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Welcome to I’m Not Even Supposed to Be Here Today, a conversational, culture-savvy podcast for folks trying to make sense of a world that has gone sideways. We’re here to unpack the issues that boggle our minds, all rooted in a little history, a little culture, a little humor, a little group therapy, and a little humility.
Desirée (00:00)
my God, is it our turn now? This is something we never thought we would have to experience. literally, we're not even supposed to be here
fought,
we created laws, we did all the things, we did all the right things in order to not be here, but yet, like, damn, like, here we are.
Chris Bevolo (00:29)
Welcome everybody to episode four of I'm not even supposed to be here today. conversational cultural savvy podcast for folks trying to make sense of a world that has gone sideways. We're here to unpack the issues that bother our minds. All rooted in a little history, a little culture, a little humor, a little group therapy today, a lot of group therapy, I think, and a little humility. I am your host, Chris bevello, owner of bearing 287, an organization fighting the good fight.
To make the world a better place for all and the sponsor of the show. am joined as always by my co-host Dez, who is a social impact comm strategist by day and who spends her nights remixing history to make sense of the present. Hello, Dez.
Desirée (01:14)
Tomorrow, Christopher.
Chris Bevolo (01:16)
How are you?
Desirée (01:17)
you know, just waiting in the drudgery of our existence today, you know, the usual. How about you?
Chris Bevolo (01:24)
us the same, the same it's brutally cold here today. So ⁓ just in some ways that adds to the want wall of it all because there's a lot of want long going on now. ⁓ But in other ways that I think it's, you know, being in the Twin Cities, it's maybe a bit of a blessing. It was very cold this weekend. So I think maybe that calms some things down. We'll see.
Desirée (01:51)
Yeah, but y'all were out there protesting hard. I think there was like a ice sledding where you had essentially like different protests, sleds with like great, like y'all were doing the damn thing this past weekend.
Chris Bevolo (02:06)
Have you seen the
videos of that? It's so amazing. my gosh. What I don't know is whether that was a ⁓ pre existing condition, like whether that was because we do have festivals in the winter where people create pretty cool sleds. So I don't know if that was just that. And they kind of turn it into ⁓ a protest theme. ⁓ But some of them were hilarious. Like there was there was a
Desirée (02:09)
I saw a little bit, yeah.
Chris Bevolo (02:35)
If you're from up here, you're familiar with a certain brand of deicer. It's purple and I could even, I can recognize the label and somebody just created a, like a 12 foot tall bottle of purple deicer and sled down the, like that was went down the hill. Pun intended. So good. It's so good. I do think humor is, ⁓
Desirée (02:52)
I think that's what I saw. didn't know what it...
Chris Bevolo (03:00)
underappreciated, not in terms of the situation we're dealing with, but and how to kind of ⁓ deal with it directly. So yeah.
Desirée (03:10)
I on behalf
of the rest of the black community would agree. Because we use, because we are so unserious. ⁓ I mean, we are like we live all the things that occur to us, but we always have a sense of humor. And that's what kind of gets us through. Like, I always feel weird because I have, I don't know if it's just like a just my response or like trauma response. But I whenever I'm in a
Chris Bevolo (03:16)
Yeah, I thought so.
Desirée (03:38)
⁓ anxiety driven period or experience, whatever, I have, like I giggle, which is kind of off putting to other people. Cause they're like, what, where do you get my, I don't know. It's nervous laughter. but also I'm constantly thinking of, you know, what does this kind of remind me of? But it's, yeah, I think that's a lot of times what we use to cope as a community is, ⁓ is humor because like you, you laugh to keep from crying, I guess.
Chris Bevolo (03:50)
Yeah.
Desirée (04:07)
⁓ So, yeah, would agree.
Chris Bevolo (04:08)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, we should let's dive into this a little bit more because we came together today to not talk about humor. Though that might be something we want to roll in at the end of the pod on what? How do we deal with what's going on today? We want to talk more about fear. Because that's come up a lot recently, and a different kind of fear people have, understandably in my community and other communities.
not just geographic communities, but it's a it's real. It's a real thing.
Desirée (04:44)
Yeah, it's happening. And for me, I didn't know what would come, but I remember this was, I was home for Thanksgiving back in 2024. This was right after the election. And I was hanging out with my brother and my cousin, my young cousin. So these are both black men in their thirties. You know, they've had a number of different experiences and just kind of like, wow, like I've had a very different life.
comparatively, even though we grew up in the same household or family, we both, we, the three of us have had very different experiences. But I remember telling them, I was like, I, I don't know how to say this, but you know, with this reelection of Trump, I have a feeling that the three of us, our generation, we are all millennials. We're going to be seeing and witnessing things that we never thought we would experience.
⁓ my mom, she's in her seventies now, and of course grew up during the civil rights movement. And I was telling them, I'm like, I just have a hunch that we, we might be called the N word to our face, which is not something we would have ever considered being a thing. I don't know, but just be careful, stay cognizant of everything, stay like stay woke. ⁓ because I think it's about to get real here.
And, know, again, not knowing what that's going to look like. And that of course, you know, from inauguration day, it's just been like hit after hit after hit. And starting with the spring and summer, we're sending in ice troops in different cities all across the country, like targeting. And that, you know, just because this they've moved on to the next city doesn't mean that there isn't still presence in those original cities as well as others. Like the fight is continuing.
