job. If I ever get an opportunity to have one of these conversations again, I will be more prepared, because I was not prepared for today. I was not prepared for this intelligent, gorgeous black woman to tell me stuff that I'm like, what? I'm glad you did.

[56:36] LISA WATSON: Well, I know I usually sit in a weird seat, so when I go. If I go to the bar where they got the confederate flag, they asked me about, why did you used to believe those things? So then I have to put on my hat when I was you. And then I try and explain, you know, um, about ghosts. That's. That's a sort of a frame that I use. And I say, black people, we live with a lot of ghosts. They're not even us. We're living with the ghost of the past. And a lot of times, it's informing our decisions. I don't think it's to our benefit to be informed so much by what happened to other people in the past because I'm sort of losing the future because I'm tied to the past. But I try to do my best to explain why I held the other positions and to not feel so embarrassed, because, to be honest with you, I'm embarrassed by most of the positions I used to hold. But they learned. So I try to be a conduit between where I am now.

[57:34] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Are you open to finding out one day that something you did believe was right?

[57:42] LISA WATSON: So, you know, when I make the list, like the foundation I have with the constitution, the freedoms, you know, everything that's the foundation of America. I haven't changed on those. So I'm still the same. As I said, I feel like a lot of the things the people moved away from. So, like, if you told me that you really had this heart for the environment after you were in college and you got this heart for the environment and then you started telling me things that are completely against the environment, I would say, well, you're the one that changed.

[58:13] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I.

[58:14] LISA WATSON: Right. Is that fair? So if you told, you grew up in a nuclear household and your dad was there and you honored your dad because he told you what school you were going to go to and, you know, today they'd have all kind of rebellion, but you were like, no, I got, my dad says this, my dad.

[58:28] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Said I got to do what my dad said. Yeah, I'm glad I did.

[58:32] LISA WATSON: Yeah. So that's submission that had, you know, the bad word. But if you told me now you did, you would now would you tell a, a young person that's 18 and they're in a similar situation and they don't, they don't want to do what their dad said do, if you tell me, well, now I would tell them to do, don't, they don't have to listen to their dad. They don't have to value their opinion. I would be like, well, you're the one that changed. You. You should, you know, tell them your experience and why that worked for them and that I'm not going to break the relationship with my dad so I can go to some other school. That, that's, that's the value that you had. If you tell me now, I tell people they shouldn't, you should just have kids and you don't have to worry about whether or not the dad has a relationship. He's not important. Then you would be the one that changed, not me. But you see, your instinct just got big eyes, like, oh, I would never say that. So when I am meeting people who they are, the ones that are changing, these things are sort of radical. I'm not radical. You're radical to tell me that a five year old can decide whether or not he's a boy or a girl? That's not. Yeah, well, I'm just saying this is, all this is that these are the things that are on the table right now. So if I am, let me say.

[59:45] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: That I understand where you're coming from because a lot of what's on the table right now is absolutely, totally ridiculous. And unfortunately, I guess a lot of the stuff that you see as changes do fall a little more on the liberal side, but I see some of the things that fall on the conservative side that, yes, they haven't changed. And that's one of the foundations of conservatism that. But there's still some stuff that's going on that we didn't even get a chance to talk about.

[01:00:26] LISA WATSON: Extraordinary. I said, ben, can you extend our time? Okay, so, no. So again, the value of these conversations is to just delve into it. As I said, I'm optimistic. I'm finding more opportunities to have conversations with liberals because of the changes that liberals are making, not because of the changes conservatives are making. I am meeting liberals who are rushing over to the conservative side because they are saying that their own side is moving so rapidly away from what they thought that being a Democrat or a liberal meant. They never said they signed on to abortion after a baby is born. That was never on the table.

[01:01:18] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Never even heard of it.

[01:01:20] LISA WATSON: Look it up. The governor of Virginia, the previous governor, that's one of the reasons that he lost. He said that you could kill the baby after the baby was born. He's in a press conference. He said it. So now, I mean, liberals were saying, well, that's what I'm saying. So now the liberal who was telling me I was scary is now saying, well, I don't believe in that. And then the liberals, like, we just, like, we had the conversation about Black Lives Matter. We started having all these conversations about CRT, critical race theory, and they were asking me about it, and I said, oh, no, I don't believe in that. And they're like, you don't? And I said, no, I call that the black demoralization project. They were like, what is that? And I said, I'm not going to have somebody tell my nieces and nephews all day for 13 years about every negative in America. You can't teach kids through the negative. You inspire kids. So we have great stories. They keep leaving out the great stories. I went and started researching all these great stories about blacks from slavery, throughout slavery, because, you know, the whole country didn't have slavery. It was the southern states. So I found these stories. I found this book about the black millionaires right after the civil war. I said, what? Who are these people? Millionaires right after the civil war, black millionaires. Well, how come we're not putting those stories in the, in the curriculum? I'd rather hear that story than hear the negative story. And I found this other guy named Ag Gaston. G a s t o n. Have you ever heard of him.

[01:02:51] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I'm writing down.

[01:02:53] LISA WATSON: His nickname was the black Titan. He stout. He started over 100 businesses. He started out working in these mines, and he ended up building over 100 businesses. Funeral parlors, banks, insurance company. They called him the black Titan.

[01:03:09] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: What. What state was he in?

[01:03:11] LISA WATSON: I think he was in Alabama, deep south. And again, if I'm building a curriculum, I want to tell that truth, which is a positive truth. Don't. Everything is a mind game. We learned that early on. Don't demoralize people. That's not going to get me where I want to be. So if your agenda is leaving out the positive, and let me ask you.