But especially seeing how violent and the death that had occurred more recently here in Minneapolis, it just got me thinking about, ⁓ my God, we might be experiencing stuff that none of us expected, stuff that might not have even happened, or at least our generations, the kind of violence on this soil that we could have ever even imagined. I don't know, what was your thinking?
I don't know, did you have any kind of thoughts when you first got elected of like what might occur?
Chris Bevolo (07:15)
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the thing that I heard over and over, and that I agreed with was, look, the first go around, I think there was two things in play. One, he didn't know what he was doing. He didn't know anything about being president, what that entailed, the powers, any of it, which actually worked in the favor of ⁓ less chaos. And he had people around him.
because of that, I think that we're, you know, not necessarily in alignment with my alignment with politics and things, but reasonable people, people will tell him like, you can't do this and you can't do that. And, and it, you know, you'd hear the warnings. Look, this, this next go around, he knows exactly one, he knows exactly what he can and can't do. ⁓ Two, I mean, he's been given authority that didn't have before about the Supreme Court that he's immune, you know, ⁓
And three, he's gonna, he's not gonna tolerate anybody that disagrees with him. So he's gonna put in sycophants, he's gonna put in people that are 100 % aligned with him and will do whatever he wants. And that, that was the fear. And that is what's happening. You know, you've got you have to wonder sometimes, how much of what's going on, he even knows about. I think he's
I think he'd be fine with everything that's going on. But whether he's driving, you know, ICE deployments, I have no idea. I seriously doubt it. I think he's just like, do, do whatever you want. Do whatever you want. ⁓ He's focused on some things like tariffs, the ballroom, like there's some things where he Greenland apparently is stuck in his craw. But that's, that was the fear that I had most of like, okay.
you know, you'd hear these people say like, it's gonna be different this time. Because people you know, you'd hear from what was fine last time, it wasn't that big a deal. ⁓ Other than a million people dying in this country because of the pandemic, and how many of those lives could have been saved by, you know, different actions and different stuff. So that was the biggest thing does for me going into it ⁓ was just how untethered he will be. He's been pretty untethered.
Desirée (09:35)
Yeah.
Yeah. And for me, like in coping with things that are unknown, hence kind of like the, intro about like, love understanding history. ⁓ like how did, we, we've experienced this on this globe before, how, how have they handled it before? ⁓ and so my partner and I, watched this documentary that's on Netflix. That was essentially about the like rise of Hitler and the world war two, ⁓ how it happened, like from the very beginning of his childhood to.
like the end, went through it. So that was kind of helpful just to know like, okay, that happened and you know, they came through, you know, we can come through anything essentially and one would hope. But then I started watching the Handmaid's Tale because I started to feel like, this might occur. ⁓ And so I started to, I had watched the first two seasons.
And then like just kind of fell off and it just started to feel a little too real. But last year, this was 2025 last year, I started to attempt to watch the third season. And when I saw, I think by then some folks were able to have fled Gilead, which is essentially the U S anything above Canada. I don't think it was the entire portion of the U S like, I think some cities were still like freed cities. Um,
Chris Bevolo (10:58)
Right.
Desirée (11:00)
I, there was something that just shook me to my core and that was, ⁓ I think the husband of the main character and then her best friend, were talking about like needing to go down to the immigration offices in Canada, ⁓ to work on like ⁓ finding the child that was like sent to them. And I see these two folks were essentially Americans and they go to this immigrant, overwhelmed immigration office in Canada. And it just reminded me of like, my God, this must be the experience of.
immigrants here in the US, right? Where you're just trying to survive and these people, and I get it. It's not like the people that were at the desk were being flippant. They were just overwhelmed by stuff. So you just kind of have to push people aside. But what shook me to my core was them outside of their, wherever they were living, and it had this little sign in the background that just said Little America. And I was like, ⁓ shit.
Chris Bevolo (11:40)
Right.
Desirée (11:58)
This is what the flip side looks like because America has never been the refugee right? We've we've been the place where folks can come for refuge, but We might be sliding into this. I don't know. Did you did you watch? ⁓ Had you seen that season or up to that season? I know you'd watched on and off
Chris Bevolo (12:17)
haven't. I saw the first season the second season but I think what you're talking about just brings true. ⁓ I just had a call yesterday with my close family my family members and I've mentioned before I have close family members that I have a transgender child I have ⁓ close family members gay with his partner and they're they have plans. They have very staged plans on where they're going based on what happens like if
if Trump declares the insurrection act or martial law here, they're leaving the Twin Cities. If things get worse, they're they got plans to get the heck out of the country. And I know that people say that all the time. You know, if he gets elected, like people on both sides said that if he or she fill in the blank gets elected, I'm leaving the country. But and people have I think people more this year than or in 2025 ever than before.
And the scarier ones does are the ones where, like, there's a couple people that are historians focused on fascism. And I just ran across this article again yesterday, but it was from 2025. Or when I was like, I've already left, like this is we're already on the road. And I'm out of here because I know it's coming. That's scary. Thinking that you have to leave the country is scary. Americans aren't going to be well received.
anywhere right now. Right. So you go to Canada, the picture you just described was fictional. But let's say it comes true, like Canadians are gonna be like, okay, these guys are taking our resources. They're, ⁓ you know, we don't want them here, because they're just gonna draw more attention. ⁓ You know, that's immigrants today feel that from us, not from us, not from you and I, but from people in the country. ⁓ And so
they feel wherever they go. I don't think Americans have any concept of going somewhere like even on vacation when people have gone to Spain and got water balloons thrown at them. It ain't the same thing. So the fact that that's even serious consideration or it needs to be as scary enough. But following it through to the kind of the scene you described is
Desirée (14:27)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Bevolo (14:36)
Yeah, nobody's, nobody's ever experienced that in this country. I don't think having to leave.
Desirée (14:43)
Well,
well, except for immigrants who have had to leave their country and, come to the U.S. Yeah. And I started thinking about that, about the OK, we we fled, we were able to find safety here, but now we really have to consider that again. And like, where do we go? You know, a lot of these things have occurred because of.
Chris Bevolo (14:50)
Come here, right?
Desirée (15:07)
You know, them trying to tamp down on, you know, whatever inflated story of immigration they have. So there was the, the news story about the Somalis. So like they're going all in. then folks are stuck in their homes, scared. They're being dragged out of their homes. Like this is insanity. And that this is the sort of thing that we haven't seen in our soul, in our soil in generations. Now there's, of course, there was a ton of violence, ⁓ you know, with the civil rights movement.
but it necessarily wasn't at this level. But there were violence at the hands of going through the emancipation of slavery where people were hung just because you looked at them wrong. But this level of coming through, yeah, it's mind-boggling. I know that there are...
friends of mine who are navigating their own like family members, maybe in whatever country they are still in right now, trying to get to them, trying to get them here. And I think that's about to become our reality. This is such a young country comparatively. And so the fact that we are, it's almost like, my God, is it our turn now? This is something we never thought we would have to experience. literally, we're not even supposed to be here today.
Chris Bevolo (16:28)
No
Desirée (16:29)
We fought,
we created laws, we did all the things, we did all the right things in order to not be here, but yet, like, damn, like, here we are.
Chris Bevolo (16:42)
here we are. Again, I take, I take solace from history, because, you know, shit has gone bad in so many ways, historically, and you got to like, look and say, Okay, but we could people continue to get through that doesn't mean things are going to be easier or better here, they could be horrible here before that happens. ⁓ But I just have to hold out that they that they will, like, to your point, if we can get through Hitler,
and World War Two. ⁓ I think we can get through a lot, but that doesn't mean it's anytime soon. Doesn't mean that we won't suffer our kids won't suffer our families won't suffer. ⁓ But just kind of like holding on to that sometimes I daydream about like you know how the pendulum is swung does even in just five years. Right. So like everybody's rushing to start a DEI program in 2020 and everybody's
you know, talking about microaggressions and triggers and all these things. And it felt like the first time since the 60s that a lot of this what had been just kind of like under the surface came out and it was like, okay, it's still here. It's bad. Now it's swung back, right? So it's all agree. It's swung back, you came and I'll probably get arrested just because I said de I ⁓ but but I daydream sometimes like
how long will it be until you're embarrassed to admit you have a billion dollars? How long will it be till ⁓ people are like, no, no, no, I know I said that. I know I said that in that video, but like I didn't know or ⁓ you know, just the things that we're seeing now that have swung so far the wrong way in our opinions, ⁓ that people will be like running scared from that.
know if it's five years. I don't know if it's a year. I don't know if it could be 20 years could be 50 years. But I but I just hold on to the fact that it will swing back. People call it the right side of history. I think there is a right side of history. And so it's just when do we return to the to the right side. And in the meantime, it's scary to think about losing everything you have.
Desirée (18:43)
Yeah.
Yeah. It's like, yeah, how long will it take to get back to that right side of history? You, so you had mentioned, you know, with Hitler and the Holocaust and it wasn't until we got back those imagery of what was actually going on there, ⁓ as it comes to the Holocaust that like really mobilized the U S and other countries to like, you know, guns a blazing essentially. But in that scenario, you know, that was us coming in, you know, to fight the good fight on another land.
what happens when that fight is on our actual land? Who is gonna come in? Who's gonna swoop in and save us? And why? And for what reason? So we saw that with Greenland, ⁓ that country that's stuck in the President's craw, and that there have been other countries that have sent their own troops in there to protect, because that does belong to European nations.
But you know who who who will do that for us when we've always been that for others and so I I started thinking about the Civil rights so back to 2020 you mentioned George Floyd and I had taken my mom You know how there is so many different protests major protests in every city and I took my mom my mom was like I want to go I want to go my guy come on. Let's get your mask. Let's go and I take her there and she's just
overcome with emotion because she's looking around and she's like, oh my God, there are so many white people here with us. Because throughout her entire lifetime, that hasn't been the case. You know, it's been folks of colors and other marginalized folks just having to like fight for themselves. So there's a civil rights movement. There are of course, Stonewall, the gay rights movement, AIDS.
⁓ immigrant rights movements that, know, all the folks that are affected by those communities, they, they stand up. Now that's not to say that there weren't any white folks, of course, there for the civil rights, but it was, ⁓ it was overwhelming to see that, wow, they're with us on this almost in a way it almost to her kind of felt like finally. And so as I'm looking today and what I'm seeing in Minneapolis and that it is predominantly like white folks that are
putting their bodies up against these folks that are coming into their communities, risking lives, ⁓ risking limbs, because my God, it's like freezing out there, but y'all are used to this, Y'all know, y'all does this, y'all know what to do. But it just, like I'm grateful that these folks are standing up for immigrants in their community, as well as just neighbors in general, and like looking out and like taking that upon. ⁓
Chris Bevolo (21:39)
Yeah, it's nothing.