[01:03:38] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Where did you get the idea that that's what critical race. What people mean when they say critical race theory? Because that's not what I envision it to mean. Only teaching the negative. That's ridiculous.

[01:03:50] LISA WATSON: Well, then somebody I've asked.

[01:03:52] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Let me finish it. Finish the thought. Because what. What we're hearing in Virginia is they don't want you to teach anything that would make anybody uncomfortable. So to teach kids about what happened in Tulsa might make them uncomfortable, but also to teach them about Madam CJ Walker might make them uncomfortable. So what, you just don't teach anything? I need to understand.

[01:04:20] LISA WATSON: I don't believe.

[01:04:21] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Like I said, as a teacher, I was a music teacher, okay?

[01:04:25] LISA WATSON: I took violin, I was a band director.

[01:04:29] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I played viola all my life. So, yeah, music was my thing. But when I started teaching 2040 years ago, 40 some years ago, I taught band like it was the most important thing you were going to ever do in your life. And some of my students are still fabulous musicians today. In fact, the bass player in my band is 55. I taught him when he was ten. At ten years old, I knew, this boy is going to be fabulous. And I was talking to him today because I talked to him a lot. He's actually recording a song I wrote. But the thing is, I. Because a lot of my friends are also teachers. When we hear the term critical race theory, it's probably different from what you're talking about. It's very different. So, yes, I don't think anybody needs to be constantly talking about all the negative, because that doesn't do you any good. But that doesn't mean all the good shouldn't be taught.

[01:05:36] LISA WATSON: No, no, no.

[01:05:38] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Everything out.

[01:05:39] LISA WATSON: We want to have an honest.

[01:05:41] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: How were you when you heard about what happened in about Rosewood or Greenwood or Tulsa and all those. Those black millionaire towns that were destroyed? We weren't taught anything about that they even existed. Not even have to teach us that they were destroyed. But, you know, that's what I'm saying. When you hear critical race theory, there's so much more to it than just teaching slavery. That's not. That's ridiculous.

[01:06:08] LISA WATSON: Well, the weird thing about critical race theory is, like, it seems that really have expanded. Well, one of my mom is from Oklahoma, so I heard about.

[01:06:15] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Say that again. I'm sorry.

[01:06:16] LISA WATSON: My mom is from Oklahoma, so I heard about Tulsa. Okay, gotcha. And then I probably saw some of the other Rosewood. I think the first time I heard that was in a movie called the movie. So, I mean, obviously I don't have a problem teaching that. I have a problem with some people. And you can go online. As I said, I always want to go dig in. Some people actually are posting the actual assignment. This is the assignment that my child came home with. They're showing ridiculous stuff out there and it's ridiculous stuff. So, I mean, I can't keep co signing on the ridiculous. And there are some school districts that are saying we're going to get rid of grades. Well, I'm not going to get rid of grades. So, you see, you keep having. When I say some of the things that are being proposed, your face tells the whole story. Your face is, well, that's ridiculous. So critical race theory is just like BLM to me. It's a good flyer. And then I look into it and I'm like, well, but nobody.

[01:07:26] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Critical race theory in public schools, it just. It doesn't exist. Okay.

[01:07:31] LISA WATSON: There's two things going on. Somebody tells me they don't teach critical race theory in public schools. Then the governor will ban critical race theory being and being taught in schools, and then they'll be mad. Well, why are you mad about them not teaching something that, according to you, isn't being taught?

[01:07:46] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: So here's. Okay, let me answer that for you. Somebody has made a campaign on a bellwether term to get their people, their base to follow them. So they made this campaign. I'm against critical race when there's no such thing. But somebody who's not going to do the deep dive like you did, it's going to think, oh, they're trying to teach my child that he's bad because his great grandpa had a slave. You know, the whole thing's ridiculous.

[01:08:21] LISA WATSON: That is being taught. Those are some of the actual examples that people are posting online where they are being graded based upon. You get points based upon your characteristics. So, for example, like, we live in a much different society where most families are diverse. Now, I know my family is extremely diverse, so I have mixed children in the family, and I have full white children in the family. So I can't advocate that my nephew. That. And I have a nephew and two nieces that are 100% white. Why? I can't be. They're little kids. I'm not going to sit here and demoralize them. Now, I think, to be honest with you, I think critical race theory demoralizes black people more than white people. But even if it was demoralizing white people, this isn't the past. Okay? So all I'm saying is, do we have to tie our wagon to critical race theory, or do we say, let's try and come up with some tool where we're teaching. Yeah.

[01:09:24] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Just the freaking truth.

[01:09:26] LISA WATSON: The truth. I mean, we're not against both eyes.

[01:09:29] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: Of the truth, you know?

[01:09:30] LISA WATSON: Right, right. So, critical race theory. That's what I'm saying. When it's all negative and no positive. Like, for example, even teaching me about tulsa. I don't have a problem teaching me about tulsa, but it's a little demoralizing. Teach me, ag Gaston to teach me about these six. These black millionaires after the Civil War, too. So there's enough information on black history that is positive in America to fill an encyclopedia. Pour it on me. I love it. Pour it on me. Because black history is american history.

[01:10:06] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: I agree.

[01:10:07] LISA WATSON: Okay. Sorry to cut us off, but we're gonna have to wrap things up.

[01:10:14] MARSHA MEEKINS CHEATHAM: So, Ben, did you have any questions for us?