Ha
Desirée (21:57)
But there's also a sense of like, was a real feel fear for those that are not out there. And that they have, feels like they have too, too much to lose. ⁓ and so I don't want this to feel like it's a, well, you know, who needs to be out there for what it's like, if you can, like, please do, but also please be careful. Like, you know, keep an eye out. Like I don't, don't even know what to tell people when they ask. ⁓ but I know we talked a bit about.
you know, things that we can do in an earlier ⁓ episode and, ⁓ you know, protesting, running for office, but like this, this episode, and we'll, we'll do a later episode to really talk about organizing, ⁓ with a friend of mine. ⁓ but I don't know, I've just been so blown away by, cause we saw some of this in Chicago. ⁓ but I think about also the privilege of I was, I went to some trainings, listened to some stuff. got my, my.
I was kind of prepared, like I stayed on the lookout, but I never really saw all the things ⁓ that other folks were experiencing. know that there was a lot, ⁓ like some folks that I know here who went down to the detention center and, you know, had to wear gas masks to make sure that they, you know, came out safe. But I just, I have awe for all of the folks that are actually out there doing the thing. And especially for, you know, someone like me, and because I do the
the fear is real for me, especially for those of us that have families that depend on us. don't know what's been your experience with this.
Chris Bevolo (23:23)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think the the people just have to remember, right? Like, I like what you're saying, if you if you can, and it's important to you do whatever you can. But for some people, this is just really ⁓ tough. Like I saw, well, of course, she's getting a lot of crap for it. But our representative, ⁓ Omar talked about how like she she left Somalia as a as a ⁓
child because she was leaving the Civil War there. And she said, you know, I never we never expect we went we wanted to go to United States. That's where we wanted to go. We never expected that to happen. And that I think she said in this goddamn country. And so the rights all like, well, you know, profanity bar or whatever. think Trump said she needs to leave the country for it or whatever. But that's the someone like that. And I saw someone else on TikTok from Somalia say like, Look, this is this is deeply traumatic.
because we've experienced this before. We know what it's like, we know the potential consequences. ⁓ We know that like, they can take you away and nobody will ever see you again. Like that's all of that is real to people. It is just not real to most of us in the United States. You I think you've had to have you either have had to have suffered from like real
personal racism or homophobia or come from a different country, right as a society. You just we just haven't had to deal with this. I don't think you said we're a young country. We're so young. There's a scene in succession. I don't know. Did you watch succession all the way through where there's a there's a remember that there's a Alexander scars guard.
Desirée (25:19)
yeah, I don't-
Chris Bevolo (25:24)
plays this tech billionaire who's trying to buy the company that that's the focus of the story. And he's getting crap. Because he's, you know, like, oh, we're, you know, like, we're the US and, know, we're a democracy and blah, blah, blah. He's like, you're a democracy, like you've only been in democracy for like 40 years. He's like, we're talking about it. It's like, well, let's see. And he's like, well, you know, you had slavery until the late 1800s. And then you didn't even
let you know women vote until this time or whatever. So like, barely even a democracy in real sense. ⁓ I think we're all so, so many of us in United States are privileged in a sense that we just think this is the way it is. And we're so awesome. And then nothing's gonna break us. That's the other thing that scares me does is when you hear these people like, there's no reason it can't happen here, or that it is happening here.
Desirée (26:21)
Right.
Chris Bevolo (26:21)
and
we're sliding just like Germany slid. ⁓
There's no reason it can't happen here. And people are gonna find out the hard way that it can happen here. They already are, right? Renee Goode found out the hard way that it can happen right here.
Desirée (26:35)
Yeah.
Chris Bevolo (26:37)
So.
Desirée (26:37)
Very, very
much so. You mentioned something about the immigrants who have come from countries where they have experiences firsthand. They know this firsthand. I'm thinking about ⁓ all of that. So in a way, it also got me thinking about the term epigenetics. So this epi...
Phenomenon epigenetics like so when I was working on this documentary called everybody's work Which is focused on racism and nursing specifically but also in health care. I got to meet these incredible Clinicians and academics who study this and that term kept coming up about how so much of this is Engrained in our body. So you like, know the book the the body remembers or the body keeps though the body keeps a score
Chris Bevolo (27:24)
I
Mm-hmm.
Desirée (27:29)
Right? So in a way, this is an example of this. So the term epigenetics, I'll give a definition. It still doesn't make a ton of sense to me because science. But epigenetics is the study of how environment influences our genes by changing the chemicals attached to them. So it can be something as simple as, you know, what we eat or physical activity level access to resources. And that essentially that stuff is passed down. And so it.
Chris Bevolo (27:38)
You
Desirée (27:58)
The way it was also explained to me was, ⁓ know how like, well, you may not know this, but essentially in the black community, we're very jumpy, right? We're very like, like what's going on? Like any little noise, we're like, ⁓ what's going on? And that's because we've had to live paying attention because fear and violence or what have you is always around the corner. So we had to, like, we gotta pay attention, right? ⁓ And then my partner is Jewish and I was talking to her about this and she's like, well, yeah, like the Jewish folks.
We have higher levels of anxiety because of our experiences through history and time of not having a home or being pushed out of every country. It feels like on every continent. So there is this heightened sense of like, ⁓ what's going on? And that carries on. And then I started thinking about like, ⁓ I wonder if that's something that women experience in general too, just because women have
Chris Bevolo (28:54)
Hmm.
Desirée (28:57)
an experience of his of experiencing his violence, you know, whether it is intimate violence, whether it's just in the world. so does that kind of carry? Is that why like there is this thing about there is a phrase or a meme or something about this guy's like, oh, I'm so afraid of men are afraid of women laughing at them. And then the next sentence is, well, women are afraid that men might kill them.
Chris Bevolo (29:03)
Mm-hmm.
I'm sorry.
Desirée (29:26)
So think about
that, like that's a little heavier. So I get that laugh, you know, don't want to be laughed at, but we don't want to be killed. But that women, we have this inherent sense of like, ooh, like it's not safe, right? ⁓ Cause it got me thinking about this video that I ran across on socials. It originally came from Chescaleigh, she was doing a stitch and it was this woman who, this white woman who was in her car.
And she was responding to the death of Renee Good. And she was talking about how like, my God, like so many of my women friends, they are really struggling with their husbands, their spouses, their partners, male partners response to this or rather lack thereof. And then Chescaleigh jumps back in with, okay, so you're seeing this now. Do you remember how they responded when, you know, black men and women were
unarmed black men and women were being killed. And so it just, it was just so interesting to think about like, and again, I don't know this light, but this, even in your own home, it's one thing to, we've heard about like, okay, both of us, you know, we voted differently. You had shared about your parents, you know, both of them ideologically different, know, Fox News on one and CNN or MSNBC in the other room, but this like hits different.
⁓ but yeah, I mean, I don't like, you hearing anything around this? Just the, how other men are even responding or not responding to this?
Chris Bevolo (31:01)
not about men, but boy, I've had long conversations with my wife about this. And it just recalls so many things. mean, he's put a bumper sticker man versus bear. mean, the overwhelming response of women saying I'll pick the bear. If you had a choice between them, you know, you're alone in the forest with one or the other men just for like, what? That makes no sense. Men have no concept. None. And
Growing up in a house full of women with daughters and my wife taught me so much right like I can't remember when it hit me like a two by four the idea that when a woman walks alone at night she is her heads on a swivel she is not feeling safe it never safe men most of the time aren't even thinking about that they're not it doesn't even cross their mind now I'm not saying that you're not
if you're walking in a scary area, it's really dark or whatever, you might not be frightened, but you're not you're not walking around just worried about violence. Most men are not. ⁓ And it's still like, it's still what what boggles my mind is that it took me you know, it took me forever to realize like, holy shit, how real is that that is so real for women and men have no concept of it and probably never will. ⁓
that level of empathy. I don't understand my cats. Lolo's bored by my monologue in the background. Yep. She's like, I hear yelling again. I don't understand why people can't get into the shoes of other people. You know, and I am I like to think I'm empathetic. I like to think I'm good at that. But that's an example for I'm like,
Desirée (32:34)
Waking up bored like, ⁓ I'm getting out of here.
Chris Bevolo (32:52)
if somebody had told me that like logically, I would have been like, Yeah, that makes sense. But but I can't remember this, the situation where it was visceral for me. And I'm like, God dang. You know, ⁓ another example is I have a close family member who's a woman who used to go to the gym all the time. And she was very upset because her trainer was like physically touching her ⁓ in ways that weren't appropriate.
And she complained to the gym manager. And the gym manager was like, No, that's fine. It's not a problem. Whatever. It's just like, Look, I'm not comfortable there at all. I need to, I need to leave and like, Well, no, you sign a contract, you can't, like, literally. And so I'm like, let me talk to this guy, right? It's like the classic women taking their car and to get their oil change, like, you're gonna get men will take advantage of that every single time. And men have no concept of that, right. And so I got on the phone with this guy, I'm like, Look,
you're lucky we're not pressing charges, dude. You're talking to me about can't get out of a monthly contract, like, send me something we can sign now and we won't call the police. He's like, okay. And then of course, he responds, he responded to me. And I'm like, dude, you're proving the point by responding to me differently than you did to this person over here. Who's a woman? Like you just proved the point right there. So I just don't know why it's so hard. ⁓
Desirée (34:05)
Right.
you
Chris Bevolo (34:21)
The last thing I'll say then I'll be done is I'll never forget after George Floyd. And I think I've talked maybe not in this podcast, but it'll come up again about my cul-de-sac. My cul-de-sac is very mixed politically. We have friends that have voted for Trump all three times. Some of them we don't ever talk to again because they're assholes about it, but others like we don't talk about politics so we can get by. But after George Floyd, this is a couple of months later,
the wife said like do to my wife in a like or coffee. Do you really think black people have it harder? And you're just like, for fuck's sake, like, I just I don't understand. So that that part always, you know, and here I am claiming examples of how I learned way late in life. But if people could just see that side of it, this would be a way better.
place to live, this world.
Desirée (35:21)
Yeah, just understanding what other people are experiencing coming from or just listening. And I brought those examples up of the epigenetics because it got me thinking about like the paranoia, right? Because a lot of times like you and I will say, I'm like, don't know, I'm like, don't know. Maybe I'm just, I'm not wearing a tin hat or anything. I'm not just trying to be paranoid or that this is a.
Chris Bevolo (35:42)
Hahaha.
Right.
Desirée (35:48)
a conspiracy, like, I don't know, dude, there is too much of this that are pointing to the same direction to not pay attention to. And so that's part of the point of this podcast here is mostly just us, you know, being able to come together, you know, with other folks that are just like, are you seeing this? Am I crazy? Is this actually happening? But to your point about your friend in the gym and it like the body remembers, like, you know, heard of that touch.
Chris Bevolo (36:16)
Right.
Desirée (36:18)
that could have been triggered by anything that might have happened in her past, maybe even another lifetime. I don't know if you believe or agree with those sorts of things. We never know. It can come from ancestors. And I think a lot about so much of that. Like now, I said, I'm like, well, why do I respond that way? And it's either because of my own physical experiences here on this earth for the last four decades or five decades. I don't know.
you count the decades, but, or is this something that is inherently, you know, passed down? And so I think that was the one thing that I remember from the 2016 election was that, you know, when Trump got into office and there was like all of this kind of, you know, paranoid, like, my God, this is going to be into the world. And like, we always feel that way after each election. It's like, okay. But history tells us like.
We will survive somehow. Yes, we lose people. Like you had mentioned the COVID experience. There's like so many different versions of that or people being sent off the war or 9-11 that are out of our hands. But there is always this feeling and this fear. And sometimes maybe it's just paranoia or sometimes is it just our senses kicking into high gear and warning us or at least letting us know, Hey,
Chris Bevolo (37:39)
Mm-hmm.
Desirée (37:43)
⁓ keep your eyes open, keep your ears open, pay attention to everything, try to figure out, I don't know, but that's what I think about right now is like how much of this is just, we need to do something, maybe we need to flee the country versus people like, no, you're fine, stop being crazy or dramatic or what have you. But like, yeah, we've experienced too much in our history to not pay attention to this and figure out something to, I don't know, help it.
Chris Bevolo (38:12)
Yeah, yeah, I think you just you just got to be alert to it all you have to. I just saw something I read something I don't know if it was yesterday or today, but how we're not wired for all of this. I mean, that's the other thing does it's it's the the way we're feeling so often. There's so much happening. There's so much happening. There's, you know, I'm in the Twin Cities. So it's visceral right now in terms of what's going on with ice and Renee good and all that. But
hey, what how long ago was it that we attacked Venezuela and stole their president? And now we're, you know, like Trump issues this clinically insane letter to Norway saying, well, you didn't give me the Nobel Prize, so I should get Greenland like, what is happening? But that's just, there's just so many things. And it's just, it's really hard to not have to not just feel like you're in a bunker.
Desirée (38:59)
What?
Chris Bevolo (39:11)
stuff is flying over your head and some people are catching that shrapnel. Yeah, it's just a lot of stress, a lot of stress right now, which breeds fear. Stress is just like a breeding ground for fear.
Desirée (39:23)
yeah. And then we're just supposed to go about our everyday lives. Like I'm so, let me hop on this zoom call and talk about this thing that like maybe in the scheme of things feels like this, none of this matters, but I have to stay focused. Meanwhile, my phone I'm scrolling like it, our friend Stephanie had sent us a text about this article that was talking about, you know,
Chris Bevolo (39:29)
Right.
Desirée (39:47)
again, related to work and like being a marketer, being a strategist, and you're trying to come up with a strategy for selling this next product or whatever you're doing. And we don't live in the same world anymore. Like we your ads or whatever you're putting your communications, whatever you're putting out there is coming in the flood of this. And you're supposed to make sense of that how. And I think that's just kind of the everyday where we're just sitting here fretting, but also like
You know, you get on your Zoom call and it's like, Hey, how are you? My own doing well. Or you respond like truthfully and you're like, can we find another question to ask each other for these, like these greetings? Because like, I am not okay. None of us are okay. ⁓ but that, yeah, this, this, this thing is real. ⁓ but this, this podcast, it's not just about, ⁓
Chris Bevolo (40:21)
You
Desirée (40:44)
the fear and it's group therapy, it's just recognizing that we're all experiencing some version of this.
Chris Bevolo (40:45)
Group therapy.
It is.
that I think even people on the other side of the political aisle feeling it. They're they're they're they're feeling it from different sources. ⁓ But I think that's partly why not partly it's the main reason Trump got elected right like you look, we talked about Germany and Hitler like it wasn't just Hitler, Hitler wasn't he wasn't some charismatic guy in the beginning that people are like, that guy, he tapped into a society in Germany that had just been
Desirée (40:55)
Boo-woo.
Chris Bevolo (41:23)
completely debilitated by World War One and by the very punitive measures taken after World War One, just made to feel like subhuman. And they were desperate for any kind of meaning any kind of agency and he gave it to him. Trump did the same thing for a huge swath of this country that was left behind in so many ways. And
they they're like, I don't care. Like, he's a grenade. I'll throw it. I'll throw that grenade. Because it's better than got try something because it's better than what I'm living through now or what I'm perceived to be living through now. ⁓ So it's you know, it's some of this breaks down political barriers, it feels like though most of what we're feeling today is certainly lopsided.
Desirée (42:18)
It is. You know what though? This reminds me this fear. So the first time I ever experienced this level of fear, what you were talking about, as far as those that ⁓ voted for Trump, the first inkling of this I saw, this was in, I want to say January, February, March or something, 2009. Maybe it was 2010, but I was living in Las Vegas and I was a part of this group.
and we were doing a demonstration on the strip. This was back around the healthcare for all days. And so again, ⁓ President Obama had just been elected. I think he was in office by this point. And we had done a protest and then there was a counter protest across the strip from us. And so we had, I think we were dressed up in... ⁓
like money bags, like we dressed up, think more like insurers like, ⁓ like monopoly level mustaches and top hats and suits and stuff. and then the, the counter protest on the other side, I looked in some of these men's eyes and there was so much fear and vitriol that I could just see in their eyes. And I was a little 20 something at the time, but I,
Chris Bevolo (43:19)
Ha ha ha.
Desirée (43:41)
In that exact moment, was like, ⁓ no. You know, what was an incredible experience, you know, in 2008 of, the first black president ever being elected, you know, which is like, my God, like I sat and watched the inauguration and seeing so many black people at the inauguration waving American flags, you know, and that was like the first time I think it was live streamed on Facebook and just having so much pride in our country of like, wow.
Like what we've accomplished to then see on the flip side, again, this was about healthcare and people getting access to healthcare to see, and they were holding signs of impeachment. And I'm like, my guy, dude has been in office like literal days, months, and you're already saying impeachment. But what was behind that I could see in their eyes. And that was a fear of losing some, like the fear that they have lost something.
Chris Bevolo (44:22)
you
Desirée (44:38)
that has then spurred into the Tea Party and then has spurred into essentially what we're experiencing today. But that was the first time and had I known that's what we'd be here really witnessing almost 20 years after that, I couldn't have told you, but there is just this growing sense of who gets to define what fear is and taking action against that fear and that.
we might land ourselves in some version of ⁓ the Civil War that we never expected to see. Granted, there's been a ton of movies about this exact thing. I think there was the movie called the Civil War. was about the, was that? It was a great movie. But like the guy that was like.
Chris Bevolo (45:19)
Which is a great movie.
It was a great movie, but you don't know what it was
about. You don't know what caused it. So.
Desirée (45:27)
What caused
it, but my, feels, this feels like that, ⁓ what is it you call a movie, when you go back in time to show like what happened essentially, kind like what Wicked is to The Wizard of Oz. Like that's what, prequel, there we go. It feels like, is this the prequel to that? help.
Chris Bevolo (45:44)
prequel. ⁓ God. I mean, it
Yeah, yeah. It's a good movie to go watch it. But it's to me does this is so much of this. The fear that you're talking about that you saw across the street and Las Vegas is the fear that the powerful fear when they when they're worried about losing their power. That's what that is. ⁓ And there are many not all
Desirée (45:53)
So we're not gonna... We're not gonna get it.
Chris Bevolo (46:12)
by any means, but many white people who are very fearful of becoming a minority. I have a very racist relative. And I remember at a barbecue, I don't know if it was like four or five years ago, and he was like, I don't know what's gonna happen to you and me, you know, when whites are the minority. And I'm like, why are you worried? Like, what, are you worried that?
Desirée (46:35)
Hmm.
Chris Bevolo (46:35)
they're going to treat us the way we've treated them is that what you're worried about? Like, you know, and so I think it's like at it's in the mid 40s now, in terms of the population of non whites in this country. ⁓ And so much of what we're seeing now replacement theory, know, who that's the big scary thing that's thrown out by by right wing people to replacement theory, right? Like, Democrats are just they want it, they want open immigration, because it's replacement theory.
Desirée (46:41)
Interesting.
Chris Bevolo (47:05)
⁓ which was fascinating to me, we're getting way off topic here, but ⁓ replacement theory was, they had it, they like, Trump won so much of the Hispanic vote, which shocked me. That's gone. They blew that within one year. So if there ever are real elections, again, if we're really gonna have elections, like you just, you had a chance there to overcome that. And you totally blew it. ⁓
which is why so many people think they're acting in a way that they don't care about elections, but that's for another show. Let's not go off another fear high dive into the pool with no water.
Desirée (47:44)
Yeah.
So let's switch gears to like, what power do we have? What can we do? And I don't know about you or who you follow that helps continue giving you some at least hope or guidance to like what we can do to overcome this. For some folks, it's Heather Cox Richardson. For others, it's Robert Reich. And I ran across his sub stack article.
that was saying, hey, I'm waving the flag here. The emergency is now. And those of you that do have power, who do have the ear of others in leadership roles, what having this country, we need you to speak up now. We need you to pick up that phone now. I don't know. Did you get a chance to read that, that's up stack.
Chris Bevolo (48:38)
I
did I read some of it. ⁓ I definitely saw it. I might have read the whole thing. It was kind of short. And I just don't remember all of it. But yeah, and I've seen other things like that. Similar to that. There's a guy who writes for I think the New York Times and I'll mispronounce his name is Jamie is it both both both it's a French looking last name both you boy boy boy boy boy boy you
Desirée (49:05)
not sure.
Chris Bevolo (49:07)
This is terrible and embarrassing. ⁓ I'll find it. It's like B I can spell it. B O U I L L I E. I'm pretty sure is the last name is. ⁓ He's great. He's great. ⁓ I see him on TikTok all the time. I follow him on Substack and blue sky. ⁓ So yeah, there are people. ⁓ I don't talk to a ton of my friends about this stuff. No, that's not true.
Desirée (49:09)
wow.
Bully,
Chris Bevolo (49:37)
Some of them. Some of them my closest friends aren't political necessarily. But I have plenty of friends that are so I do that you got to talk to your friends.
Desirée (49:48)
talk to your friends, just have these conversations to kind of gut check what they're feeling just as a human, but then also actually listen to each other and listen to understand, not listen to just respond. But I bring up the Robert Reich, because I want to read a little bit of it in hopes that maybe if you know these types of leaders in your world that you can pass the message and we can drop the link to this in the show notes.
But essentially what he had mentioned is that, you you can be a leader by getting the formal leaders of America to exercise their formal leadership and power. And that the heads of American corporations, financial institutions, you can issue a strong rebuke of this regime. But I get it, you know, some folks may feel that they're, you like you think about the technocratics, you know, that they're actually benefiting from some of this, watching this happen.
But that it's the corporations, it's the banks, it's the big institutions that can help ⁓ pride, especially those that actually pride themselves in these responsibilities of the American public like Patagonia, Tom's, Ben and Jerry's, Salesforce, Microsoft. You can do something. We need to hear from leaders of great foundations. They even called out some of the big leaders of philanthropy around this, like the
Rockefeller, Bill and Melinda Gates, Kellogg, what have you, and that we needed religious leaders to condemn this brutality and that bishops of the Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, dare I say the Baptist Church, the Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because this is about, you know, the other humans that are living in this world and that is not what is being preached in that pulpit and that you can stand up.
I know that was a lot of the, during the civil rights movement, it was a lot of the clergy that was there marching with everyone to make sure that there was a, a safe country for everyone to live in. ⁓ but again, we'll drop this in the, ⁓ the show notes, but these are the different ways, even just in your community, talk to the heads of these organizations that are in just your city, your County, your state, your region, ⁓ and call them to say, Hey, we.
something else needs to be done. We have to take as many different channels as possible. And we've talked about, you know, running for office, calling your legislator, getting, you know, pushing them to do something where it feels like some aren't doing anything. But again, I know we're not in those back rooms, but these are the different ways in everyday life that we can push for making sure that we don't have happened to us what we have seen other countries experience. Because it's real.
Chris Bevolo (52:37)
Yeah, love all that. I think the
Catholic bishops just wrote a letter today. They should have today or yesterday, speaking out against the immigration. ⁓ And justice injustices that are being done right now. ⁓ Another podcast, I have no hope for those business leaders. I have have not optimistic that they're going to step forward a because I think they're scared as hell.
that they're going to be put on the spotlight by our president, who has done that numerous times. And B, because I think they all they care about is money. And I used to think that these the secret hand behind the United States is money, I still believe that. But that these folks would shape things like, we don't want chaos. We don't want, you know, like we need democracy to support capitalism and all that stuff. But stock market keeps going up.
Desirée (53:17)
Yeah.
Chris Bevolo (53:35)
So part of me just worries like these guys are like, it is good. It's fine. I don't care. As long as people can buy our stuff and they can work. I don't I don't care. I sorry. I don't mean to like drop a poop balloon at the end. I just not not optimistic.
Desirée (53:48)
So then, no, no, but that's a.
But that's a great point about that's where we can use our money, where we stop shopping at these places. Those that are not, we say, hey, will you do something? They say, no, well then you don't get our money. Because also like if we fall, like how are we even gonna have money to pay for your goods? right, like, ugh. But I see, I.
Chris Bevolo (54:07)
Yeah. Yeah.
I know I civil war is not good for business.
Most business civil war is not good for most business so
Desirée (54:18)
Yeah, yeah, I
mean, I see their point because the stock market does just continue to climb, but they're there. There reaches a tipping point where it goes to the false of the other side. And ideally, we don't want to get to that point. But here we are. But again, vote with your money where you spend your money. It's hard. getting harder to do because it feels like everything is, you know, implicit in part of this. I read an article about, hey,
Chris Bevolo (54:30)
Totally.
Yeah.
Desirée (54:48)
check your stocks, like check that in that 401, ⁓ 401k that IRA, what are you invested in? Are you funding this thing? There's just so many different steps we have to take, but those are again, all of the small things that we can do on an individual level to show what we mean and that we don't want, ⁓ this type of what feels like could be collapsed, but I don't know, but I don't know. We should probably wrap before we spiral.
Chris Bevolo (54:56)
Uhhhh ⁓
Now.
we're spiraling
even more. That's fine. It's what this was for. This was our table talk throwback does those who know who know they know? Yeah, we'll take a talk. Okay, whoo. We'd love to hear from people, by the way, how are they coping with what's going on? How are they dealing with things if you've got if you've got a group that you use online or in person in real life, you've got resources that you fall back on.
Desirée (55:21)
back.
Chris Bevolo (55:42)
a lot of people journal journal helps me a ton. When I see something online and I just want to like throw sharp objects. I'm writing it down helps so much. Now unfortunately, the world gets to see that stuff because I'm putting in my sub stack newsletter but I try to keep the most of it in my journal is my live journal. Alright, so should we wrap? we in a good place to wrap you think?
Desirée (56:01)
your live journal.
We should and we're on YouTube, we're on Spotify, we're on the things they have different, they now have comment sections. So yes, please let us know in the comment section how you're coping, any tools, any resources that you've come across to support this and just kind of help us. I don't know, just survive and please rate us five stars so people can find us.
Chris Bevolo (56:27)
just survive. Five stars,
five stars for doom and gloom and fear. But we're here to help. That's what we're here to do. Yeah, well, we're trying to just by sharing our own fears, it brings people in, we're trying to bring in. All right, well, you heard all the good stuff. Des, thank you. That was a lot of sharing. So thank you. Really appreciate it.
Desirée (56:34)
And hope, a little bit of hope at the end.
Chris Bevolo (56:50)
and on behalf of Bearing 287, the sponsor of our show, for I'm Not Even Supposed to Be Here, thanks for joining us. We will see you next time.